Module description
In the late twentieth century, the idea that individuals could be sorted into stable identity categories was the subject of intense scrutiny. The influence of continental philosophy, and especially a constellation of discourses loosely associated with postmodernism—poststructuralism, deconstruction, and French feminism—radically destabilized conventional understandings of identity, often through a critique of essentialism and an emphasis on performativity. In recent years, however, there has been a return to paradigmatic categories of identity such as race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, ethnicity, indigeneity, and so on, both in critical theory and in contemporary literature and culture. How can we think about the politics of identity in the wake of fragmenting postmodernist discourses? This module will provide an introductory survey of the ways identity categories have been explored, affirmed and contested in contemporary literatures and cultures of the Transatlantic. Beginning with texts springing from the liberation movements of the late twentieth century, we will then move to more recent works that confront the limits of a ‘politics of recognition’, or propose radical visions of the abolition of identity categories altogether. Reading literary texts in dialogue with theory, and traversing contemporary poetry, novels, films, plays and digital media, we will explore how texts enact, represent, or interrogate different experiences of identity as lived or embodied categories.
Assessment details
Coursework
Reader Response Forum on KEATS (15%), 1 x 3000 word essay (85%)