On the Narrative Trail of Refugees: Refugee Stories in German Literature and Culture in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

The study closely inspects the specific narratives that have formed around the figure of the refugee over the course of the twentieth century. With a particular focus on literary texts, it analyzes their constitutive elements as well as their cultural functions from the perspective of narrative theory. Refugee narrative fictions transform and undergo thematic shifts that start with the institution of the passport system around WWI, converge and conflict with both "Heimat" and humans rights discourse after WWII, and continue through to narratives of a search for refuge under conditions of global migration and the security controls introduced to administer and police these pathways (including the threat of global terrorism). The project is distinct for analyzing the ways in narratives seek to make the refugee legible as a figure of political life.

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