What is it like to lose an identity, to struggle to acquire a new
identity, or to negotiate new scripts for the old one?  What is it like to
live between languages - or between countries, to navigate one's way
across genders, to traverse the margins of ethnicity and to do battle at
the ends of life to retain a sense of who we are?  And what of those who
seem to be securely planted within a dominant identity?  When a middle
class Englishman named Orwell  went to live among the down and out's of
London, or when T.E. Lawrence donned the robes of an Arab leader, was this
an elaborate exercise in slumming, a genuine attempt to confront the
other, or was it an acknowledgment of the compulsions that govern the
relationships of centers to their margins?

Through film, theory and memoir, this course explores the concepts of
identity and difference, focusing on narratives generated by people in
situations of transition or crisis.
Primary texts for this course draw on
both classic and contemporary works from a range of countries and artists,
including Lightning over Water (Wim Wenders film about the death of
Nicholas Ray), French Lessons (Alice Kaplan), My Name is Joe (Ken Loach),
I Rigoberta Menchu (Guatemalan activist), Midnight's Children (Salman
Rushdie), Woman Warrior (Maxine Hong Kingston) My Life as a Man (Phillip
Roth), The Spider Eaters (Rae Yang's memoir of the Chinese Cultural
Revolution), Vietnamese filmmaker Trinh Minh-ha, The Color of Water (James
McBride's memoir on growing up black in a white family), Down and Out in
Paris and in London (George Orwell).

Secondary readings comprise works that theorize the social management of
identity and interrogate the recent rise of identity as an embattled, yet
critical concept for contemporary cultural and political movements.  The
course follows a seminar format including discussion, facilitations and a
final paper.