Request for comments: Draft Syllabus

[rax]

For anyone who doesn't know, I'm teaching a class at MIT next semester on passing (especially race and gender) in (especially) American literature. I get to come up with my own syllabus, of which I am supposed to turn in a draft by November. After tons and tons of reading, and a whole lot of thinking and conversations, I've actually put together a draft syllabus; it doesn't have my notes for each class yet, but that's OK. I could wing it off of this but will write up some more in the next couple of weeks to give my supervisor a better idea of where I will be going with things, and to give myself something to fall back on if my brain is made of mush when I sit down to actually teach the course.

This is an undergraduate course open to all levels of experience, so I'm not expecting students to necessarily be literature or gender studies majors (especially since it's, well, MIT). I've put the draft syllabus up here and would love for you all to make comments on it. I'd also love comments on a couple of additional things: What should I call this class? My supervisor doesn't want me to put the word "pass" in the course title because she thinks people will think it's about death. I've come up with all sorts of ridiculous titles but nothing useful. "Re/Constructing Identities" ? Myegh. Also, do you have any recommendations of books, movies, &c. where people pass or try to pass and it's relevant? I want to offer students (and anyone else interested) a big annotated list, so anything's fair game; even if I've already heard of it, if you wanted to write up a description, I'd be happy to put that on the web and credit you. Or not credit you! Whatever you want!

And yes, blondestwolf , I did finally watch Some Like It Hot. :) It was research, you see!

Thanks for the help if you do get around to commenting, and I hope the syllabus/suggested readings are interesting. Expect me to keep posting about this until the course starts; if you want to point people who might be interested here, I'd be honored. If you're an MIT undergrad and this seems exciting, you should take my course. Please!

Comments

[sethg]

Dang, I need to read the books on that syllabus.

There's a novel called Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man which I was supposed to read (in high school?), but I can't really remember any of it so I can't say if it's any good.

I wonder if parts of Goffman's Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity would be helpful in providing a framework for discussing passing. Certainly Goffman is more readable than Foucault....

Does Witness count as a movie about passing? And am I remembering correctly that the IRA fugitive in The Crying Game, when in London, tries to pass himself off as Scottish?

Passing-for-mainstream is a big theme in Jewish culture. For example, a large number of Iberian Jews who converted to Catholicism in order to escape the Inquisition continued to practice Judaism and pass on some Jewish customs, and sometimes the faith itself, to their descendants. But even the Spanish converts who were sincerely Catholic were looked on with suspicion by the majority. On a lighter note, there's a whole subcategory of American Jewish humor regarding Jews who try to pass for Christian and screw it up.