SCRT 181W: Critical Reading, Critical Writing
SENG 2000: Seminar in English and American Literature
“Selfhood and Community”
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“People Are Strange, When You’re a Stranger”
In their 1967 song “When You’re Strange,” American rock band The Doors sing about difference, alienation, vulnerability, and the ways in which one’s view of the self can be projected onto others: “People are strange, when you’re a stranger.” This course “Selfhood and Community” will examine the relationship between individuals and the communities that surround them, focusing on how individuals navigate a world that is strange and unfamiliar. Our course will cover a variety of communities including those formed around friends, families, states, nations, ethnicities, cultures, and languages. Our readings will be pulled from writers who also identify with multiple communities and whose work examines how characters navigate communities in conflict with one another.
