Paper Topics

1. Conduct an interview with a relative about his/her life history and analyze the interview to address the following questions: What are the major events in his/her life history? How are these events related to significant events outside of your relative’s own experiences? What aspects of your relative’s identity are most apparent? (race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, nationality, class.) What conceptual explanation(s) about identity (for example: biological, assimilationist, primordialist, etc) do you think your relative relies on to explain his/her life history? Be sure to explain why.

2. Select a region of the world, a historical period, or an issue (local or national) involving conflict over identity, research the conflict and address the following questions in your paper: What aspects of identity does the conflict involve? How did the conflict originate and who is involved? What conceptual explanations about identity are evident in this conflict? Is the conflict resolved? If yes, how was it resolved? If not, how would you apply some of the ideas you learned in this class to resolve it?