What is the Meaning of Home? Syrian Refugees Between Displacement, Diaspora, and Return

ACGIS Guest Lecture with Dr.Wendy Pearlman (North Western University)

Wednesday, October 29, 2025 10:30 AM to 11:45 AM EDT
Horizon Hall, 3010 - Hybrid

In The Home I Worked to Make: Voices from the New Syrian Diaspora, Northwestern University professor Wendy Pearlman explores how violence not only forced millions of Syrians from their homes but also compelled them to rethink the meaning of home itself. A follow-up to her book We Crossed A Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria, this new collection is based on original interviews with more than 500 displaced Syrians on five continents and weaves together their testimonials about losing home and searching for home against the backdrop of revolution and war. In sharing a selection of these stories and updating them with observations from her recent trip to Syria, this lecture offers human context on dramatic questions facing Syria after the fall of the Assad regime and derives broader lessons about migration, identity, and belonging.

 

Wendy Pearlman is the Jane Long Professor of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University. She is the author of six books and more than 40 academic articles or book chapters on the Middle East. Since 2011 she has interviewed more than 500 Syrian migrants and refugees around the world about their experiences of revolution, war, and displacement. She shares their testimonials in two books: We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria, which was published in 2017 and longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence, and The Home I Worked to Make: Voices from the New Syrian Diaspora, which was published in 2024 and longlisted for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.