Over the past several decades migration displacement and asylum-seeking have become
constitutive elements of contemporary conjuncture generating conditions that are often
described as crises. Since the beginning of what has commonly been referred to as the refugee
crisis of 2015 there have been discussions within political social media and online contexts
about European nation-states closing their borders to asylum seekers and refugees. More often
than not these discussions are accompanied by racism xenophobia or profound fears. To help
mitigate these negative effects the essays in this volume on NARRATING FLIGHT AND ASYLUM focus
on the question of how flight and asylum-seeking are narrated in in-depth analyses of literary
and media texts political and legal contexts and museum work. More generally they try to
explore opportunities for political intervention and ethical commitment within a European and
specifically Italian-German-British framework. With this volume the intention is to focus on
the issues of 'making voices heard' and 'making people on the margins seen' in a Europe where
it is possible to observe what might be called a war on immigration. The volume is inter- and
cross-disciplinary aimed at building a conversation that will expand inside and outside of
academia to include diverse non-canonical cultural voices and methodological approaches and
thus explore the topic of refugeeism and asylum-seeking across Europe and beyond. Contents
MANDY BECK CLAUDIA GUALTIERI ROBERTO PEDRETTI AND CECILE SANDTEN Introduction: Narrating
Flight and Asylum 1 PAP KHOUMA The Mediterranean Prison 11 CONTEXT AND CONSTRUCTION OF THE
STORIES DAVID HERD Erasure Expulsion and the Hostile Environment 17 MAURIZIO VEGLIO Is
Listening an Art? Behind the Curtains of Refugee Tales 31 VISUAL STORIES OF FLIGHT AND ASYLUM
CECILE SANDTEN Making the Invisible Visible: Flight and Asylum Stories for Children 43 ANDREA
B. FARABEGOLI The Role of Public History Practices in Storytelling: Graphic Novels and Museums
67 LISA-MARIE PÖHLAND A New Home? Analysing Recent Children and Young Adult Films' Depictions
of Flight and Asylum with Respect to Trauma and Agency 85 STORYING BORDER CROSSING MOBILITY
AND RESPONSIBILITY CLAUDIA GUALTIERI Words Beyond Borders: Behrouz Boochani's No Friend but the
Mountains 105 LIDIA DE MICHELIS Beyond 'Consensus Realism': Speculative Imaginings of
Relationality Mobility and Hope in Mohsin Hamid's Exit West 123 HASAN SERKAN DEMIR Through the
Looking Glass: Ethics and Responsibility in The Optician of Lampedusa 141 PEDAGOGY AND TEACHING
STEFANO MULA Migration Comics and Teaching 153 GIGI ADAIR AND CARLY MCLAUGHLIN Beyond
Humanitarianism: Reading Counternarratives of Forced Migration from the Global South 165 Notes
on Contributors 183
