Introduction
While week one of NCLC 130 works as a general introduction to the work of the Unit as a whole, each of the subsequent weeks probes a single, though wide-ranging, theme. On the right you will find links to overviews of each of those weeks. Each overview outlines the intellectual framework of the week. It will also include links to any online material you need to research, and may offer additional information on particular authors or particular texts.

If you want a quick guide to the overarching shape of the Unit, we definitely recommend that you read through all five weekly overviews. Read, them, too, when you are thinking about, and writing, your integrative projects. We have tried to show how each week links to those which precede and follow it. We have also identified moments at which themes from other Units reappear in the new contexts of NCLC 130: The Social World.

Please enjoy your reading. We enjoyed our writing.

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Week Two: Identity
(Suzanne Scott)
Expect this week's work on Identity to rock your world! Some of your most cherished assumptions about fixed identities may be challenged as we explore issues of race, class, and gender as social constructions that are fluid and that change across cultures and through time.

In Unit I, you explored the question "How do I know who I am?" Through various readings and classroom discussions you carefully scrutinized your own sense of self and your generation. When you examined this central question, you were pursuing the concept of identity.

In this unit, you will expand your understanding of identity by investigating the concept of identity from historical and contemporary perspectives. We begin the week with a survey of the shifting views of the world and the place of humans in it. Two historical perspectives from Kuhn and Foucault explore scientific and artistic knowledge to discern how humans made sense of the world at various points in history.

Unit III's Professor Scott and Professor Lynne Constantine from the Department of Art and Visual Technology, delve into the contemporary concepts of identity through a performance art piece, "Eye to I to Eye." They remind us all of the high personal stakes involved in the concept of identity. The performance piece will introduce you to an influential contemporary art form that is especially popular among social action artists. The performance explores how issues of personal, familial, cultural, racial and social identities shift, collide and converge.

Professor Debra Bergoffen's lecture on Sigmund Freud provides insight into Freud's groundbreaking concepts about the human psyche and about human development. This famous Viennese psychiatrist is known as the "Father of psychiatry" because of his theories of the unconscious. His work signaled a shift from an optimistic western belief in rational human behavior to the idea that behavior is driven by an amoral unconscious. Freud's work is an important part of the week's foundation of identity because he was part of a groundswell of philosophical, scientific, political, literary, and artistic inquiry during the late 19th and early 20th centuries that undermined the Enlightenment's confidence in human nature as rational, predictable and perfectible and of human understanding as capable of seeing, naming and knowing the whole of the universe.

We explore the residual effects of those attitudes in western cultures thorough our examination of race, class and gender as social constructions. Both Marilyn Frye's article, "Oppression," and Judy Brady's "I Want a Wife, are feminist classics that describe the structural, systemic nature of oppression. They help us understand the power issues in the inequities of our culture's gender roles. Kate Bornstein and Deirdre McCloskey, both contemporary male-to-female transsexuals, challenge our assumptions of absolute sexual identities in "Which Outlaws?" and "Yes, Ma'am."

Bornstein challenges the idea of biological determinism and postulates the idea of a continuum of genders rather than the binary male-female. McCloskey writes about the codes of femininity and masculinity in our culture and the ways that transgender individuals have to work to make sure they understand the cultural codes. Ursula LeGuin's, "Left Hand of Darkness," is a fictional story that turns traditional assumptions about gender and sexual identities upside down.

We close out the week with a viewing of The Hidden Half,the story of a university student in Teheran, Iran, at the time of the Iranian revolution. The film charts the changes that occur in personal identity as a result of changing ideologies and political regimes. Throughout the week, you will be asked to explore issues that will make you uncomfortable and will challenge you to think in new ways about old topics.

