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