Fractured States: Border Crossings, Divisions, and Partitions

Semester and Year	SP 2013
Course Number	IDSEM-UG1646
Section	001
Instructor	Valerie Forman
Days	Mon,Wed
Time	2:00 PM - 3:15 PM
Units	4.0
Level	U
Foundation Requirement	HUM, GLOBAL

Notes/Restrictions

Same as COLIT-UA 800 001.

Description

This course explores what happens when geographical spaces get divided and people are dislocated, forced to migrate, or become part of a new political entity. We focus on these geographical divisions both as larger political crises and as events that have effects at more personal and local levels, for example, on familial ties, the ability to find work, or to practice one's religion. We focus on a few regions whose borders have been and still are in crisis in different ways: Haiti and the Dominican Republic; India and Pakistan; and Israel and Palestine. Some specific questions we explore: In what ways do geographical borders participate in the creation of national, racial, or religious, identities? What happens to individuals or groups of people who live in a nation to which they do not feel a primary allegiance and to people who have multiple allegiances? In what ways do borders facilitate or demand the production of social difference? How do writers imagine the relationship of subjects to divided spaces and the relationship of those subjects to each other? How do fictional and historical works address the relationships between possibilities for peace and security and notions of justice? The class focuses primarily on literary texts and narrative films, which we place in dialogue with oral histories, personal memoir, and documentary films. Some likely authors we read in the course include: Edwige Danticat, Junot Díaz, Salman Rushdie, Sami Michael, and Ghassan Kanafani.

Syllabus

IDSEM-UG1646

Course Type

Interdisciplinary Seminars (IDSEM-UG)