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Week 3: Ideology
(Robert Bernard)
The concept of ideology is difficult to grasp in a tangible sense. It often seems vague and abstract, and yet its manifestations and consequences are very real and direct. It is personal - a state of mind, perhaps both conscious and unconscious, that directly influences how you understand and operate in the world. It is also societal - a varied system (state, church, community) that inspires and "naturalizes" community behavior. In this section of NCLC 130, you will be taking a closer look at different ideological perspectives, how they are identified and criticized, and how they emerge in our perceptions and behaviors.

The week begins with John Lye outlining some of the history and development of ideology in some of its forms as well as its analysis and practice. You should keep referring to this paper, as well as the questions he provides, as a way of anchoring and monitoring your own development. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels developed the term in the mid-nineteenth century as a way to interrogate existing and historical cultures and class structures. Their own attempt at an ideological construct is in evidence in the Communist Manifesto, which lays the groundwork for what is understood as Marxism, and later misunderstood as communism. You may be surprised to discover the eloquence and directness of the text as well as how useful it can be as a device for "unpacking" modern societies. To complement this key document, you will also be looking at some of the ways Marxist principles were adjusted and put into practice in Russia.

On day two, Plato's dialog in Euthyphro will demonstrate the "Socratic method" for interrogating ideological influences. You may also uncover here the origins of some of our current ideological positions concerning truth and justice. The dialog between Socrates and Euthyphro should be kept in mind as you closely examine Christianity as an ideology. Begin your analysis by contrasting the texts of Tertullian, as representative of orthodox Christianity, and the Gnostic gospels, as assembled and discussed by Eileen Pagels. Pagels' interests lie in exposing how orthodox Christians have interpreted religious texts and what may have been "lost" in those interpretations. Friedrich Nietzsche, who at least at first glance appears to be simply an anarchist, also contributes to this dialog. He encourages us to recognize that we subscribe to rules and concepts that are inhibiting and demeaning. Or, perhaps Nietzsche is "radically honest," asking why we choose to conform to ideologies that have no basis in what it is to be human.

After looking at how different burgeoning ideologies influence and instigate widespread global changes between 1750 and 1850 in Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, the week is capped off by the film To Live and several readings on China. To Live follows the life of one family in China during the forty-year period before, during and after the Cultural Revolution. The film serves to demonstrate transformations on two fronts. First, it shows the rapid evolution, or revolution, of a society from Confucian ideals, to Marxist idealism, and finally to communist practice. It also displays the personal transformations required of individuals during times of rapid change.

The texts that accompany the film include primary sources with a variety of commentary and analysis by those in power in communist China as well as the disenfranchised. A synopsis of the historical foundation of Confucian ideology, as well as some analysis of its practice, is provided by Tu Wei-ming. There are also some selections from The Analects, which are the original Confucian texts. Confucianism cannot be understood simply as a religion or any other societal moral structure familiar to the western consciousness. It is, in a way, a study in contrasts -abstract and intangible and yet steeped in the pragmatic common sense of its day. Confucianism eventually becomes the entrenched moral structure for China and other Eastern countries for over two thousand years, and it still remains part of the modern consciousness.

The film and readings this week provide you with a set of tools to help you understand the shape, texture, and function of ideologies. Consider where you stand, how these perspectives influence you, what you believe, and how you perceive and interact with the world. You also need to keep in mind that even as you are reading and understanding different ideological perspectives and analyses, you are reading this from your own ideological perspective, which is in part unique to you and your experiences but also common and shared with others. You are already living and, we hope, thriving in a pluralistic society with many different ideologies working together. While these readings encompass at least a partial global perspective on the concept, they also demonstrate how you can understand your own environment a little better.

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Week Four: Imperialisms
(Lesley Smith)
In the first century after the birth of Christ, a long-serving Syrian soldier shivering on Hadrian's Wall in the north of England could think of himself as a citizen of the Roman Empire. Nearly two thousand years later, schoolchildren in the English-speaking Caribbean learned to call the tiny, northern European island of Britain their "Mother Country," and when they traveled they carried passports that confirmed their citizenship of the British Empire. And in their recently published book, America Unbound, foreign policy experts Ivo H. Daalder and James M. Lindsay accuse President Bush and his policy team of attempting to extend an American "democratic imperialism" across the globe. But what does this word empire really mean, and how might we begin to understand what constitutes imperialism at the beginning of the twenty-first century?

