- Asian American Women in Literature & Media

Catalog description

An exploration of the relationship between race, gender, and genre in U.S. literature and media by and about Asian American women from the twentieth century through the present. The course examines how Asian American women have been figured by interconnected modes of power, injustice, identity formation, representation, and knowledge production, as well as histories of U.S. wars, empire, immigration, and labor. Questions that the course addresses include: why have realist novels and autobiographies by women been the dominant genre of Asian American literature? What happens to the figure of the Asian American woman in more experimental and extravagant genres? How and to what end have various genres figured Asian American women as national, transnational, and/or diasporic figures? The course introduces students to major concepts and developments in Asian American literary and cultural studies and gender studies.