Topic: "Acts of Passing" Lecture F; Discussion TR

When someone "passes" successfully, no one is the wiser for it.  The passings we hear about
are therefore failed and/or revealed acts.  Yet such acts continue to fascinate us because of
their potential to elude notice and to unsettle our sense of social boundaries.  In exploring the
subject, we will examine several acts of passing--in gender, racial, professional terms--in a
number of works.  Why would someone assume an identity not his or her own?  What kind of
passage does this entail for that person and how does it differ from accepted and/or overt forms
of passage within a society?  What do stories of passing tell us about individual identity and the
rules and stakes of the social game?  How do we understand the cultural effects of practices
that may or may not be discernible?

Readings may include Nella Larsen's _Passing_, Mary Gordon's _The Shadow Man_, David
Henry Hwang's _M. Butterfly_, and William Shakespeare's _Twelfth Night_.  In addition, we
will also view films such as _Imitation of Life_ and _Leap of Faith_.  Analysis will involve
brief comparisons, both with overly transgressive performances by popular culture figures such
as street evangelist rapper Nicky Cruz, and with mythical figures such as the classical traveler
Odysseus, the Chinese shape-shifter Monkey, and the "musician without ears" from the
Japanese _Kwaidan_.  This comparative analysis will provide a broader cultural context for
defining a critical response to the questions that passing raises for our own society.

In addition to regular in-class writings and discussions, students will keep a journal of reading
responses, present a collaborative learning project to the class, write three short essays and a
longer paper in first and final drafts.  The short essays include a reflection on what the student
has learned through the collaborative project, and two responese to the projects.  Ideas and
analyses from one or more of the short papers may be recycled and further developed in the
longer paper.  This sequence of assignments--from the journal to the final paper--thus will help
students to move from their experience of reading text's to writing analytically about them, in
the process developing their own insights by engaging with ideas obtained from lectures,
discussions, and presentations.