Description: Gloria Anzaldúa famously called the border between México and the United States a “1,950 mile-long open wound,” “una herida abierta,” where “a third country—a border culture” has arisen on either side of the Rio Grande/Río Bravo and beyond. In this course, we will traverse the borders of language(s), geography, history, and identity negotiated by Mexican-American artists from Texas in a variety of literary genres, visual art, and film. Our methods will be intersectional—attending to class, gender, sexuality, religion, etc., in addition to race—as we explore these (re)definitions of what it means to be, in Cherríe Moraga’s words, American “con acento.”
The primary aim of this course is to help students develop and improve the critical reading, writing, and thinking skills needed for success in upper-division courses in English and other disciplines. They will also gain practice in using the Oxford English Dictionary and other online research tools and print resources that support studies in the humanities. Students will learn basic information literacy skills and models for approaching literature with various historical, generic, and cultural contexts in mind.
This course contains a writing flag. The writing assignments in this course are arranged procedurally with a focus on invention, development through instructor and peer feedback, and revision; they will comprise a major part of the final grade.
Tentative Texts: Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (nonfiction, memoir, theory); Alonzo, Jotos del Barrio (play); Silva, Flesh to Bone (short stories).
Requirements & Grading: There will be a series of 3 formal writing assignments, the first of which must be revised and resubmitted (70% of the final grade in total). Excluding the final project (critical or creative), the second assignment may also be revised and resubmitted by arrangement with the Instructor. Students will also have the opportunity to practice writing in a variety of other genres, including reading journals (or the occasional quiz), creative writing exercises, and in-class presentations (30% of the final grade).