Topics in Latina and Latino Text and Representation (393-0-3)
Topic
Latinx and Indig Lits of the U.S.-Mexico Border
Instructors
Mariajose Rodriguez Pliego
Meeting Info
University Library 4670: Mon, Wed 3:30PM - 4:50PM
Overview of class
The U.S.-Mexico border was first envisioned in writing when the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) imagined the course that a new dividing line would run: from the Gulf of Mexico through the Rio Bravo/Rio Grande until the town called "Paso," west toward the Gila River and onto the Pacific Ocean. This line would mark not only land and water but also racial and ethnic formations. Indigenous nations saw their territories split in half by a border that considered their homelands wilderness. Mexicans who found themselves north of the imagined line had to grapple with a new vocabulary to define themselves as they lost their lands to settlers. Those who ended up south of the border attempted to reconcile their recent independence from Spain with the loss of half of the country as they, too, tried to piece together a narrative for their new identity. This course will walk students through the text and maps of the 1848 treaty and the literary works that continue to process its aftershocks throughout the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. Some of the authors we will read include Chicana theorist Gloria Anzaldúa, Laguna Pueblo author Leslie Marmon Silko, and Mexican writer Yuri Herrera. We will learn about the discourse of Manifest Destiny, the Chicano Movement, and contemporary literature from Latinx, Indigenous and Mexican writers who continue to tell the stories about their ancestral lands, their migration journeys, and their encounters with a line that became both border and borderlands.
Teaching Method
Discussion-based course
Evaluation Method
Midterm and final paper, creative mapping project, attendance and participation
Class Materials (Required)
Signs Preceding the End of the World by Yuri Herrera (9781908276421). Short stories, poetry and excerpts from Leslie Marmon Silko, Gloria Anzaldúa, Ofelia Zepeda, Cristina Henríquez, Tommy Orange, and others.
Texts will be available at:
Signs Preceding the End of the World will be at the Northwestern bookstore and all other materials will be uploaded to Canvas
Class Attributes
Advanced Expression
Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline
Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area
U.S. Perspectives on Power, Justice, and Equity