Looking Beyond Borderlines: North America's Frontier Imagination

by Lee Rodney (Author)

American territorial borders have undergone significant and unparalleled changes in the last decade. They serve as a powerful and emotionally charged locus for American national identity that parallels the historical idea of the frontier. But the concept of the frontier, so central to American identity throughout modern history, has all but disappeared in contemporary representation while the border has served to uncomfortably fill the void left in the spatial imagination of American culture.

This book focuses on the shifting relationship between borders and frontiers in North America, specifically the ways in which they have been imaged and imagined since their formation in the nineteenth century and how tropes of visuality are central to their production and meaning. Rodney links ongoing discussions in political geography and visual culture in new ways to demonstrate how contemporary American borders exhibit security as a display strategy that is resisted and undermined through a variety of cultural practices.

About the Author
Lee Rodney is Associate Professor of Media Art History and Visual Culture at the University of Windsor, Canada. She has written on contemporary art, cultural theory and visual culture in a range of books and publications including Informal Market Worlds:Atlas (NAi), Future Anterior, Space and Culture, Parallax, Prefix Photo and PAJ: Performance Art Journal.