Our sense of self is inextricably tied to our understanding of our past, both as individuals and as members of society. This sense of origins, however, is far from natural; it itself has its origins in the debates and politics of the time, and evolves under an array of influences. This course analyzes discourses of collective and individual identity and the mechanism involved in the formulation of the individual's sense of his or her place in the world. Topics include: nations and nationalism, representations of individual and collective pasts, collective memory and practices of remembrance, nostalgia and selective forgetting, narratives of childhood and a "golden age," the invention of tradition, museums and memorials, biography and memoirs, narratives of progression, and the making of national and family histories.