Humanities Arts Cultural Stu 0275 - Real and Fictive Identities

The notion of "ethnic identity" has been central to minority writing and filmmaking in the US, where a number of artistes from marginalized groups have recurrently attempted to represent "authentic" and "real" (im)migrant experiences and cultures. In contrast, other minority writers and filmmakers have emphasized the fictive and constructed nature of identities as well as the exclusions produced by quests for ethnic authenticity. In this course, we will examine different kinds of minority ethnic (self)representation-Asian-American, African-American, Chicano/a among others-through literature, film, and video to ask: What is ethnic authenticity? How is it constructed and reconstructed in relation to the historically specific nation form, language politics, visuality, other ethnicities, and transnational flows of capital? What roles do class, gender, and sexuality play in these cultural representations of ethnic and racial difference? Readings may include Chin, Cha, Reed, Rushdie, Lahiri and others. Films by Makhmalbaf, Egoyan, Tajiri, Riggs and others.

Independent Work Multiple Cultural Perspectives Writing and Research