ENGL 257 B: Asian-American Literature

This course will examine the historical currents that necessitated the emergence of an Asian Pacific American literary sensibility, in conjunction with a consideration of the difficulties and possibilities inherent to in this categorization. Asian American populations have been deeply impacted by restrictive immigration legislation and American foreign policy, putting its peoples in a unique position for defining Americanness. How do artists with an Asian ancestry challenge a country that ostensibly celebrates diversity yet looks with suspicion on the foreign? We will be reading the short stories of Jhumpa Lahiri, the essays of Carlos Bulosan, the play M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang, watching Margaret Cho’s I’m the One that I Want, and novels by Annie Choi and Chang-rae Lee.