Passing...
- Constructing Identities in Literature and Film
Bent Sørensen
[Go directly to course plan] [Go to project ideas]
This course examines the
notion of passing
as an essential part of identity
construction in 20th literature and film. Malcontent with one’s
place within the various identity hierarchies, individuals have always
tried to better or protect their position through passing for something
or someone else. Taking advantage of the fact that identities are
discursively constructed and transmitted thorugh texts, one can use the
notion and dynamics of passing in texts to examine historically bound
representations of identities. The six main discursive differences in
the 20th century pertain to race,
gender, class, nation, belief, and age. Each will be examined
as a discourse of identity construction through one illustrative filmic
or literary text. The periods investigated are the interwar
years, the Cold War/Eisenhower years, and the beginning and end of the
postmodern period.
Race: Nella
Larsen: Passing (1929)
Class: F. Scott
Fitzgerald: The Great
Gatsby (1926)
Nation: Don Siegel
(director), Daniel Mainwaring (pseudonym: Geoffrey Holmes
(screenwriter)): Invasion of
the Body Snatchers (1956)
(Film based on novel by Jack Finney)
Belief: Jack Kerouac: Dharma Bums (1958)
Gender: Kimberley
Pierce (director & screenwriter): Boys
Don’t Cry (1999)
Age: Hal Ashby
(director), Colin Higgins (screenwriter): Harold and
Maude (1971)
The course will build on a
background of twentieth century American
literary and cultural history (course book: Passing: Identity and Interpretation in
Sexuality, Race and Religion (eds. María Carla
Sánchez & Linda Schlossberg), NYU Press, 2001), and the
theoretical framework will be
based on the notion of difference discourses. There will be an
introductory lecture on difference discourses and social
constructivism, followed by one session on each text/main difference.
The final session will indicate some trends in the current discursive
fields in early 21st century American literature and film.
Course plan:
All texts that are not on-line links
and marked with an
are
available in the course pack for photo-copying. You'll have to buy
the 3 novels - all are available right now from Centerboghandelen.
1. Monday, September 5, 2.15-4 pm, room 1.115, KS3
Introduction: Difference discourses. Please read this essay
as preparation. Read also the Schlossberg article "Rites of
Passing" as
backgroud.
2. Monday, September 12, 2.15-4 pm, room 1.115, KS3
Nella Larsen: Passing. Read the novel as
preparation. This essay
is recommended as background reading
3. Monday, September 19, 2.15-4 pm, room 1.115, KS3
F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby. Read the novel as
preparation. Fitzgerald background here. Gatsby background here.
[At 4 pm the session will continue with a screening of next week's
film: Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
All are welcome]
4. Monday, September 26, 2.15-4 pm, room 1.115, KS3
Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Watch the movie and read the screen-play
as preparation. Read this essay as background
5. Monday, October 3, 2.15-4 pm, room 1.115, KS3
Jack Kerouac: Dharma Bums. Read the novel as
preparation. This essay
gives a good introduction. This essay on
literary topography contains an analysis of Dharma Bums as a type of
American Orientalist discourse (pp. 46-50).
[At 4 pm the session
will continue with a screening of next week's film: Boys Don't Cry. All are welcome]
6. Monday, October 10, 2.15-4 pm, room 1.115, KS3
Boys Don't Cry. Watch the movie as preparation. Read the excerpt from Aphrodite
Jones' book
All She Wanted as 'factual'
background. Read Rachel Swan's article "Boys Don't
Cry" as
analytical and theoretical background. Read Halberstam's essay "Telling
Tales: Brandon
Teena,
Billy Tipton, and Transgender Biography" as
theoretical background. Read this interview with
Kimberley Pierce as optional background.
[At 4 pm the session
will continue with a screening of next week's film: Harold and Maude. All are welcome]
7. Monday, October 17, 2.15-4 pm, room 1.115, KS3
Harold & Maude. Watch the
movie or read the play
as
preparation. Browse the unofficial
homepage for background. You can also download the full screenplay
from here.
8. Monday, October 24, 2.15-4 pm, room 1.115, KS3
Outro. The economies of
passing - identity lessons and
tragedy. Read these notes
as preparation.
Project ideas:
The "tragic
mulatto" theme in Nella Larsen: Passing
and Quicksand
The use of art and literature in the Harlem Renaissance as a
means for racial uplift and recognition
Lost and found: Exile and migration as great themes in 1920s American
literature
Jazz Age: New Women, flappers and sex goddesses of the 1920s
Class and Crash: The American Dream of Gatsby
Cold War sensibilities in film: Better dead than Red?
Aliens abroad: the psychology of fear in the US
The influence of the East on the West: The dawning of a New Age
sensibility in California in the 1950s and 1960s
Beat literature as an American Existentialism
Dharma Bums as nature writing
in the Transcendentalist vein
Gender trouble: Transsexuality as identity strategy
Hate crimes as response to Otherness: an American tradition in
literature and the Arts?
Generation gap? Love and sex across the age divide
Letting go - love and death in the American novel and film