CSP 74 Reading and Writing Identity

How do we know ourselves, in relation to others? And what is the role of language in helping us bridge that gap? This course will explore answers to those time-honored questions using a distinctly modern lens: identity. Over the course of the semester, students will read original works by writers and politicians grappling with various class, race, and gender identities in America and then contextualize those conversations within the larger cultural, rhetorical, and place-based frameworks that produced them. In doing so, students will learn how to perform a linguistic analysis of the Culture Wars, exploring how written self expression shapes our political imaginations and decoding the degree to which - or even if - the rhetorics of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Donald Trump, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Rebecca Traister, and David Brooks share any common ground. By comparing and contrasting the speech patterns of different writing styles and learning how to trace subjecthood on the sentence, paragraph, and essay level, students will be introduced to foundational concepts in composition and writing studies while improving their analytical, close reading, and communications skills. This course will culminate in a research assignment analyzing how select rhetorics around identity surface throughout 2020 election coverage.