PhD student Mauro Lazarovich uncovers the profound impact of Latin American authors, artists, and intellectuals–including Gabriela Mistral, João Guimarães Rosa, and Lasar Segall–in addressing the plight of refugees during World War II. Lazarovich shares how their works documented the emergence of a new historical subject in modernity--humans without human rights. His dissertation sheds light on how literature and art captured the concept of rightlessness and envisioned the rights of asylum, challenging the conventional notions of citizenship and borders. Looking to Latin America, an overlooked region in the war and post-war global cultural context, Lazarovich expands our understanding of the refugee problem as a genuinely global challenge that moves across national, linguistic, temporal, and disciplinary borders.
