Are we right to assume that once a migration flow has been initiated that it will automatically grow?
Are migration routes the products of longstanding structures and connections or are they more the products of shocks – geopolitical, climate related, economic?
How do we connect migration studies to broader social, economic and political contexts?
Examples of Bristol’s work:
Maritime, mobility and literary culture
Read a blog by Laurence Publicover, Senior Lecturer in English who discusses the idea that literary culture shapes maritime culture – and vice versa. In 1607 three East India Company (EIC) ships set off on the company’s third voyage, aiming to break into the lucrative spice trade dominated by Portugal for the previous century. As the first to reach mainland India, this voyage has clear significance for histories of globalization and English (later British) imperialism. But it is also of interest to literary historians, as it provided the occasion for the first recorded performance of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Read the full text >
Musical Journeys
Performing Migration in Twentieth-Century Music This work by MMB member Florian Scheding, explores concepts of migratory musical culture and aesthetics and links these to wider socio-cultural backgrounds. Zooming in on specific migratory moments, to enable discussion on themes such as institutionalisation, nationalism, displacement, modernism, and Jewishness, and uncover the potential of seemingly marginalised migratory musics to inform dominant historiographical narratives.