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Writing on the Margin COL 288 FA

As we approach the limit of the twentieth century, ancient questions remain, none more ancient than those concerning how human beings come to "have," to recognize and experience, an identity. Yet in an increasingly global and multicultural society, such questions must be asked under radically transformed conditions and with an unprecedented sense of urgency. No longer can we only ask the traditional foundational questions of who we are, how we are, why we are. Today we must also ask where. Recognizing the importance of that perception, this seminar examines the work of modern authors who have dedicated their writing to probing identity at its boundaries--crossing and recrossing, dissolving and transforming traditional contours of personhood, sexuality and gender, race and ethnicity, language, indeed of sanity itself. The narratives of these authors, taken together, both confirm and contest the hypothesis that in modern societies the margin is no longer a marker of division. No longer a separator of identity from difference, the margin has become a perpetual site of subject-formation: identity now is difference.

MAJOR READINGS

EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS and/or COMMENTS

COURSE FORMAT: Discussion Seminar

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Level: UG Credit: 1.00 Gen Ed Area & Dept: HA COL

Prerequisites: None

Last Updated on MAR-03-1998