21W.731-4 Writing and Experience, Spring 2002
Author(s)
Fox, Elizabeth
Alternative Title
Writing and Experience
Date Issued
June 2002
Abstract
MIT students bring rich cultural backgrounds to their college experience. This course explores the splits, costs, confusions, insights, and opportunities of living in two traditions, perhaps without feeling completely at home in either. Course readings include accounts of growing up Asian-American, Hispanic, Native American, and South-East Asian-American, and of mixed race. The texts include selections from Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior, Kesaya E. Noda's "Growing Up Asian in America," Sandra Cisneros's Woman Hollering Creek, Gary Soto's "Like Mexicans," Sherman Alexie's The Toughest Indian in the World, Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies, the movies Smoke Signals and Mississippi Masala, Danzy Senna's Caucasia, and others. We will also use students' writings as ways to investigate our multiple identities, exploring the constraints and contributions of cultural and ethnic traditions. Students need not carry two passports in order to enroll; an interest in reading and writing about being shaped by multiple influences suffices.
Subjects
identity
culture
tradition
ethnicity
cultural identity
ntercultural experience
Maxine Hong Kingston
Kesaya Noda
Gary Soto
Sherman Alexie
Jhumpa Lahiri
Danzy Senna
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Program in Comparative Media Studies/Writing
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