Sanctuary Practices
Sanctuary is deeply embedded in the history of Oberlin.
Sanctuary Practices: Race, Refuge, and Immigration in America
Offered Fall 2018
What are the connections between past and present practices of refuge and sanctuary both in Oberlin and nationally? By exploring this question from different disciplinary vantage points, this learning community introduces students to sanctuary as an issue at the center of debates around citizenship, immigration, public policy, diversity and inclusion that resonates as much today as it did in the 19th century. This learning community draws on literary and cultural analysis, history, and anthropological approaches to explore the meaning and practices of sanctuary in the United States.
- In This Here Place, We Flesh: Underground Railroad and Sanctuary Space, begins with the question of why the Underground Railroad is a persistent symbol of sanctuary in African American literature, art, and culture and provides students with the critical historical context of 19th-century sanctuary practices for fugitive slaves, the Underground Railroad and Oberlin’s distinct role in this history.
- Immigration in U.S. History surveys the history of immigration and migration in the United States, with particular consideration of the idea of America as a sanctuary, and how this idea intersects with constructions of race and citizenship.
- Sanctuary, Solidarity, and Latina/o/x Practices of Accompaniment locates contemporary sanctuary movements in a longer history of Central American sanctuary practices of the 1980s and Latina/o/x solidarity struggles in the 1960s to provide critical insight into the enduring practices and challenges of sanctuary, refuge and resistance in America.
Students enrolled in the learning community are required to attend additional events/sessions dedicated to visiting speakers, film screenings, local site visits, as well as a field trip to the Underground Railroad Museum in Cincinnati.
FYSP015 and either HIST/CAST 256 or CAST 210 required for enrollment in this learning community.
Instructors
Course instructors for this learning community are Associate Professor of Africana Studies Meredith Gadsby, Associate Professor of Comparative American Studies Gina Perez, and Professor of History and Comparative American Studies Shelley Lee.