Topic:  Fictive Selves: "The Invention of Public and Private
Lives" Meets in Discussion only TR

This course will be a process of inquiry--through reading,
writing and discussion--into the proliferation of identities in
modern society.  The readings will help us question the notion of
a true autonomous self, explore how authors manage to achieve
individual voices while speaking within the historical and
cultural contexts that shape them, and examine the ways in which
not only artistic and public figures but all of us are "authors"
of ourselves.

Texts (fiction, autobiography, poetry, essays, videos, and films)
will include Toni Morrison's _The Bluest Eye_, Richard
Rodriguez's _Hunger of Memory_, Carol Shield's _The Stone
Diaries_, Graham Swift's _Waterland_, and a course pack of
shorter works by Joan Didion, Eudora Welty, Cynthia Ozick,
Flannery O'Connor, Jamaica Kincaid, James Baldwin, Adrienne Rich,
and Amiri Baraka.  Films will include _The Player_, _Zelig_,
_Europa, Europa_, _Truth or Dare_, _Waterland_, and _The Crying_
Game.

Requirements include eight short position papers from which four
will be revised in light of discussion.  There will be two longer
papers, a short midterm and a final essay exam.