Why can’t we always be who we want to be? (Or can we?) Who historically has made the rules, and why? This Discovery Seminar will focus on “passing”—understood, in general, as the act of claiming an identity (racial or otherwise) for one’s self that the broader public would claim is not that individual’s “true,” “real,” or “authentic” identity (even if the passing individual really, truly, and authentically feels that it is). In this course, we will look at passing as represented in works of 20th- and 21st-century U.S. literature and film and then move on to talk about the ways in which social media may allow us to reimagine who we are—for others and for ourselves.