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Critical and Alternative Voices
The professors teaching Critical and Alternative Voices change frequently and thus so do the specifics of the syllabus. To give students an idea of what they might expect from the course, here is a copy of Shampa Biswas's spring 2008 syllabus. Below are links to several papers written for Critical and Alternative Voices:

The following books were included in the course during the Fall 2007 and Spring 2008 semesters. For the most up-to-date information, please consult the professor teaching the course.


OrientalismEdward Said, Orientalism
Twenty-five years after its first publication, Edward Said's groundbreaking critique of the West's historical, cultural, and political perceptions of the East has become a modern classic. In this wide-ranging, intellectually vigorous study, Said traces the origins of "orientalism" to the centuries-long period during which Europe dominated the Middle and Near East and, from its position of power, defined "the orient" simply as "other than" the occident. This entrenched view continues to dominate western ideas and, because it does not allow the East to represent itself, prevents true understanding. Essential, and still eye-opening, Orientalism remains one of the most important books written about our divided world.



Amitav Ghosh, In an Antique Land
Once upon a time an Indian writer named Amitav Ghosh set out to find an Indian slave, name unknown, who some seven hundred years before had traveled to the Middle East. The journey took him to a small village in Egypt, where medieval customs coexist with twentieth-century desires and discontents. But even as Ghosh sought to re-create the life of his Indian predecessor, he found himself immersed in those of his modern Egyptian neighbors.
Climbing shrewd observations with painstaking historical research, Ghosh serves up skeptics and holy men, merchants and sorcerers. Some of these figures are real, some only imagined, but all emerge as vividly as the characters in a great novel. In an Antique Land is an inspired work that transcends genres as deftly as it does eras, weaving an entrancing and intoxicating spell.

  • Biography of Ghosh from his website.



Richard Rodriguez, Brown: The Last Discovery of America
In his dazzling new memoir, Richard Rodriguez reflects on the color brown and the meaning of Hispanics to the life of American today. Rodriguez argues that America has been brown since its inception - since the moment the African and the European met within the Indian eye. But more than simply a book about race, Brown is about America in the broadest sense - a look at what our country is, full of surprising observations by a writer who is a marvelous stylist as well as a trenchant observer and thinker.

  • Biography of Rodriguez on PBS.



Alfred Lubrano, Limbo: Blue-Collar Roots, White-Collar Dreams
This powerful book uncovers a cultural phenomenon - the limbo existence of people raised in blue-collar families, living white-collar lives. Limbo presents a thoughtful look at this phenomenon through the author's personal story, and those of 100 interviewees, all struggling with the duality that exists in their workplaces, their hearts, and their minds.

  • Interview with Lubrano about Limbo on NPR.



Alchemy Patricia Williams, The Alchemy of Race and Rights: Diary of a Law Professor
Patricia Williams is a lawyer and a professor of commercial law, the great-great-granddaughter of a slave and a white southern lawyer. The Alchemy of Race and Rights is an eloquent autobiographical essay in which the author reflects on the intersection of race, gender, and class.
Links to sites about Williams and/or Alchemy of Race and Rights: