[Englmajors] CHID 480 F: Special Topics: “Mediating Identities: Technologies of the Self”

[Mel Wensel]

*Upcoming Course: **CHID 480 F: Special Topics: “Mediating Identities: 
Technologies of the Self”*
* Monday/Wednesday 10:30 AM-12:20 PM*
* Spring 2012
*

    “The sameness of a person or thing at all times or in all
    circumstances; the condition of being a single individual; the fact
    that a person or thing is itself and not something else;
    individuality, personality.”

    “Who or what a person or thing is; a distinct impression of a single
    person or thing presented to or perceived by others; a set of
    characteristics or a description that distinguishes a person or
    thing from others.”
    —“Identity,” /Oxford English Dictionary/

Carla Kaplan, in /Keywords for American Cultural Studies/, frames the 
difficulty of defining “identity,” saying, “One of our most common 
terms, ‘identity’ is rarely defined” (123).  Rather, in everyday 
language, we have a “personal identity” and have, depending on 
situation, multiple “social identities.”  Kaplan continues, “Personal 
identity is often assumed to mediate between social identities and make 
sense of them.  Whereas our social identities shift throughout the day, 
what allows us to move coherently from one to another is often imagined 
to be our personal identity, or ‘who we are’—our constant” (123).  
Outlined by the above definitions of identity is a tension, even 
contradiction: on the one hand, identity is seemingly fixed, 
intelligible, innate to an individual, or on the other, something that 
is performed, constructed, contextual, and perhaps changeable.  Our 
class will take up this unsettledness of identity and investigate its 
intersections with and co-constitution by technology.  In other words, 
in a world of increasing technological ubiquity, how might we imagine 
and define a “technological identity?”  What are the relationships 
between identity and technology?  How does technology shape our identity 
or identities and vice versa?  We will explore everyday technologies 
like fashion and consumer culture, cyberspace technologies like video 
games and social networking sites, and body modification technologies 
like cosmetic surgery and bioengineering.  Through literature, 
scholarship, digital media, and real world examples, our class will 
trace and trouble theoretical and vernacular understandings of identity 
and technology.  We will engage critical questions about subjectivity, 
embodiment, race, gender, sexuality, (dis)ability, post- and 
transhumanism, and how these things link up to discourses and ideologies 
about individuality, personhood, and power.  Texts may include in whole 
or in part: Michel Foucault, Dick Hebdige, John Perry Barlow, Sherry 
Turkle, Allucqere Rosanne Stone, Vernor Vinge, William Gibson, Alan 
Turing, Julian Dibbell, Donna Haraway, Thomas Foster, Lisa Nakamura, 
Judith Butler, Octavia Butler, Judith Halberstam, and others.

For more information, contact Edmond Chang at changed at uw.edu 
<mailto:changed at uw.edu>




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Edmond Y. Chang, PhD Candidate
2009-12 HASTAC Scholar
2009 UW Excellence in Teaching Award Recipient
Department of English / University of Washington
changed at u.washington.edu <mailto:changed at u.washington.edu> / 
http://staff.washington.edu/changed

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