In its most traditional sense, empire refers to the extension of rule or influence by one government, nation or society over another, usually by the deployment of superior force. At the beginning of the week we chart the ways in which such empires grow and sustain themselves. The work of Mary Louise Pratt offers us analytical tools to explore the complex relationships of repression, resistance and co-existence between empire-builders and those whom they subject. Two very different imperial systems then fall under our scrutiny.

At the end of the fifteenth century, seamen from northwestern Europe launched themselves across the Atlantic and down the coast of Africa under the patronage of kings and queens greedy for new sources of wealth (and thus power). Within a hundred years of Christopher Columbus' first landfall in the Caribbean in 1492, the Spanish monarchs had conquered and appropriated huge tracts of Central and Latin America (and decimated their human and mineral resources). In the process, as Pratt makes clear, we Westerners developed attitudes and patterns of behavior towards unfamiliar peoples and cultures that persist to the present day.

In the nineteenth century, a highly competitive global financial and trading economy unleashed new waves of European and American empire building, in which the governments of these industrialized countries view Africa and Asia as doubly exploitable. Not only were these continents stripped of their raw materials, but they were also deliberately turned into captive markets for industrial products.

Such formal empires evaporated in the twentieth century. Yet, as the second half of this week suggests, imperialism itself still flourishes. In the last century, the United States emerged as the dominant world power (just as the Spanish monarchy had been in the sixteenth century). Through a combination of a site visit, a lecture by Director of the Latin American Studies Program at Mason and readings of primary sources, we shall assess how the United States has exerted its political and economic influence throughout Latin America, and examine how a subtle system of economic and cultural dominance is shaping an informal imperialism every bit as powerful as that created through naked, unilateral conquest.

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Week Five: Imagined Communities
(Sean Andrews)

"Imperialism encouraged the masses, and especially the potentially discontented, to identify themselves with the imperial state and nation, and thus unconsciously to endow the social and political system represented by that state with justification and legitimacy. [. . . .] In short, empire made good ideological cement"(70).

"Once rival powers began to carve up the map of Africa or Oceania, each naturally tried to safeguard against an excessive portion (or a particularly attractive morsel) going to the others. Once the status of a great power thus became associated with raising its flag over some palm fringed beach [. . .] the acquisition of colonies itself became a status symbol, irrespective of their value"(67).

The above quotes, from the Hobsbawm reading that starts the week, refer to the time period he calls "The Age of Empire." Following from the theme of last week, we will look at the late nineteenth and early twentieth century which was the height of a certain type of imperialism. Last week we discussed the history (and alternative histories) of imperialism. This week we turn to one of the driving ideological forces behind these Empires and their eventual overthrow: the idea of the nation.

What is a nation? Are nations constituted by history, ethnicity, language, politics, or power? What holds a nation together? Where and how are the boundaries of a nation determined? Who is included and who is excluded in the process of creating and maintaining national identity? Is a "nation" distinct from a "state" -- a territory controlled by a particular government? How does nationalism intersect with other forms of community -- class, gender, race, religion, or region, for instance? How do technology and mass media affect the formation of national or other sorts of community? In week five of Unit III, we will draw on what we have learned about ideology, imperialism, and identity to investigate these questions as we explore the nature and evolution of nations and other "imagined communities."

In order to address these questions, we will examine a variety of historical and theoretical perspectives. We will begin by exploring the historical roots of modern nationalism in the nineteenth century -- a story that is intimately related to the history of western European imperialism. From there, we will take on Benedict Anderson's path breaking conception of nations as "imagined communities" -- as paradoxical entities that are constituted primarily by the fact that people imagine themselves to be part of them.

