Results for ENGLISH124

The American West is characterized by frontier mythology, vast distances, marked aridity, and unique political and economic characteristics. This course integrates several disciplinary perspectives into a comprehensive examination of Western North America: its history, physical geography, climate, literature, art, film, institutions, politics, demography, economy, and continuing policy challenges. Students examine themes fundamental to understanding the region: time, space, water, peoples, and boom and bust cycles.

Emerging from the demographic, political, and cultural shifts of the late twentiethnncentury, LatinX Literature flourishes in the twenty-first century as a hemisphericallynnAmerican corpus of texts. Like both ChicanX and Puerto Rican literatures before it,nnLatinX Literature emerges from various movements for social justice to challengennboth the Anglo and the Hispanic established literary traditions of the Americas. As anntransnational, pluralistic, heterogeneous, and dynamic category that considers thennwritings of diverse peoples with cultural ties to Latin America residing in the U.S., itnncomplicates and transgresses the linguistic, geopolitical and cultural borders ofnnthe Americas, including those of the Afro-Caribbean, Luso-Brazilian, and the NativennFirst Nations. Aligning itself with the issues, styles, and topics of the Global South,nnLatinX Literature is a product of the kind of ¿border thinking¿ that critic WalternnMignolo has described as a ¿pluriversal . . . epistemology that interconnects thennplurality and diversity of decolonial projects.¿ Acknowledging its emergence fromnnliteral and theoretical border spaces and decolonizing epistemologies, the ¿X¿ ofnnLatinX intentionally inflects the link to an origin in LGBTQI discourses signifying ¿annmore inclusive, non-gender-binary designation for LatinX peoples¿ and as a bordernnliterature that articulates heterogeneous ways of making meaning¿. Authors maynninclude Jesus Colón, Sandra Cisneros, Helena Maria Viramontes, Christina Garcia,nnJunot Diaz, Ire´ne Lara Silva, Julia Alvarez, Américo Paredes, Daniel Alarcón,nnFrancisco Goldman, Gloria Anzaldúa, Cherríe Moraga, Tato Laviera, ErnestonnQuinonez, Erika Sanchez, Elizabeth Acevedo, Luis Valdez, Lorna Dee Cervantes,nnSilvia Moreno-Garcia, Fernando Flores, or Oscar Cásares.

Cultures of the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands: Since becoming president, Donald Trump has deported more than a million migrants and started building a multi-billion-dollar border wall. Although some of Trump¿s actions have seemed anomalous, they have all relied on and reaffirmed longstanding legacies of settler colonialism and racial capitalism. In this seminar, we will look at these legacies through the eyes of the Natives, Latinxs, whites, and others who have lived in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. Within the confines of literature, we will read novelists like Willa Cather, essayists like Valeria Luiselli, and poets like Simon Ortiz (Acoma Pueblo). Meanwhile, across the more capacious category of culture, we will engage with promoters who encouraged whites to claim homesteads, periodistas who emboldened Latinxs to protect pueblos, and leaders who helped Natives fight for sovereignty. By blending literary studies and ethnic studies, we will gain a thorough grasp of the territories that have taken shape since the U.S.-Mexico War (1846¿48), especially the ones that we currently call Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas. From these concrete contexts, we will ask and answer more abstract questions: What are borders¿are they physical boundaries, or are they psychosocial conditions? Similarly, what are nations¿are they stable and homogeneous groups, or are they flexible and diverse communities? Ultimately, what are human beings¿can they be branded as illegal aliens, or do they have inalienable rights? During the quarter, we will work through these questions both collectively and individually: to enrich our in-class discussions, each five-unit student will complete a four- to five-page reading of a single source, a six- to eight-page paper on several sources, and a multimedia borderlands map.