American Corner Innsbruck

    Lecture by Professor Áine O’Healy

    SCREENING THE NORTH AMERICAN BORDERLANDS, FROM BABEL TO FROZEN RIVER 

    March 31, 2011, 12 noon, 4DG12

    [link to invitation - pdf]

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    Abstract
    Since the events of September 11, 2001, the US government has heighted its efforts to secure the nation’s borders. Not only must all foreigners wishing to enter the country now undergo a more rigorous screening process than was previously required, but the construction of a fortified wall along the southern border is currently under way. In the meantime, xenophobic discourses have become increasingly commonplace in popular media outlets, where undocumented migrants are regularly targeted as a threat to the integrity and wellbeing of the nation. In contrast to the growing paranoia that subtends these discourses, two relatively recent films, Babel (Alejandro González Iñárritu 2006) and Frozen River (Courtney Hunt 2007) provoke a complex reflection on the indeterminacy of the nation’s borderlands – both south and north -- and the issues of identity, nationhood and territoriality that are cast into question when bodies move across these borders.

    Áine O’Healy
    Áine O’Healy is Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures and Director of the Humanities Program at Loyola Marymount University. Her recent publications include co-editorship of Transnational Feminism in Film and Media, as well as co-editorship of a special issue of Feminist Media Studies titled “Transcultural Mediations and Transnational Politics of Difference.” She is also the author of National Cinema in a Transnational Landscape, forthcoming from Indiana University Press.

     

     
     
     
     
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