Tales of Transit
Narrative Migrant Spaces in Atlantic Perspective, 1850-1950
Michael Boyden
Hans Krabbendam
Liselotte Vandenbussche
Gur Alroey
Cecilia Alvstad
Babs Boter
Frank Caestecker
Nancy K. Miller
Yannis G.S. Papadopoulos
An van Hecke
9789089645289
240 pages
Amsterdam University Press
Overview
Tales of Transit brings together advances from the fields of transportation and social history, translation studies and literary scholarship to cast new light on the great transatlantic migration movements from the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. For a long time, these movements have been studied from the perspective of the sending and receiving societies, while not much research was devoted to what happens in between. The contributions in this collection move these in-between places to center stage by focusing attention on immigrants' liminal experiences on board steamers and in exit ports on both sides of the Atlantic. Drawing on a variety of archival sources as well as travel writings, fiction, and memoir literature by first-, second- and even third-generation immigrants, Tales of Transit highlights how transatlantic migration during the period 1850-1950 was seldom a straightforward, one-way movement. The viewpoints represented in this volume go against the stereotype of the migrants as huddled masses and shows them actively engaging in complex rituals of engagement and disengagement.
Author Bio
Michael Boyden is Assistant Professor of American Culture at Ghent University College, Belgium
Hans Krabbendam is assistant director of the Roosevelt Study Center in Middelburg and author of Vrijheid in het verschiet. Nederlandse emigratie naar Amerika, 1840-1920.
