FARMINGTON — In what has been a challenging year for the discussion of immigration issues, the University of Maine at Farmington is offering a presentation titled Moral Contagion: A Brief History of Danger, Fear and Border Control in America.

It will take place at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 25, in the Performance Space in the Emery Community Arts Center.

The presentation, part of UMF’s Public Classroom series, will be given by Michael Schoeppner, UMF assistant professor of history. There will be refreshments at 6 p.m. It’s free and open to the public. 

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” reads the inscription on the base of the Statue of Liberty. While the U.S. has undoubtedly served as a magnet for immigrants, it has also steadfastly patrolled its borders and filtered the movement of people into and around the country.

Schoeppner’s research examines America’s history with border controls and analyzes how lawmakers decide who gets in and who does not. What traits mark an outsider as unwanted? How have the criteria for rejection changed over time? The same historical record that answers these questions also reveals some uneasy truths about how we define ourselves as Americans. Border controls, it seems, never stop at the border.

Beginning his fourth year as a professor in the history program at UMF, Schoeppner teaches courses in legal history, the history of race and the interactions of the U.S. with the outside world. He recently received a grant from the William Nelson Cromwell Foundation to continue his work on borders and race in American history.

Schoeppner has won fellowships and awards from the American Society for Legal History, the Institute for Legal Studies at the University of Wisconsin Law School and the Atlantic History Seminar at Harvard. He has published in a number of venues, including the Journal of American History and Law & History Review.

He received his Ph.D in American history from the University of Florida.