Date of Project

4-30-2019

Document Type

Honors Thesis

School Name

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

English

Major Advisor

Dr. Fedja Buric

Second Advisor

Dr. Annette Powell

Third Advisor

Dr. Jon Blandford

Abstract

“Home” is a personal construct that shapes who we are. It is not a physical place, but rather an experience tied to a place. How are people to respond, then, when the socio-political institutions that rule the land that they call home say “you’re not allowed to exist because of who you are and where you come from”? In this project, I investigate the effects that physical displacement (by way of war and violent conflict) have on an individual’s identity through the analysis of narratives composed by individuals who were displaced by the Holocaust, the Bosnian war, and the current Syrian civil uprising. Through the survey of diverse materials, it became clear that the displaced identity is formed (at least in part) through the individual's adoption of a hyphenated identity that links them to both the land from which they were expelled and to the land in which they choose to resettle.

Letter of Consent.doc (203 kB)
Letter of consent signed by each interviewee

Interview Questions.docx (13 kB)

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