Latina/o Studies 250PB - Special Topics in Latina/o Studies: 'The Politics of Borders'

This course interrogates the normative construction and meaning of nation-state borders. We do so from the United States/Mexico border, and utilize a comparative approach, relating Latinx Studies to critical Indigenous feminist perspectives. While focused mainly on the United States landmass the course also critically foregrounds Native/Indigenous land and sovereignty to re-conceptualize the United States as a settler colonial, imperial state. Utilizing the knowledges of Latinx and Indigenous thinkers, students will trace the construction of modern borders and will productively re-frame assumptions around immigration/migration, citizenship, nationalism and indigenismo/Indigeneity.