ENGL 257 A: Asian-American Literature

Our class Zoom link

Meeting ID: 975 0583 3629
Passcode: 299153

click here for the course syllabus, which includes the tentative reading schedule, brief assignment descriptions, late policy, and accommodation notices

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’ll look at the creation of “Asian American literature” as a category to examine this question. Why was Asian American literature created? Who is Asian American literature for? To explore these questions, we will consider the short stories of Jhumpa Lahiri; the essays of Carlos Bulosan and Alex Tizon; the comedy of Eddie Huang and Margaret Cho; and novels (in whole and in part) by Annie Choi, Bich Minh Nguyen, and Celeste Ng.

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