American Otherness and Otherness in America

Catalog description

The United States of America is founded on the idea of universal equality with respect to moral worth and fundamental rights. This radical idea, which had no precedent in history, has always been fundamental to America's self-understanding and to its singular place in the community of nations. And yet, the concept of 'otherness' has never been far from the surface in American political and cultural life. An official ideology of equality has never been able to eliminate real inequalities and exclusions that have produced, for some, feelings of entitlement or special distinction, and for many others, feelings of solitude, exclusion, or powerlessness. A sense of singularity, non-belongingness, apartness, or exceptionalness characterizes many of the most distinctive aspects of American culture. This tension between what America claims to stand for—a harmonious society in which everyone has equal moral worth and equal rights—and the reality of daily life for those who feel for whatever reason that they stand apart from the whole will be the subject matter of this course. This subject will be approached by reading foundational texts in which the ideology of equality is articulated, and by considering a wide range of other materials in which this ideology is explored, tested, or challenged. 001367