PMA 1130

FWS: Going Undercover: Radical Undercover Journalism and the (re)creation of Self

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2017-2018.

What would it be like to go through life as a completely different person? In order to expose and combat social injustice, journalists have crossed lines of race, gender, age, class and appearance and gone undercover, sometimes risking their reputations, sanity and even their lives. But what are the results of these experiments? Do the ends justify the sometimes ethically questionable means? How does "going undercover" affect an individual or a community? By examining works of John Howard Griffin, Sarah Jones, Morgan Spurlock, Barbara Ehrenreich, Norah Vincent and a variety of identity-probing texts, we examine the complex facets of diverse identities. The course facilitates a range of writing assignments and culminates in students devising and executing their own undercover journalism and research projects.

When Offered Fall, spring.

Satisfies Requirement First-Year Writing Seminar.

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