Question description

1. In Monsieur D’Eon is a Woman Gary Kates argues that the Chevalier’s ability to transform his identity emanated from many personal motivations and various social/cultural conditions in Revolutionary France and Georgian England. Identify and discuss D’Eon’s key personal motivations for his gender transformation and analyze the cultural conditions that made his identity transformation possible.

2. How do we see issues of identity and identification playing out in popular culture? How do you think popular culture understands and treats characters and people who challenge traditional notions of identity?

Extra Credit Short Essay Response (5 pts)

In “This is Water,” David Foster Wallace discusses the Liberal Arts education. He told the 2005 graduating class of Kenyon College the following:

I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience (Wallace, 2005).

In what ways has your liberal arts education thus far impacted how you think and how you exercise control over the meaning you take from your experiences?