In nearly every part of our daily lives—in the books we read, the movies we watch, the music we listen to and the way we present ourselves to the world—we analyze and create cues about identity and difference. We are constantly engaging ideas about gender, race, class, sexuality, and the connections between them. But how are these ideas about identity difference circulated and critiqued in contemporary culture? How do writers and artists use their work to contest popular ideas about difference and power? And how can we participate in those conversations in our own written work? In this course, we will examine important literary texts including Audre Lorde’s “Biomythography,” Zami, Justin Torres’s novel, We The Animals, Natalie Diaz’s poetry collection When My Brother Was an Aztec and others, as well as films like Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight and Nahnatchka Khan’s Always Be My Maybe, television shows like Dietland, and musical texts that include hip-hop, pop, and a range of other genres. We will read these texts alongside important theories of identity, difference, and power, using them to help us explore the political and social stakes of those creative works. Emphasizing engaged in-class discussion, close literary analysis, short critical writing assignments, and occasional creative exercises, we will consider how race, gender, sexuality, socioeconomic status, body shape and size, (dis)ability and other forms of difference are taken up in contemporary culture, and how we can engage these conversations in our own writing.
- Teacher: Mecca Sullivan