AMST 375 - Self and Society in American Culture

Institution:

Trinity College

Subject:

Description:

This course will examine the various ways in which Americans have conceptualized selfhood. Every bookstore today has an expansive "self-help" section, but the very conception of the self has a history that continues to change over time. We will examine that history while thinking about such issues as the public versus private self, the shift from character to personality, and the relationship of the individual to the community. Our goal is to understand the process by which conceptions of selfhood and identity are culturally constructed. Particular attention will be paid to issues of race, class, gender, and ethnicity. We will read widely in primary and secondary sources, including autobiography, fiction, sermons, poems and speeches by such writers as Benjamin Franklin, Herman Melville, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, W.E.B. DuBois, Toni Morrison, and Richard Rodriguez, and the analytical work of such scholars as Warren Susman, Charles Taylor, Clifford Geertz, and Carol Gilligan 1.00 units, Lecture

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.Trincoll.edu

Phone Number:

(860) 297-2000

Regional Accreditation:

New England Association of Schools and Colleges

Calendar System:

Semester

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