Additional Information

Instruction Mode: Online
This course focuses on a place and a concept where two of the most urgent issues of our times-- migration and environmental degradation -- converge, collide, and shape each other. It examines borders not as abstract lines on the map, but as dynamic hubs that connect human societies, politics, and cultures with the natural and built environments that we construct, inhabit, transform, and manage. Through scholarly and creative work from an array of borders around the world, we will develop new theoretical approaches and methodological toolkits for rethinking and re-visioning borders in an era of climate change, toxic pollution, and mass extinction. While the US-Mexico and India-Bangladesh-Pakistan borders will serve as our foundational case studies, they will be compared with texts and contexts from other regions, including US-Canada, the Middle East and North Africa, and the Korean peninsula. Using the lenses of environmental ethics and justice, the course encourages multi- and inter-disciplinary projects from students and will feature guests from diverse areas, disciplines, and practices. Graduate students will meet for an additional hour per week with instructors in a customized seminar.