Lectures offered through the Barnard Forum on Migration are supported by a bequest establishing the Weiss International Fellowship Fund to bring distinguished scholars in literature and the arts to Barnard. 

Forum on Migration events are free and open to the public. For more information, please contact Kathryn McLean, kmclean@barnard.edu, 212.854.6146




 

FALL 2008 EVENTS:

‘A Nation of Immigrants’: The Civil Rights Origins of Illegal Immigration
A lecture with Mae Ngai
Thursday, 09/17

7:00 p.m.
Sulzberger Parlor, 3rd Floor Barnard Hall

Illegal immigration is considered a violation of social and legal norms of national membership and belonging, when, in fact, it is a direct result of restrictive modern immigration policies. Mae Ngai, professor of history at Columbia University, discusses issues of borders and border control that are at the heart of U.S. immigration policy. By looking at the different border regulations the United States has practiced toward its Atlantic, Pacific, Mexican and Canadian borders—in terms of both the policing of its boundary lines and the development of policies that define who is authorized to enter the country—Ngai illustrates how a nation’s attitude toward immigration determines its ideas of settlement, labor, race relations and colonial projects. Mae Ngai is author of the multiple award-winning book Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America.

Why is Religion More Salient Than Race?
Immigration, Decolonization and Intermarriage in Post-War Western Europe
A lecture with Leo Lucassen

Tuesday, 10/21
12:00 p.m.
802 International Affairs, Columbia University

In the post-war world of France, the United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands, immigrants attempting to integrate with western European culture often find that race is much less a barrier to their goal than religion. By analyzing the intermarriage rates of some 20 immigrant groups—from both former colonies and labor-exporting countries around the Mediterranean— professor of history at the University of Leiden Leo Lucassen explains how, in this context, religion has become more salient than race.

Obama & the Immigrant Vote
A conversation with Kimberly Johnson, Lorraine Minnite and Richard Pious

Thursday, 10/30
James Room, 4th Floor Barnard Hall

Was Barack Obama relatively unsuccessful in attracting the vote of immigrants and their secondand third-generation descendants among such groups as Hispanics, Asian-Americans, white Catholics and Jews? If that was the case in the elections, what could explain it? What do polling data suggest for the presidential election? Barnard’s political scientists Kimberley Johnson, Lorraine Minnite and Richard Pious tackle these questions in a panel moderated by the Forum on Migration director Jose Moya. This event is co-sponsored by the Office of Alumnae Affairs.


* * *

Click here for a list of Spring 2008 events
Click here for a list of Fall 2007 events
Click here for a list of Spring 2007 events
Click here for a list of Fall 2006 events.
Click here for a list of Spring 2006 events
Click here for a list of Fall 2005 events.
Click here for a list of Fall 2004 events.
Click here for a list of Spring 2004 events.
Click here for a list of Fall 2003 events.