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Author Biography

Linda Zionkowski is Professor of English at Ohio University where she teaches literature of the long eighteenth century. Most recently, her edited collection of essays, Women and Music in the Age of Austen (2024), received the Ruth A. Solie Award from the American Musicological Society; another collection of essays, Narratives of Displacement in the Anglosphere, is forthcoming from the University of Delaware Press.

Abstract

In our current global landscape, exile—or forced, often permanent migration—appears a central rather than tangential experience, being driven by armed conflict, environmental destruction, economic collapse, and political repression. The climate on many university campuses reflects students’ awareness of and concern for the situation of displaced populations, and this awareness has influenced political discourse and political action inside and outside the classroom. My course titled “The Wanderers: Teaching the Literature of Migration and Exile” begins with  Frances Burney’s narration of exilic experiences in her life writings and The Wanderer. Burney’s texts offer a conceptual foundation for exploring instances of physical and psychological displacement that resonate throughout contemporary works of fiction, including Colm Tóibín’s Brooklyn (2009), Edwidge Danticat’s The Dew Breaker (2004), and Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song (2023). Focusing on the interplay of place, power, identity, and narrative, students in the course examine the circumstances surrounding compelled migration; the challenges confronting the displaced in a xenophobic host society; the perils of unbelonging or lacking a claim to the protections of citizenship; and the narrative strategies employed to interpret and convey the sensation of removal and loss.

Keywords

exile(s), displacement, migration, migrant(s), immigration, refugees, border crossing, statelessness, Frances Burney, Alexandre d’Arblay, Alex d’Arblay, Napoleonic Wars, The Wanderer, Brooklyn, The Dew Breaker, Prophet Song, Colm Tóibín, Edwidge Danticat, Paul Lynch.

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