Undergraduate Honors Seminar | Narrating la Frontera: Thinking Violence and the U.S.-Mexico Border
The University of New Mexico | Spring 2013
Honors 402.001 | Tuesday 12:30 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. | SHC 16
Instructor | Andrew Ascherl
Office Hours | Tuesday 9:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. and by appointment | SHC 17A
email | aascherl@unm.edu
Seminar Description
Borders both connect and divide. They are imaginary, arbitrary lines that nevertheless sometimes mean
everything to those who cross them and are crossed by them. The border region between the United
States and Mexico has long been the home of both real and imagined violence, from the Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 through the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
to the horrific body counts of murdered female maquila workers in Ciudad Juárez and th victims of the
ever-escalating “war on drugs.” This seminar will closely examine the way in which we tell ourselves
stories about—that is, narrate—the border, particularly the violence it hides, perpetuates, and embodies.
We will investigate how different discourses—including narrative fiction, cinema, and cultural theory—
inscribe the border and the world, culminating in a deeper understanding of the relation between violence
and the concept of the border as boundary, limit, and definition
Seminar Requirements
Attendance
Participation (including provocations, email questions, contributions to the seminar blog,
short response papers, and weekly participation in the seminar)
Mid-Semester Paper (5-7 pages)
Final Research Paper (12-15 pages)
10%
35%
20%
35%
Required Texts (available at UNM Bookstore unless otherwise noted):
Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, Fourth Edition (San Francisco: Aunt Lute
Books, 2012).
Bolaño, Roberto. 2666. Trans. Natasha Wimmer (New York: Picador/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008).
Flores, Paul S. Along the Border Lies (Berkeley: Creative Arts Book Company, 2001).
González Rodríguez, Sergio. The Femicide Machine. Trans. Michael Parker-Stainback (Cambridge, MA:
The MIT Press, 2011).
Taibo II, Paco Ignacio. Frontera Dreams. Trans. Bill Verner (El Paso: Cinco Puntos Press, 2002).
Several shorter texts available on the seminar blog
Films (available to view on Netflix streaming, You Tube, Google Video, or on reserve at the Fine Arts Library):
Border Brujo (2006, dir. Isaac Artenstein; written and performed by Guillermo Gómez-Peña)
Maquilapolis: City of Factories (2006 dir. Vicky Funari, et al.)
On the Edge: The Femicide in Ciudad Juárez (2006, dir. Steev Hise)
Señorita extraviada (2001, dir. Lourdes Portillo)
Sleep Dealer (2008, dir. Alex Rivera)
Traffic (2000, dir. Steven Soderbergh)
Readings
Students must attend all classes and read all required readings. Readings will be assigned each week,
according to the schedule of classes, from one or more of the course texts. The readings listed for each
respective seminar meeting should be completed prior to the day for which it is assigned. Because many
of the readings include themes we can think critically and theoretically about, we will spend a significant
amount of each class period discussing the texts.
NB: I have made certain texts available on the seminar blog as pdfs, and they are denoted on the
schedule below with an asterisk (*). It is your responsibility to download, print out, and read all required
texts before the seminar meeting in which they are to be discussed.
> > Note on assigned films: Throughout the semester I have assigned some films for you to view. These
are all on reserve to view in the Fine Arts Library (4th floor of George Pearl Hall). The DVDs may not leave
the library, but you can check them out for two hours at a time (if the films run a little over two hours, don’t
worry) to watch in the Fine Arts Library, which has several viewing stations available. The films may also
be available through You Tube, Google Video, or Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” streaming video service. The
main thing to remember is that these films are considered required texts, so please make sure you
schedule a time to view each film in its entirety, making sure to take notes during the screening. It may be
a good idea to view the film in groups of 2-4 (or more) students.
Seminar Participation, Provocations, and Seminar Blog
Classroom participation consists of lively and engaged, contentious but always civil debate based on a
learned familiarity with weekly course assignments. I cannot stress enough the need to do all the reading
so that you are prepared to participate fully in each week’s discussion. Throughout the semester you will
be required to complete weekly short response paper assignments which will form the basis of our
discussions.
Near the end of the semester, students will present a twenty-to-thirty minute (minimum) oral provocation
on a topic related to or based on the assigned readings or the general themes of the seminar.
Provocations can take a variety of forms—dialogue, debate, class exercise, etc.—and students will be
expected to collaborate and provoke. Posting a short bibliography or links to videos, music, texts, or
websites relevant to your topic on the seminar blog can be very helpful. You will need to visit with me
during my office hours to discuss your provocations. You should schedule this provocation planning
meeting with me well in advance so that we can make sure you’re on the right track and help you develop
a strong provocation. A more detailed description of my expectations for the provocations can be found
on the “Provocations” handout.
