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CS92PROD
Migrant Personhood: Against Tales of Witches, Aliens, Beasts, and Pests
AMST 321
Spring 2025
Section: 01  
Crosslisting: ANTH 321, STS 336

The contagious animal, the irrational woman, the foreign threat, the mentally incompetent -- this course follows the circulation of these portrayals of immigrants beyond rhetorical injury. Drawing on what Colin Dayan calls "negative personhood," we will focus on the symbolic, narrative, and representational violence of immigration law. We start with readings and films that look into the history of the idea of the "reasonable man" in immigration policy, the truth-making effect of courtroom hearings, and the figures of speech that give shape to stories about what it is to be an American in the eyes of the law. We then explore forms of alternative representation that elude legal containment and instead seek cultural membership and political participation. We finish the course by examining poetic testimonials, psychotic narrations, dirty protests, escapes from ideological frames of address, collective autobiography, imaginative refusals, and radical Latinx utopias. We will draw from interdisciplinary material in anthropology, literary theory, performance studies, philosophy, legal theory, and feminist studies, among other fields.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: SBS AMST
Course Format: SeminarGrading Mode: Graded
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Requirement for: (ANTH)
Past Enrollment Probability: 50% - 74%

Last Updated on DEC-03-2024
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