Graduate Studies in Multi-Ethnic Literature

Catalog description

Since the beginnings of American literature, writers have been concerned with defining and creating American identity through their art. Since the 1960s, during and after the Civil Rights movement, numerous writers have defined their American identity in relation to specific ethnic identities, writing works that explore how dual or multiple cultural identities coexist within themselves and within American culture, sorting through the stories they've heard and created about who they are. In this course, we will read fiction, poetry, and essays by twentieth-century American authors who identify with African American, Native American, Asian American, Jewish, Latino and Chicano heritages. In addition to race and ethnicity, we will discuss how class, native language, religion, gender, sexuality, and history figure into these writers' images of an American self and community.