Walking across a bridge from Ciudad Juarez to El Paso. Starting to take T. Marrying someone who isn’t Jewish. Finding just the right word for the line of poetry you’re translating. Driving south across 8 Mile to go to a club downtown. Coming out. Letting your new friends think you’re white. Leaving your small town for a prestigious college in another state.

What do these actions have in common? They can all be read as examples of border crossing – some literal, some metaphorical, some more dangerous or more policed, some more liberatory or more mundane. In this class, we will investigate border crossings in all of these forms. We will ask: What are the dominant narratives we have been told about borders and border crossing? What stories do we tell ourselves? What makes a border appear threatening or inviting? How do personal and social identities play a role in who gets to cross which borders, and how safely? How do history, politics, and power structures play a role?

To help us answer these questions, we will explore materials from fiction to film, from historical documents to contemporary journalism, from visual art to live performance. By composing analytical essays, narratives, and multimedia, we will think and write about others’ border crossings and our own. We will also test the “border” between writing for academic and more general audiences, learning to shape our own voices as we also practice thorough research, precise argumentation, and other habits important for college writing.

Intended Audience:

Participants in Lloyd Scholars for Writing and the Arts. Non-LSWA students welcome and may request permission to enroll pending availability. Contact LSWA@umich.edu.