INQ-271 | Gulfs Between Us-Global

Full Title: Gulfs between Us--Blackness, Race, and Citizenship in the United Stats and Mexico

Topic Description:

What can we learn about ourselves and our world by studying different constructions of race across neighboring nations? This course analyzes ways in which blackness has been structured in Mexico and the United States, looking to the differences race has made in how both nations have understood citizenship. Beginning with the era of conquest, colonization, and plantation/hacienda economies, and moving to Independence, modernity, and contemporary movements of social justice, this course examines the roles race has played in our psyches. We understand the structures of our own house better when we compare them to the structures of a house that is not our own. Thus, we read the United States in dialogue with our southern neighbor, Mexico. And we may come to see ourselves, our structures, and the gulfs between us, freshly and anew. This course draws from literary studies, art history, popular music, critical race studies, and transnational history.

Counts as Global? Yes

Topic Approved: April 2021