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In the US context, border studies came about as an academic field in the 1980s. First it concentrated on the
study of culture and society along the US-Mexico border. However, the imaginary
and theoretical implications of the border, e.g. as a site of exchange,
exclusion, inclusion and protection, reach far beyond the study of the
US-Mexico borderlands and the 20th century. Scholarship in Border Studies includes
topics that are central to American Cultural Studies, such as the following:
sexual, gender, ethnic, racial distinctions and their social and symbolic
constructions. Theoretical issues such as transgression, transnationalism,
border regimes and cultural citizenship have been discussed as part of the
study of borders. The history and mythology of the Frontier – important issues
of American Studies – must be re-assessed within the critical study of border
regimes. President Donald Trump’s border policy newly illustrates the
significance of the US-Mexico border for US society. The reading will include fiction,
historiography, cultural theory, gender studies, and visual texts.
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