2018 World History and Literature Initiative
Migration in Human History and Literature
June 25-27, 2018

More than 30 participants took part in the 2018 workshops, which brought together teachers with varying levels of experience to network with each other and share best practices. Each of the presentations are coupled with materials designed to assist teachers in producing lesson plans on migration. Books were also provided for each of the participants to share with their classrooms.

Migration has been a constant in human history, shaping our world in every place and time. From our earliest ancestors’ movements out of Africa to the present, people have migrated across continents, oceans, seas, mountains and deserts. Pushed, pulled or coerced, humans have moved in large and small numbers, with or without families and friends, to or from rural or urban areas. And each migration has had significant consequences on the people and places they moved to or from.

The 2018 World History and Literature Initiative addressed the themes of migration in human history and literature by exploring case studies encompassing various parts of the globe, as well as pedagogical lessons from faculty director Bob Bain (associate professor of educational studies and history) on how to incorporate these themes into teachers’ lesson plans.

Presentations included the following:

*The Partition of British India: History, Literature, and Film
*The 1001 Nights and Globalism in the Arabic Islamic Middle Ages
*Exercising the Cosmic Race: Mexican Sporting Culture and Mestizo Citizens
*Migration, History, and Violence: The Case of the Rohingya in Myanmar
*Resettling and Deporting the Unsettled: The Cambodian-American Refugee Experience
*Beyond Violence: Politics and Culture of Guns in a Global Context, 1800-1950
*Putting other Migrants into our Curriculum: Micro-organisms, Flora, & Fauna
*‘Remnants of the Sword’: Armenian Genocide Survivors in Turkey and the Diaspora
*Migration in World History and Michigan’s Curriculum
*Do Students Have Theories of Migration?
*Putting “Other Migrants” into the Curriculum: Micro-organisms