Crossing Boundaries: Teaching a Feminist Premodern World History in El Paso, Texas

Teaching the pre-modern half of World History on the US-Mexico Border provides a unique set of circumstances and opportunities. On one hand, the State of Texas has passed anti-DEI laws that have chilled speech on campus generally and made instructors hesitant to include discussions of sex and gender. On the other hand, an understanding of the constant politicization of the border benefits from a thorough discussion of these very topics. The pre-modern World History survey provides examples of how borders and cross-cultural encounters provided the space and opportunity for negotiations between peoples of vastly different belief systems and ways of understanding the world. Seen in this way, this introductory course becomes a foundational component of the education of all students in the Borderland. This presentation will focus on how the pre-modern World History survey is taught at El Paso Community College with sex and gender in constant consideration and how instructors navigate an ever more complicated political context while designing their courses.