International borders affect you every day. In the United States and elsewhere, they play a role in determining whether you are a birthright citizen or an unauthorized migrant. They showcase a nation's ability or inability to guarantee your wellbeing. They factor into immigration, asylum, and national security debates. Those who live near an international border often deal with a particular set of issues. Living in an either/or environment can impel border residents to strategically recognize or deny cultural forms-to be hyper patriotic, for example, to speak one language at home and another at school, or to understand gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity in site-specific ways. This course will draw from the work of performance theorists, playwrights, anthropologists, historians, and geographers to write critically about and devise artistic work that opens up foundational theories, debates, and genealogies in the study of borders and boundaries. This course will use North America as its primary reference point, but it will also draw our attention to border and boundary dynamics elsewhere to think about global challenges such as forced migration and climate change.
Course Attributes: EN H; AS HUM; AS SC
