COMPLIT 51Q: Comparative Fictions of Ethnicity
This course is expected to experience high student demand. Sophomores and new transfers who decide to rank a high-demand WRITE 2 course when making their three selections for priority enrollment are advised to select other IntroSems being offered the same quarter for their second and third choices.
Course Description
As social creatures, we may know "who" we "are." How does our sense of self shape our interactions with those around us? How does literature provide a particular medium not only for self-expression but also for meditations on the construction of the self? Don't we tell stories in response to the question, "Who are you?" We give our lives flesh and blood when telling how we process the world. A key part of understanding ethnicity is that it is relational, defined against another ethnicity, and that it never stands alone; it helps us diagnose larger social and historical issues.
In this seminar, we will embark upon an inquiry into both the formal and aesthetic properties of literary works and their location in our social, political, cultural, and personal lives. We will embark upon an inquiry into both the formal and aesthetic properties of literary works and their location in our social, political, cultural, and personal lives. We will read texts from Black, Palestinian, and Indigenous writers, and others. We will explore essays, short stories, a play, a fable, and science fiction.
This course fulfills the second-level Writing and Rhetoric Requirement (WRITE 2) and emphasizes oral and multimedia presentation.
Meet the Instructor: David Palumbo-Liu
"I have been teaching at Stanford for over 30 years, and came here from a very different kind of campus--Berkeley. I grew up in the late 60s and 70s and have an inordinate love for music of that era. In terms of scholarship I have published books on classical Chinese poetry, contemporary Asian/America, "global" literature, and have recently published a book on political voice. In terms of "public writing" I have written for the Washington Post, The Guardian, Jacobin, Al Jazeera, Truthout, and others." www.palumbo-liu.com, @palumboliu
