Liminal Sovereignty: Mennonites and Mormons in Borderlands Popular Culture will consider the representation of Low-German speaking Mennonites and English-speaking Mormons in Mexican popular culture from the mid-19th century to the present. The book will place both religious groups in their historical context in Mexico – the Mennonites emigrated from Canada in the 1920s and the 1940s, and the Mormons emigrated across the United States in the early 19th century, and first entered Mexico in the 1870s. The book will survey how both groups have been represented in photography, legal documents, television, film and on-line comics. By making use of papers from the Graff Collection of Western Americana at the Newberry, the study will contribute to the understanding  of the role of Mormons and Mennonites in the westward “expansion” of the United States, and to the impact of popular culture on them.

 

Rebecca Janzen is an Assistant Professor of Literature at Bluffton College.​​