ENGL 265-03, Special Topics: Asian American Literature, Spring 2015

Abstract

This course offers an introduction to Asian American literature, examining key cultural and theoretical texts published in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries under the category of “Asian America.” We will trace how writers and literary works negotiate legacies of Orientalism, internment, labor exploitation, the model minority myth, and U.S. multiculturalism to narrate and theorize what it means to be Asian American. Beginning with early works like John Okada’s No-No Boy and Maxine Hong Kingston’s Woman Warrior, we will go on to investigate Asian American takes on a variety of genres at the turn of the twenty-first century: realism, historical fiction, speculative fiction, magical realism. Alongside this literature, we will read key theoretical texts on Asian American politics, literature, and culture.