GLBL 296 Current Conflict On The S Border

Gilberto Rosas Assistant Professor Depts. of Anthropology & Latina/o Studies University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign 607 S. Matthews, Mr.
109 (Departmental Mailbox) Urbana, IL 61801 Office: Davenport 389 Office Hours: 3-5 Wednesdays and by appointment (217) 689-1434 [email protected] Global Students Foundation Seminar (GLBL 296), Davenport 113
Current Conflict on the Mexico-U.S. Border

This one hour, undergraduate level seminar introduces students to the multiple, seemingly immutable, intertwined crises, currently rocking the Mexico-United States border region. They prove inextricably linked to questions of globalization and its governance and to the tremendous disparities in wealth, poverty, and power that characterize the region. The course will draw on the interdisciplinary scholarship on the borderlands, media coverage, film and documentary treatments, as well as my extensive expertise on the region in order to familiarize students with the debates, public and official discourses, and problematic conventions on undocumented migration, the militarization of the border, transnational activism, migrant death, the narco-war, and other relevant topics. We will situate such phenomena globally, by articulating them to the (re-)opening of Mexicos economy to global capital in the 1980s, its intensification in the 1990s, and the complicating of such processes due to the new security regimes following September 11, 2001, as it has rendered certain bodies all too porous.
Expectations, Evaluations, and Requirements:
One book is required for this class and it is available at the bookstore. Anzalda, Gloria. 2010. Borderlands/La frontera.
All other reading material will be either sent to you via email or will be found on the class website: http://current- conflict-on-the-mexico-u-s-border.posterous.com/
Attendance and Active Participation (25% of your grade)

This course is reading and discussion intensive. As such, it emphasizes each participants active collaboration in the collective production of knowledge. You are expected to regularly contribute to class discussions. These should be based upon close, careful, and sustained critical attention to the reading. Thoughtful comments, dissent, and interventions are invited, encouraged, and expected. . To reiterate: you are expected to come to every class well prepared, having completed and studied all assigned readings before class. You are likewise expected to bring questions and points of interventions about the readings to each meeting, and to be a ready, active, and willing discussant. You are always responsible for all reading.
Presentations (25% of your grade)

1
At the beginning of each class meeting, a group will charged with sparking discussion on the assigned readings. The presentation should be approximately 20-30 minutes long. These are to be thorough presentations. They can
be assisted either by a handout or PowerPoint slides. The group that is presenting needs to have a representative or two schedule an appointment to meet with me during my office hours to discuss their preparation and presentation.
Written Assignments (50%)
The course will also consist of 2 writing assignments. The first consists of three blog posts synthesizing the readings and offering your perspective on the issue under discussion. These should be made on the class website http://current-conflict-on-the-mexico-u-s-border.posterous.com/. You are required to link to outside books/articles, utilize images or video, and to engage academic blogs which have dealt with similar issues. These posts should contain between 800-1000 (meaningful) words, and should be posted at the latest 2pm on the Sunday of the week that you are writing about. This will be done so that others might have time to respond to your posts. On the weeks in which you are not producing a blog post, you should read and comment on your peers' work. These comments should be short (25-50 words) and should be submitted by midnight Monday. You are encouraged to use multimedia material (images from the web, YouTube videos, links to articles, statements, etc.) in your posts. The easiest way to post or blog is to send an email to current-conflict-on-the-mexico-u-s- [email protected]. Everything embedded in the text section of your email will be incorporated into the posting, including photographs, links to other web pages, and other media. The second writing assignment is to author a two to three page final response paper that summarizes what you have learned in the course. I will elaborate upon this as we progress through the semester.
Special needs
Please let me know if there are any special circumstances or physical challenges that may affect your work. I will try to help you to participate fully in the course.
Academic Integrity
Any suspicion of plagiarism or similar impropriety will be dealt with severely and according to university policy. Review: http://www.library.uiuc.edu/learn/faculty/academic_integrity.html
Course Schedule
Oct. 18 Logistics and Key Concepts Oct 25 Histories of the Borders and its People
Limn, Jos E. 1994. Carne, carnales, and the carnivalesque. In his Dancing with the Devil: Society and Cultural Poetics in Mexican-American South Texas, University of Wisconsin Press. El Plan de San Diego

Nov 1 New Borders of Migrations and Warfare

Talavera, Victor, Nnez-Mchiri, Guillermina Gina, and Heyman, Josiah. 2010. Deportation in the U.A-Mexico borderlands: Anticipation, experience, and memory. In The Deportation Regime: Sovereignty, Space, and the Freedom of Movement. Durham and London: Duke University Press Books, p. 166-196.
Dunn, Timothy J. 2000. Border War: As the U.S. Military Melds with Civilian Police Agencies, the First Casualties Are Immigrants 2002 (June 8, 2002). Migrant Ghost Towns
Nov 8 New Borders of Warfare Ctd.

Rosas, G. 2006. The managed violences of the borderlands: Treacherous geographies, policeability, and the politics of race1. Latino Studies 4 (4): 401-418. Hill, Sarah. The War for Drugs: How Jurez Became the World's Deadliest City. Boston Review, July. Crossing Over and Over New York Times Aiding Insecurity: Four Years of Mexico's Drug War and Merida Initiative
https://sites.google.com/site/transborderproject/transborder-policy-report
Nov 15 Gendered Borders of Warfare

Fregoso, R L. 2003. Toward a planetary civil society. Mexicana Encounters: The Making of Social Identities on the Borderland1-29. Possible Screening of Senorita Extraviada/Missing Young Women, directed by Lourdes Portillo (2001)
Nov 22 No Meeting Nov 29 Frontiers of Activism

*Cunningham, Hillary. 2001. Transnational politics at the edges of sovereignty: Social movements, crossings, and the state at the U.S.-Mexico border. Global Networks 1 (4): 369-387.
A Reform Movement by and for the Undocumented http://www.ips.org/TV/wsf/a-reform-movement-by-and-forundocumented-people/
December 6 De-colonizing the Borderlands

Anzaldas Borderlands/La Frontera

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Gilberto Rosas Assistant Professor Depts. of Anthropology & Latina/o Studies University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign 607 S. Matthews, Mr.

Current Conflict on the Mexico-U.S. Border

Expectations, Evaluations, and Requirements:

Attendance and Active Participation (25% of your grade)

Presentations (25% of your grade)

Written Assignments (50%)

Nov 1 New Borders of Migrations and Warfare

Nov 8 New Borders of Warfare Ctd.

Nov 15 Gendered Borders of Warfare

Nov 22 No Meeting Nov 29 Frontiers of Activism

December 6 De-colonizing the Borderlands

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