19. Philip Roth, The Human Stain

The American Novel Since 1945 (ENGL 291)\r
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In this lecture on The Human Stain, Professor Hungerford traces the ways that Roths novel conforms to and pushes beyond the genre she calls the Identity Plot. Exploring the various ways that race can be construed as category, mark, biology, or performance, the novel ultimately construes the defining chareristic of its protagonists race to be its very concealment. Secrecy is, for Roth, the source of identity and the driving force behind desire and narrative.\r
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00:00 - Chapter 1. Roths Mundane Modern Context: Historical Markers of the 1990s\r
05:59 - Chapter 2. Roths Identity Plot: The Performance of the Self\r
16:36 - Chapter 3. Classification as Definition\r
21:25 - Chapter 4. The Body as Sign: Moments of Irreducible Otherness\r
27:18 - Chapter 5. Speech and Secrecy: Locating Identity in the Interval\r
41:31 - Chapter 6. Desire and Difference\r
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Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: \r
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This course was recorded in Spring 2008.