In Relational Identity: Self, Other and the In-Between, "students will develop a critical awareness of the relationship of their selves to their social worlds," says instructor Gaya Morris.
"One of my goals in the course is to make these aspects of everyday life in the U.S. more visible so that students become more attuned to role they could play, and already do play, in helping to shape what it means to 'be American,'" says Dr. Colin Johnson about his course AMST-A 200 Comparative American Identities.
In Günther Jikeli's Critical Approaches course, first-year students grapple with old myths propagated on a new medium. COLL-C 103 Critical Approaches to Arts & Humanities: Researching White Supremacism and Antisemitism on Social Media examines how some older myths from the European Middle Ages are still relevant today and how they are reformulated and disseminated on social media.
In Dr. Phoebe Wolfskill's course AMST-A 204: Race in American Art, students examine representations of racial identity in American art and visual culture from the colonial period through the present day. The class focuses particularly on evolving conceptions of Native American, African American, European American, Latino, and Asian American identities.
"We are in a very important pivotal moment. Settler colonial states, like the United States and Canada, are really coming to terms with the need to decolonize academia and the world," says Dr. Stephanie Kane. Dr. Kane’s INTL-I 302 Global Healing will help students understand the inter-generational impacts of settler cultures.
"Given recent historical events and even the current political climate, it is important to better understand the history of Asians in the U.S. and globally, " says Dr. Jennifer Goodlander. Her course CMLT-C 343 Literature and Politics: Performing Asian/Asian American Identity, will look at Asian and Asian American performance texts to better understand the dynamic relationships between performance and identity.
Themester's final programming deadline is June 1. Funds remain for this final opportunity to be part of fall 2022's exploration of Identity and Identification.
"Identity is not an essential characteristic, but something that we negotiate, legislate, and debate continuously," says Dr. Michael Weinman. His course POLS-Y 300 Identity as Property explores how identity plays an integral role in politics.
"What I want people to learn is that being Black and Black-being are powerful and dynamic and have reshaped the world through, sometimes, a single sound," says Dr Maria Hamilton Abegunde, Dr. Abegunde's course AAAD-A 479 Contemporary Black Poetry: “Blacker than a Hundred Midnights” will explore Black identity through poetry.
"Many texts from medieval Europe raised questions about assumptions about gender, social class, race, religion, and disability in defining the identity of human beings," says Dr. Rosemarie McGerr, instructor of Fall 2022's CMLT-C 321 Comparative Literature: Defining Human Identity in Medieval European Literature. A diversity of voices survive in literature from medieval Europe and explore questions we think of as "modern."
"Disability in the United States will challenge the way students think about their bodies, their minds, and the worlds in which they live," says instructor Dr. Benjamin Irvin. The course will explore disability and ableism, a discriminatory belief system that is deeply embedded in American culture.
In Dr. Sara Friedman's service-learning course ANTH-E 400 The Anthropology of Citizenship, students apply theory to practice to learn about the critical connection between citizenship and identity.
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