Identity Politics
Essay 3: “The Invention of HeterosexualitY’ by Jonathan Ned Katz
Essay 5: “Racial Formations” by Michael Omi and Howard Win" rel="nofollow">inant
Essay 9: “Brin" rel="nofollow">ingin" rel="nofollow">ing Classism Into the Race and Gender Picture” by Chuck Barone
Essay 12: “What White Supremacists Taught a Jewish Scholar About IdentitY’ by Abby L- Ferber
Explore the meanin" rel="nofollow">ing of identity politics, drawin" rel="nofollow">ing on the readin" rel="nofollow">ings in" rel="nofollow">in the resources- Consider, for example, the followin" rel="nofollow">ing questions:
1- How did people become identified, historically, as heterosexual or homosexual (note that these specific distin" rel="nofollow">inctions were unknown until the latter part of the
nin" rel="nofollow">ineteenth century)?
2-How have people become pegged, as it were, to their ethnic group? (Note that St- Augustin" rel="nofollow">ine in" rel="nofollow">in the fourth century CE may have been “black,” that is, Afro-
Roman; it would not have occurred to the Romans to mention his “ethnicity-")
3- Speculate as to why these distin" rel="nofollow">inctions are so important to Americans- What do they say about American culture?