2022-2023 Catalog

LLAS 304 Mexico-U.S. Borderlands

Studies of the Mexico-U.S. Borderlands have been at the forefront in the development of transnational history frameworks as well as comparative discussions about borderlands histories. This seminar engages the fields of Native American Studies, Chicanx Studies, Mexican history, and U.S. Western history to trace the historiography of a region that has undergone a series of extensive transformations in the last three hundred years. In the modern era, it changed from a periphery of the Spanish empire, to provinces of northern Mexico, and finally, to the southwestern region of the United States. The area is a site of complicated and overlapping histories marked by processes of colonialism, diaspora, nationalism, and deterritorialization. With particular attention to issues of race, gender, place and power, prominent historiographical themes for the course include: the frontier thesis; war and displacement; transborder and transcultural communities; labor and transnational capitalism; extractivism and environmental justice; and migration and militarization. 

Credits

4 units

Cross Listed Courses

HIST 300

Prerequisite

One History course