SPA 367 Crossing la línea: Imagining the U.S. Mexico Borderlands
This course, a seminar with an emphasis on discussion, explores how writers, artists and filmmakers have represented the U.S. Mexico border region and how those constructions have mutated over time. We will examine the U.S.-Mexico borderlands in ways that take us from a concrete analysis of the region to more abstract notions that include the border as a means of forging of new identities. We will explore questions such as: What are borders and borderlands? How have they been created? How are border people imagined, constructed, and exploited ? These large questions will be manageable because of our emphasis on narco narratives and how they both contribute to understanding the complexity of the violent phenomenon of the drug trade and how they glorify the drug trade, contributing to its mythic status.
Prerequisite
SPA 250 or permission of the instructor.