In 201, "remaking America," we are interested in the many ways Americans reconsider and revise their nation, their national self-understanding, and their personal identities. Of course I'm thinking about this as we prepare, but I'm pretty sure that this is not the only reason that I'm noticing lots of books and discussion on similar topics. If the early 20th century was a time of great concern for the reform of American society (women's suffrage, temperance, better government) and even as the years past a time of innovation (electricity, telephones, radio, movies, automobiles), the last 20th and early 21st are as surely a time of great interest in reconfiguring personal and group identity (gender, sexuality, race, family).
So here are links to NPR stories about three books that take up these themes in different genres:
Latte Revolution a young adult novel that takes up shifting understandings of racial identity.
Incognito a memoir and a one-man play by a man who, having grown-up as white, learned that his father was black.
Who We Are--And Should It Matter in the 21st Century? a non-fiction exploration of several intersecting identity factors (e.g. nationality, race, gender, sexuality) by a journalist who describes himself as "a black Brit who's lived in New York for nine years."
Although I have not included them here, I do notice that books and discussions about technology and about the USA's role in global politics and about the environment would also fit. There is one about being connected to the internet all the time, and many about what we eat, and lots about the end of the American century. So, AmCon students, stay alert and make a list that you can use in the fall.
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