Welcome!

Welcome to Identity and Globalization.

Since we will only be meeting once per week, this is the class blog which I will ask you to check a couple of times per week. Moreover, I will be asking you to contribute/comment in response to blogs I post. Hopefully, this will help keep people connected to the material and to the class in general.

Course Overview

Course Description

As information technology proliferates, the farthest reaches of the earth are drawn closer to each other; indeed societies around the globe are increasingly interconnected. A consequence of this is that the larger world is having an ever more profound affect on ‘our’ own life experiences. Just as American culture is spreading itself around the world, other societies, too, have an impact on ‘us’.

The need to take a more global perspective, which encourages us to examine the larger world and our society’s place in it, is exceptionally important when thinking about the question of identity in contemporary America, not least because American society is exceptionally diverse.

Mass diaspora has meant that America houses many cultures, which often give rise to conflict. We often perceive our own culture to be ‘right’, ‘normal’, and ‘appropriate’, deeming others who we identify as different to us, or who originate from other geographical locales, to be strange or even deviant.

Our beliefs and opinions about other societies and cultures, and in turn other identities, are largely affected by media images and representations that we consume every day. We habitually fail to question these images, incorporating stereotypical beliefs and values, which enable us to continue to believe that our way of ‘being’ is superior and right, and that ‘others’ are lesser

Difference and Identity will examine representations of ‘other’ cultures and of ‘other’ identities, through American popular culture (including films, TV, newspapers, news stories, and so on), so as to engender a critical appreciation of stereotyping processes. We will concentrate on, in particular, both domestic and international cinema. Indeed this course will also examine ‘alternative’ images of the world, produced and circulated elsewhere, which show different cultures and identities in a new light.

In a multicultural society such as America, the need for understanding and the need to appreciate diversity are considerable. We all too often look for points of difference between cultures, while plastering over points of similarity, which can importantly function to unite groups of people. This course will also seek to explore the meeting of global cultures, and the exciting opportunities that these may bring about.