Looking Beyond the Wall

CLAS/AUSTIN,
Stern Room 217
April 14, 2015 2:00 PM
Looking Beyond the Wall
Encountering the Humanitarian
Crisis on the Border
ROBERT NEUSTADT
Professor of Spanish, Director of Latin American Studies
In this talk, Neustadt describes the extraordinary field trips to the Arizona/Mexico
border he has been taking with students since 2010. He discusses the environmental, financial, political and humanitarian costs of the border Wall. He also touches on how the pedagogy of field trips—experiential education—brings down walls that separate professors
from students as well as students from other students. Finally, he will talk about the discursive wall that separates "us" from "them" (US citizens from undocumented migrants), a wall
that silences the undocumented and obscures the humanitarian crisis on the border from
most people's view.
Robert A. Neustadt, Professor of Spanish and Director of Latin American Studies at Northern
Arizona University, has published two books on performance and experimental art. Since 2010 he has
been taking classes on field trips to the U.S. / Mexico border where students experience, first hand, the
human, environmental and political dimensions of immigration. He co-produced, Border Songs, a double
cd of music and spoken word about the border and immigration.
Humanities Institute
CO-SPONSORED BY EL INSTITUTO
Please contact [email protected] or 486-9057 to reserve a seat