Critical & Alternative Voices
Syllabus

Whitman College - Spring 2007
Mitch Clearfield

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Antiquity & Modernity is a great course, with a wide variety of intrinsically worthwhile texts. But for all that variety, it self-consciously remains focused on the dominant views of one particular self-identified historical tradition: the “West.” So, it needs to be put into context.

There are two (interrelated) ways of adding that context. One would be to examine other Core-like texts that aren’t included in Antiquity & Modernity – either because they’re from other self-identified cultural traditions, or because they’re expressions of subordinated perspectives with the Western (or some other) tradition. This course provides some examples of those, but that isn’t its main goal (hence the course is not, in that sense, an “alternative Core” or “diversity Core,” as it has unfortunately come to be known) – other courses at Whitman do that much more thoroughly.

Instead, this course seeks to contextualize the First-Year Core by examining the nature of Core itself: the nature and effects of there being a “dominant tradition,” and the possibilities of responding to it. To me, the focal concepts of the course are power and representation. The authors we read explore the interactions between those two concepts. On the one hand, how can control over representation be a dominating form of power? What exactly are the effects of that kind of power? And on the other hand, what are the possibilities for resisting domination through (self-) representation?

In the process of exploring those focal concepts and questions, we’ll address a number of other recurring themes, ideas, and questions: How is identity constituted, in relation both to representation by others and to self-representation? What kind of knowledge is possible of others’, and even our own, identities? How does language itself affect the possibilities and effects of representation and domination? How are distinctions drawn between “us” and “them” – and what is the very idea of “otherness” implied by those distinctions? How do different forms of otherness intersect and interact with each other? What is a “hybrid,” and how does that notion relate to distinctions of otherness? What are the ethical constraints on drawing, blurring, acknowledging, and/or ignoring those distinctions? What are the possibilities for freedom (or different kinds of freedom) within, in resistance to, and beyond a system of domination?

This is an academic course, and the texts we will examine are intellectually rigorous. At the same time, this course strives to be deeply personal. Since it’s about the idea of an intellectual tradition, and especially about the First-Year Core and the self-identified Western intellectual tradition, it should relate to the fundamental nature of your academic experiences at Whitman. And since it’s about systems of power / representation, the distinctions those systems draw, and ways of responding to those systems, it should relate to, well, all aspects of your life: the information that you seek and encounter through mass media, alternative media, on the internet, etc.; and the people you encounter at Whitman, in Walla Walla, at home, while studying abroad, etc. Most of all, the course strives to help you connect all of those: to help you see how your academic experiences on the one hand may reflect, and on the other hand can be used to respond to, the systems of power / representation that structure your encounters with information and people.

* * A good dictionary (you can’t understand the readings if you don’t know what the words mean!)

• Tzvetan Todorov, The Conquest of America (U of Oklahoma, 1984/1999).
  
  
• Richard Rodriguez, Brown: The Last Discovery of America (Penguin, 2002).
  
  
• Patricia Williams, The Alchemy of Race and Rights (Harvard, 1991).
  
  
• Dorothy Allison, Bastard out of Carolina (Plume, 1992).
  
  
• Edward Said, Orientalism (Vintage, 1978/1994/2003).
  
  
• Amitav Ghosh, In an Antique Land (Vintage, 1992).
  
  

All of these books are available in the Whitman Bookstore (as well as countless online bookstores), and are on three-hour reserve in Penrose Library.

• There is an e-mail list-server set up for the class, which students should feel free to use. Messages sent to gens245b_07sp@whitman.edu will still be forwarded to everyone in the class.
  
  
• I will often distribute important announcements, reminders, and clarifications through e-mail. It is your responsibility to check your account every day.
  

Preparation and Participation — 20% of your final grade

Brief essays (best 7 of 8) — 20% of your final grade

2 moderate-length papers — 30% of your final grade

Term project — 30% of your final grade

(More details about each assignment are available by clicking on it.)

* NOTE: You cannot pass the class if:
1. You miss more than 5 class meetings for any reason.
2. You miss more than 2 of the brief essays for any reason.
3. You miss or fail either of the papers or the term project for any reason.

All of the work that you submit in this course must be entirely your own. Of course, you can seek help in a variety of ways as you prepare your papers. So it is permitted (and even recommended!) for you to: consult additional readings, search for material on the internet, discuss your ideas with other students, exchange notes with other students, or read and discuss drafts of each other’s papers. If you do use someone else’s words or ideas in your written work, you must give proper acknowledgment. (Guidelines for citation can be found in Hacker’s Style Manual.)

Plagiarism will not be tolerated in any form. You have signed a statement indicating that you understand and will abide by the College policy on plagiarism. Any student caught plagiarizing will automatically fail the course, and may face more severe penalties from the College. (For more details, see the Student Handbook.)