AMST 403(F) Senior Seminar in American Studies: Theorizing Whiteness (Same as English 355 and Literary Studies 355)*
This course aims to give the advanced American Studies major the opportunity to apply the tools of the discipline to sustained research on a focused topic. This year's course examines "white"American identity as a cultural location, a discourse with a history. Among the questions we will ask: What are the origins of "Anglo-Saxons" American identity? What are the borders, visible and invisible, against which this identity has positioned itself? Do these borders ever shift? How has whiteness located itself at the center of political, historical, social and literary discourse, and how has it been displaced? How does whiteness mask itself, and how does it disappear? 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: Benjamin DeMott, Lisa Lowe, David Roediger, George Lipsitz, Roland Barthes, Chela Sandoval, Eric Lott, bell hooks, Cherrie 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. We will also examine films and other popular media. Requirements: active participation, several short papers and a longer final paper. Open only to senior American Studies majors, senior English majors, and senior Literary Studies majors, with enrollment preference given in that order. Enrollment limited to 18.