Border Thinking in Modern China

Border Thinking in Modern China examines how the ethnocultural frontiers of contemporary China were formed over the long transition from multi-ethic empire to modern nation state. Drawing on Gloria Anzaldúa notion of ‘border thinking’ or 'pensamiento fronterizo', this seminar examines how the discursive and material violence of the modern border developed out of centuries imperial conquest, colonial expansion, and mutli-ethnic alliance building along China’s northwestern and southwestern borders. Over the semester students are encouraged to foster their own understanding of ‘border thinking’ as the pursue research essays that take a borderlands approach to the study of Late Imperial to Modern Chinese history.