WHAT IS A BORDER? AND WHO CAN CROSS IT?

Credit Hours: 3 · Undergraduate Lower-Level

Throughout history, people have moved across natural and political borders, but migration has become one of the most contentious issues of our time. This course examines what happens when border crossing becomes a crisis—both a period of acute struggle, danger, or instability and a moment when difficult or consequential decisions must be made. We will consider who defines such situations as crises, who is deemed responsible, and who bears the heaviest burdens. Students will explore how different groups—migrants on the move, host communities, and institutional actors—experience border crossings, and how institutions shape, manage, or intensify these crises. The course concludes with a further question: can engaging with individual accounts of border crossings—whether written, audio, or visual, and accessed through testimonies, oral histories, literature, and other cultural materials—help alleviate or prevent crisis conditions?