Borders are everywhere, yet there's nothing natural about them. Planners and architects impose and redraw them, inventing new places and identities in the process. Daily life is full of borders too. The boundaries between public and private, between cities, suburbs, and rural environments are accompanied by more conceptual limits: the lines that mark rich and poor, citizen and noncitizen. Studying border spaces and cultures is one way of figuring out how they work, and under what conditions they can be crossed or even abolished. In this course, we will investigate borders of all kinds through critical and literary texts, writing exercises, media-making, and collaborative interdisciplinary projects.  Foundations in Critical Studies introduces critical thinking skills essential to college-level work in the humanities and sciences. Students develop their critical capacities through close reading and active response to cultural texts and phenomena drawn from multiple disciplines and reflecting diverse perspectives on major themes or topics in contemporary life.

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