ENGL 355(F) Theorizing Whiteness (Same as Literary Studies 355)*

This course examines "white" American identity as a cultural location. Among the questions we will ask: How does whiteness locate itself at the center of discourse, and how is it displaced? How does whiteness mask itself, and how does it disappear? What are the borders, visible and invisible, against which whiteness takes up its position? Do these borders ever shift? What does whiteness look like, sound like, and feel like from the perspective of the racial "other"? What happens when we consider whiteness as a racial or ethnic category? And in what ways do considerations of gender and class complicate these other questions? Authors to be considered include: Judith Butler, Roland Barthes, Chela Sandoval, Eric Lott, bell hooks, Cherr#e Moraga, Ruth Frankenberg, James Baldwin, Homi Bhabha, Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, James Weldon Johnson, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, William Faulkner, Nathanael West, Alice Walker, and Don DeLillo. Requirements: several short papers and a longer final paper. Major Seminar. Open only to English majors and qualified non-majors. Permission of English Department chair required; see information above. Enrollment limited to 15. (Criticism)

Hour: CARTER-SANBORN