Transfer Student Research Seminar: Identity and the Cultural Construction of Race and Ethnicity

Semester and Year	SP 2013
Course Number	FIRST-UG804
Section	001
Instructor	Laurie Woodard
Days	Tue,Thu
Time	2:00 PM - 3:15 PM
Units	4.0
Level	U
Foundation Requirement

Notes/Restrictions

Open to Gallatin transfer students only.

Description

Identity: the ways in which we see our selves; the ways in which others see us; the dynamic relationship between these two seemingly distinct and often irreconcilable poles is the underlying theme of this first-year research seminar. We focus specifically on the ways in which we create, build, rebuild, and live our racial identities in constant dialogue with contemporary American societal constructions of race and ethnicity. Questions we explore include: what is race? Is it immutable? How do we know it when we see it? How is it distinct from ethnicity? What is gained and/or lost by considering or not considering race today? In what ways do other facets of identity, for example gender, sexuality, and class inform, challenge, reconstruct, or deconstruct our racial identities? We employ historical, sociological, and cultural lenses. Several short written assignments help students formulate, research, and respond to questions about racial identity in a longer final research paper. Texts include fiction, plays, theory and criticism such as Julia Alvarez’s How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents , Barbara Fields's “Slavery, Race, and Ideology in the United States," Kip Fulbeck’s What Are You? , Heid E. Erdrich and Laura Tohe's collection, Sister Nations: Native American Women Writers On Community ,   Edward Said’s Orientalism , and B.D. Wong's M. Butterfly .

Syllabus

FIRST-UG804

Course Type

First-Year Program: Transfer Student Research Seminar (FIRST-UG)