In addition, the other students not scheduled for provocation that week should post to the seminar blog
any suggestions for the coming week’s provokers. This can include supplementary quotes, references,
and/or insights of relevance. This can be anything (references to other texts on the syllabus, snippets of
relevant political news that week, a song lyric that resonates with the text, videos, images, etc). You will
also be required to regularly post to the seminar blog. I have incorporated this blog into the seminar as a
way to engage the whole group in each week’s readings and cultivate an intellectual community. We only
meet once a week, and it is very useful to have something like this to serve as a “connective tissue”
between our weekly meetings. I have already created this blog, and it can be found at
http://narratinglafrontera.wordpress.com. While I am the moderator of this blog, all enrolled seminar
participants will be designated as blog authors, thus allowing you to generate your own posts and
comment on each other’s posts. You will very shortly receive an invitation to be authors of this blog
(please do not decline this invitation!).
Weekly Response Papers
All students not provoking will email me every week with a brief written response (1½-2 pages) for a class
discussion question or theme. You need to email your short response papers to me by 5pm every Friday.
Please understand that getting a response paper from everyone every week is crucial to the success of
our discussions throughout the semester as they will help me know what has most interested you about
the texts.
> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >
Class Schedule
15 January | Introduction > Abordando Borders
Purchase textbooks; begin thinking of topics for provocations later in the semester.
22 January | Border Consciousness > Culture and Mestizaje
Readings: Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, pp. 3-120.
29 January | Border Crossings, Border Narratives, Border Theory
Readings:
Margaret E. Montoya, “Border Crossings in an Age of Border Patrols: Cruzando Fronteras
Metaforicas.”*
Ana María Manzanas and Jesús Benito, “Repeating Border Narratives” (excerpt).*
Alejandro Lugo, “Reflections on Border Theory, Culture and the Nation.”*
Film:
Border Brujo (2006, dir. Isaac Artenstein; written and performed by Guillermo Gómez-Peña)
> On reserve to view at the Fine Arts Library. <
5 February | Mystery and Locura > Detective Fiction on the Border
Reading:
Paco Ignacio Taibo II, Frontera Dreams.
12 February | Frontera Dreams and Nightmares I > “Los Narco-Juniors”
Reading:
Paul S. Flores, Beyond the Border Lies pp. 1-138.
19 February | Frontera Dreams and Nightmares II > An Unwinnable War?
Reading:
Paul S. Flores, Beyond the Border Lies pp. 139-208.
Film:
Traffic (2000, dir. Steven Soderbergh). > On reserve to view at the Fine Arts Library. <
26 February | “The Meaning of Evil in Our Time” > Femicide in Ciudad Juárez
Reading:
Sergio González Rodriguez, The Femicide Machine.
Films:
On the Edge: The Femicide in Ciudad Juárez (2006, dir. Steev Hise)
Señorita extraviada (2001, dir. Lourdes Portillo)
> Both films are on reserve to view at the Fine Arts Library. <
5 March | The Mythification of the Author > Bolaño’s 2666
Reading:
Roberto Bolaño, 2666 — read “1. The Part About the Critics,” pp. 1-159
12 March | SPRING BREAK > We will not meet this week
19 March | Philosophy, Art, Fear, and Violence > Bolaño’s 2666, continued
Reading:
Roberto Bolaño, 2666 — read “2. The Part About Amalfitano” and “3. The Part About Fate,” pp.
161-349.
> > > Mid-Semester Paper due in class today. < < <
Documentary Banality and Cosmic Horror > Bolaño’s 2666, continued
26 March |
Reading:
2 April |
Reading:
Roberto Bolaño, 2666 — read “4. The Part About the Crimes,” pp. 351-633.
Literature, Violence, and the 20th Century > Bolaño’s 2666, concluded
Roberto Bolaño, 2666 — read “5. The Part About Archimboldi,” pp. 635-898
Recommended reading: Selections from Alain Badiou, The Century.*
9 April
|
Labor Beyond the Border
Reading:
Selections from Wendy Brown, Walled States, Waning Sovereignty.*
Films:
Sleep Dealer (2008, dir. Alex Rivera)
Maquilapolis: City of Factories (2006 dir. Vicky Funari, et al.)
16 April | Student Provocations I
23 April | Student Provocations II
29 April | Student Provocations III
> > > Final Papers due in my mailbox by 12:00 p.m. Monday 6 May 2013 < < <