Author Archives: Brenden W. Rensink

In my current position at the University of Nebraska at Kearney I have the opportunity to direct graduate reading seminars.  One of the best parts of directing these seminars is drawing up the required reading lists.  In past seminars on the American West, 20th Century West, Native American History and other topics I am always careful to insert a book or two with borderlands or transnational foci.

Thus, when I was given the option to direct a couple seminars over the summer on whatever topics I wanted – I immediately proposed a full seminar on “American Borderlands.”  I had a great group of students and reveled in the chance to build the reading list.  For those considering building similar courses,  here are the books we worked through. Continue reading →

Brenden Rensink, Ph.D.
Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Nebraska at Kearney
http://www.unk.edu/history/brensink

I will just come out and say it – I want more borderlands historians to engage in comparative work, to integrate U.S.-Mexican, U.S.-Canadian and countless other transnational histories into new groundbreaking scholarship.  Unfortunately, this is easier said than done.

Transnational and borderlands history is complex.  It requires mastering historiographies, narratives, and archival materials from multiple political entities – historic empires and nation-states, contemporary international, national, state- or local-level polities – and potentially in multiple languages.  Fully integrating them together is complicated.  It is messy.  And that is why I love [and hate] it so much.  At an AHA panel honoring the late David J. Weber (Southern Methodist University), Professor Steven Hackel (UC-Riverside) shared a quote from Dr. Weber in which he Continue reading →