Universidade Nova de Lisboa

Universidade Nova de Lisboa

Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas

American Representations: Identity, Culture and the Arts

Code

722121053

Academic unit

Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas

Department

Línguas, Culturas e Literaturas Modernas, Secção de Estudos Ingleses e Norte-Americanos

Credits

10

Teacher in charge

Teresa Botelho da Silva

Weekly hours

3 letivas + 1 tutorial

Teaching language

Portuguese

Objectives

a) To develop an in depth knowledge of contemporary North American culture
b) To acquire critical fluency in the theoretical approaches to identity construction and its performativity.
c) To contextualize and interrogate identity representation in cultural texts in the domains of the visual arts, literature, theatre and cinema
d) To contextualize the authors and artists under discussion, problematizing the themes that dominate their cultural texts.
e) To develop the critical skills necessary to reflect on the proposed topics
f) To develop the competence required to develop an autonomous research.

Prerequisites

Completed 1st cycle of studies, fluency in English, the language of instruction.

Subject matter

Reframing America: Changing Representations of Racial and Ethnic Identities in Literature and Visual Culture.

This seminar investigates the processes of representation of collective identities in the cultural landscape, focusing on the strategies used by artists and intellectual creators originally positioned in the margins, to reframe the meaning of America as plural, fluid and hybrid. We will concentrate mostly on the twentieth and twenty first centuries and examine how identity representation has been denied, affirmed, negotiated and interrogated in a variety of cultural texts (essays, short stories, plays, films, photographs and paintings). We will concentrate specifically on African-American, Asian-American, Native-American and Latino artistic voices and on recent expressions of transnational articulations.

Bibliography

Alexander, Keith, Bryant (2012) The Performative Sustainability of Race: Reflections on Black Culture and the Politics of Identity. New York: Peter Lang,
Elam, Michelle (2011) The Souls of Mixed Soul: Race, Politics and Aesthetics in the New Millenium. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Mitchell, W.J.T. (2012) Seeing Through Race. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Moynihan, Sinéad (2010) Passing into the Present: Contemporary American Fiction of Racial and Gender Passing. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Powell, Richard and Mecklenburg (ed) (2012) African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era and Beyond. Washington: Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Raheja, Michelle R. (2013) Reservation Reelism: Redfacing, Visual Sovereignty and Representation of Native Americans on Film. Lincoln: University of Nebrasca Press.
Rody, Caroline (2010) The Interethnic Imagination: Roots and Passages in Contemporary Asian American Fiction. Oxford : Oxford University Press.

Teaching method

The pedagogical model adopted is that of blended-learning, where besides the introduction of contents, active participation of students is priviledged, articulatiing the independent work of each student with colaborative work, enacted in the practice of discussion groups and peer review activities.

Evaluation method

The evaluation model of this seminar contemplates two components: seminar work (50%) and final research essay (50%). The first comprises not only the active participation in the discussion groups but the writing of two short response papers and a short mid-term paper (4 pages) on an essay, a literary or filmic text studied, chosen by the student. The final research essay ( 15 to 20 pages), as a result of individual and original research, will be anteceeded by the presentation of an abstract with early bibliography , and will be supervised in individial tutorials, Regular attendance of the seminar is compulsory.

Courses