COR 230N - Borderlands and Bridges

Minimum Credit(s) Awarded: 4
Maximum Credit(s) Awarded: 4

This course focuses on borders and the call to build bridges between the neighboring people of the US and Mexico, Central America and beyond. We will briefly examine the history of immigration to the US and the social construction of the US borderlands, including the root causes, rhetoric and public policies that have built both physical and psychic walls along the long political border. We will also examine the ways in which the border impacts and monitors the lives of many who live at a great physical distance from the actual divide. Students will engage with activists and stakeholders in the Madison immigrant community who are working in the spheres of education, health care and political education. With the Dominican studium as an organizing framework, students will travel to the US-Mexico borderlands for a trip rooted in study and reflection. Upon return, as their final COR statement, students will craft a project laying out how they can continue to deeply engage with, and act on, this issue.

Students will:

~ gain an understanding of the history of immigration to the US from the southern border

~ engage with the more recent history of immigration through the eyes of people who have lived it

~ in the context of the Dominican studium and the key COR questions, begin to define their own role in the ongoing conversations about immigration

Offered Fall, Spring

Course Fee: Yes
Prerequisite(s): Successful completion of a COR1 or permission of the instructor(s).