Identity: A Big Ideas Course Series Offering at NYU

“What is an identity? Does everyone have one? How is identity formed, and how permanent is it? Is it strictly a human phenomenon, or do other entities have them?” Dr. Jennifer L. Morgan’s Big Ideas Course Series course on identity set out to answer questions like these. She and Dean for the Humanities Carolyn Dinshaw pulled out all the stops with the curriculum. The resulting seven-week spotlight was a comprehensive, interdisciplinary approach. It included sociology, history, gender and sexuality studies, media studies, and more. Through a series of thought-provoking lectures from top scholars, students learned to view what many consider an intimately personal experience through the much broader lens of human culture and history.

“I’m sure that many students initially signed up for the course thinking about their own experience of identity. Like, ‘I want to know more about me,’” says Dr. Morgan. She is the chair of the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis as well as a professor with the Department of History. “But what they ended up with was this incredible arsenal of tools with which to think about identity as political and shifting and historical, as singular and as collective, as indigenous and as diasporic, and even as corporeal.”

The Big Ideas Course Series as a whole was created to “mobilize the strengths of NYU to develop a new academic experience,” according to Dr. Charlton McIlwain. He is a professor of Media, Culture, and Communication as well as the Vice Provost for Faculty Engagement and Development at NYU. During the pandemic, this meant giving undergraduate students from any NYU school or location access to our community’s world renowned thinkers. It also meant using technology to inspire new kinds of learning, and crafting an interdisciplinary courses geared toward addressing some of the biggest conversations dominating public attention today. And led by a dozen brilliant experts at the top of their respective fields, that’s exactly what Dr. Morgan’s identity course did.

Each week, students watched a pair of interconnected lectures. They heard from speakers like Distinguished Writer in Residence Salman Rushdie or Professor of History and Irish Studies Kevin Kenny. Then, they began formulating their responses for the class discussion board. This Big Ideas course was entirely asynchronous—the students never gathered virtually—which meant that their conversations were through written responses. But students were able to dig deep. They made incredible connections because of their spectrum of experiences, both academically and in life as a whole.

“The topics produced so many opportunities for students to use their distinct cultural experiences to offer an idea or argument or analysis,” says Justin Linds. He is a Ph.D. student in American Studies who also served as a teaching assistant for the class. “When talking about language and identity, I remember students saying, ‘What do gendered articles do to the nature of gender in Spanish?’ And then someone else would add, ‘What about Korean?’ Or, “What about Arabic?’ That cross-cultural perspective brought so much to the class.”

Each week, this Big Ideas course offered lectures grounded the analysis of identity in a different discipline. Some lectures—like the ones by Professor of Art & Public Policy and Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies Ella Shohat and Professor of History Hasia Diner—focused on Jewish, Arab, and Middle Eastern identity. Diana Taylor, Professor of Performance Studies and Spanish, looked at indigenous identities. Meanwhile, Chris Straayer, Associate Professor of Cinema Studies, talked about transplantation surgeries—surgeries involving organs like the face or uterus—from the perspective of film and media.

“There are two groups who normally receive these surgeries. They are transgender people who are seeking gender reassignment surgery, and members of the military seeking surgery for war injuries,” Justin summarized. “Professor Straayer discussed how the public discourse for these situations is totally different. American military veterans will be seen as ‘deserving.’ Meanwhile, trans people sometimes won’t.” Straayer’s lecture was also a chance to explore how identity is rooted in the body rather than simply constructed by ideas. In other words, the degree that someone’s hands or face or other features affects how they see themselves.