Identity, Equality, Democracy

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

How are identities important in a world of frictions and connections? How do different societies deal with cultural, linguistic, religious, gendered, embodied, intergenerational, and racialized diversities (and related injustice or inequality)? How are these accommodated within (more or less) democratic regimes? How do democracies change as a result? What are the differences between multiculturalism, relativism, and pluralism? The course addresses such questions by focusing on issues including but not limited to police violence and urban riots; Arab Uprisings; Muslim-Christian-Jewish relationships (conflict and coexistence) in Egypt and Iran; gendered practices and embodied aesthetics; the experience of refugees, and the crafting of identities, in the journey between Somalia and the US. We will also use news/magazine articles, as sources of information and as artifacts to be analyzed.