Description
From Benjamin Franklin to Beyonce, individuals make choices about how to represent themselves according to a complex web of cultural ideals, social pressures, and historical contexts. Over the course of the term we will seek to answer the questions, “How do we tell the stories of who we are?” and “Why?” We will look at the ways that representations of the self shift with the introduction of new communication methods—like selfies, Snapchats, and Instagram stories—as well as turning the lens to ourselves, seeking to discover what ideals and expectations are embedded in the stories we tell about who we are. We will look at the question from a wide angle that includes both historically significant literary documents and pop-culture texts across cultures, asking how representations of the self shift across cultural norms and expectations. Ultimately, we will compare the rhetorical strategies at stake to those that we, as individuals, use to announce ourselves to the world when answering the