Birth and the Nation: A Fictional History of Immigration

At the Radcliffe Institute, Stephanie DeGooyer RI '19 is completing “Acts of Naturalization: Immigration and the Early Transnational Novel,” a book that investigates naturalization as a legal and literary form and explains its significance for negotiating the settlement of foreigners and refugees in Europe and its colonies in the early 18th century. Arguing that naturalization is an aesthetic act that both facilitates and complicates political personhood, this project advances the 18th century as a progressive place from which to rethink immigration criteria today.

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