HIST 481 - The U.S.-Mexico Borderlands

3 Credit Hours
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-and take part in-the 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 “third country,” 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 “crossings,” intercultural exchanges, and conflicts. How did this region transform from a frontier on the fringes of European empires to a “border” 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 pro

Course Attributes: Peace & Justice Studies Minor

Levels: Graduate Undergraduate

College of Arts & Sciences History