ENG 106: Literature and identity

This class offers an overview of myriad ways in which literary texts explore, reflect, question, and reimagine both the concept of “identity” and the types of identifications it enables—including (but not limited to) race, class, gender, sexuality, (dis)ability, immigration status, and linguistic/cultural background. Beginning in the mid-1800s and focusing on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, we engage with works across a wide range of genres, including the novel, memoir, essay, poetry, and film. Together, we will analyze how authors’ different approaches to the elements of literature (narrative voice, poetic form, character construction, description, and so on) help to generate different representations of identity. We will also frame our readings of these works with concepts drawn from some of this period’s most influential theoretical approaches to identity and selfhood.