The Postcolonial Lives and Modernities and Linguistics research clusters are deeply involved in the lived realities, teaching, and research of modern and contemporary migration, diaspora, law and statelessness, and globalization studies. Departmental research in the phenomenon of contemporary globalization and cross-border existence is cognizant of the fact that early modern colonialism and the subsequent era of the nation-state utilized frontiers in ways that can shed direct light on both the history of liberal capitalism as well as on our current socio-cultural realities. However, that same research is also cognizant of the fact that contemporary globalization is dramatically transforming the very notion of frontier that we have inherited from the modern age, now forging previously unforeseen patterns of conflict, change, and inequality. Bodies, borders, citizen rights, technology, and environment, to name just a few, are words that no longer mean what they did even four decades ago, and in RLL an array of scholars strive to account for the cultural politics of globalization from the perspectives of the global south, in innovative and challenging ways via literature, film, critical theory, linguistics, political thought, urban studies, gender and sexuality studies, and more. These frontier-transforming complexities and perspectives apply not only to Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and the U.S., but also to the contemporary Greater Mediterranean.
Faculty: Arnall, Bharat, Binetti, Caron, Couret, García-Amaya, Henriksen, Herrero-Olaizola, Jenckes, La Fountain-Stokes, Moreiras-Menor, Riccò, Sanjinés, Satterfield, Verdesio, Villalobos-Ruminott, Williams.