As the week progresses, we will explore specific historical examples throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century of the roles that nations and other imagined communities have played. In addition to providing some of the impetus for the expansion of empires, nationalism was also a driving force in most anti-imperial movements. We will look at this generally and in the specific case of India through a film and detailed examination of primary and secondary sources.

As India fought to gain independence from British rule in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, leaders and people alike struggled to imagine an independent India that could include the ethnically, linguistically, and religiously diverse population of the region. Moreover, India's leaders struggled to define a form of nationalism that rejected the legacies of British colonialism while at the same time bringing India into a modern community of nations. As we will see, this eventually led to the violent partition of the British Colony into two nation-states.

We will finish the week by looking at the much larger imagined communities of what came to be known as the first, second and third world. During the Cold War each of these imagined communities to become more clearly defined even as their supposed essences seemed to be largely without substance. The films and readings illustrate the profound tensions and contradictions in imagining nationhood and suggest the broader issues and problems of nationalism in the modern world. This will lead us into our consideration of interconnection and globalization in week six.

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Week 6: Interdependence
(Jennifer Dougherty)
The exchange of people, goods and ideas across time and space are the hallmarks of globalization. The concept of the world as a single place reaches back for generations. However, increased travel and trade, communication technology, the rapid spread of capitalism and free market ideology are just a few of the modern day agents of rapid globalization, which distinguish modern day globalization from incipient globalization.

With increased contact has come increased interdependence. Some of the problems spawned by globalization, particularly environmental degradation and diminished ecological health, require global, coordinated responses because these problems are not confined by geographical location and do not recognize where one state ends and where another one begins. During this week, we will consider the historical roots of globalization, its modern manifestation, its agents and its negative as well as positive effects on the global society and the social world as we know it.

Some contend that one negative consequence of globalization is genocide. Samantha Power has called genocide "A Problem From Hell." But despite the hellish conditions associated with genocide, attributing its origin to metaphorical or metaphysical extraction is not something this course has prepared you to do. Genocide is the product of complex global and local social relations. It is not only an explosion of local hatreds and prejudices, but the indirect result of global structures of power and the pressures they exert (or fail to exert) on countries in distinctive, tenuous circumstances. The same sorts of political and economic environments which have helped to create some of the largest waves of migrants and refugees have also contributed to the epic events in places like Rwanda.

For this reason, it is important to start the week considering some of the more global conditions, their relation to the conditions already studied with regard to nationalism and imperialism, and the specific effects they have had on particular regions of the world. Ankie Hoogvelt's chapter on Africa and the postcolonial world and Stephanie Black's documentary on the economic and social degradation of Jamaica should frame our discussions of the genocide in Rwanda - not as the fundamental causes, but as often overlooked systemic pressures.

In global power relations, as with social relations in general, we are often taught to assume outcomes are the result of intentions, employing a pessimistic functionalism that assumes something works a certain way because someone built it to work that way. This makes it easy to see things in Manichean terms (good/evil); it is much more difficult to attempt understand the multitude of relationships and their often unpredictable outcomes.

Moving on to Rwanda, we will consider the role of various other historical forces-such as colonization, religion, and the blind obedience of mobs caught up in the fog of war. We will also step back and consider the moral implications of the question of intervention. After the Nazi Holocaust, western nations pledged that they would "never again" sit idly by as a genocide unfolded: is this pledge a valid one? Is it possible to uphold it? Who should decide and by what criteria? Why do some forms of ethnic cleansing seem more acceptable than others? Most importantly, if you found yourself in such a situation, do you believe you would act any differently?

We will then briefly consider the recent surge in migration - which, as noted above, is not unrelated to the global conditions of genocide. We will look at some of the patterns of migration that are forming and meditate on what the experience of migration (and of needing to leave one's home) might be like.

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