Please (Don’t) Trigger Me: Navigating the Crosscurrents

of Identity Politics in the CIEE classroom

Jonathan Key, Academic Manager I CIEE Amsterdam

Defining (and tracking) identity politics

▪Basic definition: the discussion of -- and/or the political activism around -- issues
pertaining to identity, in particular the identities of marginalized social groups, with
the ultimate goal of bringing about both full equality in all spheres of life and the
right to self-determination for these groups

▪Discussions of identity politics in the US college classroom have shifted from a policy
of “don’t (don’t) trigger me” to “please (don’t) trigger me.”

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Case study: coming to terms with Imitation of Life (Sirk, 1959)

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From analyzing effects to unpacking affect

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Characterizing U.S. (campus) identity politics circa now

▪A deep affective investment

▪An aversion to respectability politics
▪An insistence on categorial purity + a perfect alignment between philosophy and
praxis
▪An underlying (and sometimes unexamined) reliance on essentialist thinking
▪A tendency toward presentism -- i.e. an unwillingness to situate specific iterations of
questions/representations of identity within their historical context
▪A hyper-politicization of (personal) identity
▪A commitment to leaning in + engaging with the issues vs. the (personal) safety of
leaning back

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Implications for the CIEE classroom

▪How do we bridge our students’ US-centric understanding of identity issues and

their geographically and historically specific histories with an analysis of these issues
in the host country?
▪How do we facilitate a discussion of identity issues in the host country when the
discourse itself has been produced in -- and is to some extent specific to -- North
America?
▪E.g. white privilege, snowflakes, microaggressions, queer-baiting
▪How do we prevent our students from projecting a North American identity politics
on discussions of identity in the host country?
▪Given students’ emotional attachment to questions of identity, how do we ensure
their (and our CIEE faculty members’) emotional well-being?
▪How do we do all this with finite resources and a limited amount of time?

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(A)Cross purposes
THANK
YOU