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Texts
Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club
Julie Otsuka, When the Emperor Was Divine
Gish Jen, Typical American
David Henry Hwang, M. Butterfly
Jhumpa Lahiri, Unaccustomed Earth
Nam Le, The Boat
Course
Description
This course is designed to introduce you to the diversity
and richness of Asian American texts, which link America to Asia through
literary ties as well as emotional bonds. In our class discussions, we will attempt to make connections between
the various texts by considering topics such as family relationships,
personal identity, racial stereotypes, cultural differences, gender
politics, and other themes that you discover in the readings.
This is a Writing Intensive course which also fulfills the General Education Race and Ethnicity requirement
(C4).
Learning Objectives
By the end of the semester, you should be able to:
- "see" various cultures through their literature
- develop your own interpretation of Asian American works within the
context of American literary history
- make thematic connections between Asian American texts and texts
in the more familiar literary "canon"
- articulate your readings and the connections that you make between
texts with clarity and persuasiveness
- continue to explore new texts on your own-- with confidence and
pleasure.
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