Policy & Impact
The history of refuge | Public Seminar Series, Hilary term 2015
This term's series is convened by Dr J. Olaf Kleist
© UNHCR/157/1951
The predecessor of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Refugee Organization, helped 1 million people, including these Europeans from camps in Germany, Austria and Italy en route to a new life in the United States, to resettle in other countries.
Refugee Studies and Historiography have only lately begun to draw on each other more considerably. Some important studies in other disciplines have drawn on and examined historical events and developments of forced migration. Nonetheless, refugee research has long lacked an empirically rich history of its subject. Moreover, the focus of this fruitful cooperation is often directed at historical experiences and causes of flight. In contrast, this seminar series will be concerned with the history of refugee protection, with hospitality, sanctuary and asylum for forced migrants throughout history. Speakers will present pre-modern forms of protection as well as various historical refugee policies in modern contexts. Their papers will illustrate continuities and transformations of refuge over time. Thereby, the seminar series will contribute to revealing the historicity of past and current challenges in refugee protection and to illuminating opportunities of lessons from the past.
Hilary term seminars
Refugees and the Roman Empire
Professor Peter Heather (King's College London)
Refuge and protection in the late Ottoman Empire
Professor Dawn Chatty (Refugee Studies Centre)
*No seminar*
The arrival of refugees and the making of India and Pakistan in 1947
Dr Yasmin Khan (Kellogg College, University of Oxford)
Exile, refuge and the Greek polis: between justice and humanity
Dr Benjamin Gray (University of Edinburgh)
Hospitality, protection and refuge in early English law
Dr Tom Lambert (Exeter College, University of Oxford)
Refugees – what's wrong with history?
Professor Peter Gatrell (University of Manchester)
Out with the 'international problem children'! US migration plans, settlement fantasies and the pacification of Europe
Dr Gerhard Wolf (University of Sussex)
All seminars take place on Wednesdays at 5pm in Seminar Room 1, Oxford Department of International Development, OX1 3TB. Everyone is welcome to attend and no registration is required. All events are free of charge.
For all enquiries, please contact rsc@qeh.ox.ac.uk
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© 2020 Refugee Studies Centre, Oxford Department of International Development, University of Oxford, 3 Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3TB