Instructor:
This course asks students to consider what it means to commit to issues facing those who are different from yourself, moving beyond simple gestures and feelings of empathy towards complicity and collaboration. This is a question that has been at the heart of some of the most important social movements on the American continent and beyond. In this course, we will consider examples of solidarity movements throughout the twentieth and twenty-first century that attempted to cross boundaries of nation, language, race, ethnicity, and gender. We will look to individual actors in those movements who built their lives around their solidarities, and we will consider the many artistic works –– such as murals, films, posters, and poems –– that these movements inspired. As we ask the question of what it means to act in solidarity, we will also consider the potential pitfalls of these movements, analyzing when solidarity crosses over into meddling, over-identification, and simplistic comparisons.