Placeless People: Writings, Rights, and Refugees

Exiles from other places have often caused trouble for ideas about sovereignty, law and nationhood. But the meanings of exile changed dramatically in the twentieth century. 

In her new book, Placeless People: Writing, Rights, and Refugees, Professor Lyndsey Stonebridge, University of Birmingham’s new Interdisciplinary Chair in Humanities and Human Rights, argues that statelessness has made a profound impact on modern literature and thought. For writers such as Hannah Arendt, Franz Kafka, W.H. Auden, George Orwell, Samuel Beckett, Simone Weil, among others, the placeless people of the twentieth century raised vital questions about sovereignty, humanism and the future of human rights. 

Join Lyndsey and University of Birmingham experts on displacement and migration, Dr Nando Sigona (IRiS), Professor Sabine Lee (History), and Professor Peter Morey (English Literature) as they discuss what lessons are to be learned today from the refugee ‘crises’ of the twentieth century. 

Further information on the book can be found at https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/podcasts/the-prospect-podcast-50-refugees-rights-writers-arendt-lyndsey-stonebridge, where Professor Stonebridge discussed refugees, rights and writers on the Prospect podcast.