The U.S.-Mexico Borderlands

Catalog description

This course is an advanced research seminar that will examine the historical evolution of the U.S.-Mexico border region from its earliest indigenous civilizations to the present. Through both common readings and individual research, students in this course will develop the ability to evaluate\2014and take part in\2014the ongoing political, economic, and social debates over how best to meet the many promises and challenges of the border region. The nearly 2,000-mile border shared by the United States and Mexico has been described as a \201Cthird country,\201D neither American nor Mexican, but also both at the same time. Since the delineation of the current borderline in 1848, this region has been the site of metaphoric and literal \201Ccrossings,\201D intercultural exchanges, and conflicts. How did this region transform from a frontier on the fringes of European empires to a \201Cborder\201D marked by a line of demarcation between two sovereign nations? What meaning does this border have for the people of Mexican, Anglo-American, African-American, and Native-American descent who live in the region? And what challenges does the border region, at once a shared and a contested space, pose for both the Mexican and U.S. national cultures and the political, economic, social, and environmental boundaries of both nations? This course will tackle these and other conceptual questions throughout the semester. We will also explore the concrete ways in which our own community (Cincinnati) has become inextricably linked to the border region in recent years, and the ways that contemporary actors are working to achieve peace and justice in public policy and everyday life in the borderlands. Readings of both primary sources (including novels, memoirs, oral histories, and government documents) and secondary sources (including scholarly articles, monographs, and documentary films) provide a framework for in-class discussions and for students’ individual research on topics that they choose in consultation with the professor. This is a small, seminar-style class; unlike larger history survey classes, it does not revolve around lectures from the professor. Rather, each student\2019s learning is dependent on his or her reading of the assigned material, the scheduled in-class discussions of that material, and each student\2019s presentations of his or her own independent research. Course Attributes: History-Asia,Africa,LA Region, History - US Region, Peace & Justice Studies Minor College of Arts & Sciences History