ETHN 3500: Special Topics in Ethnic Studies

ENGL 3290 Asian American Literature
Instructor: Dr. Su-ching Huang
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l Taught fully online: Students are required to have high-speed Internet access and an ECU Blackboard account.
l Prerequisite: ENGL 1200 Composition.
l Can be taken as an Asian Studies elective. /

Course Description

This course analyzes Asian American texts in their historical contexts, both as historical documents and as literary texts that are relevant to readers in varied situations. We will begin the semester with a historical overview of Asian American immigration and its depiction in film and literature. Then we will examine how Asian American identity has been constructed, from the angles of labor and immigration, internment of Japanese on the West Coast, sexuality, gender conflict, language, culinary practice, cultural negotiation and assimilation, and so on.

Required Texts (Available from amazon.com)

Kingston, Maxine Hong. The Woman Warrior. New York: Random, 1977.

Louie, David Wong. The Barbarians Are Coming. New York: Berkley-Penguin, 2000.

Okada, John. No-No Boy: a Novel. Rutland, VT.: Charles E. Tuttle, 1957.

Selections from (Selections available on Bb)

Hagedorn, Jessica, ed. Charlie Chan Is Dead: An Anthology of Contemporary Asian American Fiction. New York: Penguin, 1993.

---, ed. Charlie Chan Is Dead 2: At Home in the World. New York: Penguin, 2004.

Huynh, Jade Ngoc Quang. South Wind Changing. St. Paul, MN: Graywolf, 2000.

Lahiri, Jhumpa. Unaccustomed Earth. New York: Knopf, 2008.

Lee, Li-Young. Behind My Eyes: Poems. New York: Norton, 2008.

Lim, Shirley Geok-lin, ed. Asian-American Literature: An Anthology. Lincolnwood, IL: NTC, 2000.

Lim, Shirley Geok-lin. Sister Swing. Marshall Cavendish Editions, 2006.

Films

Carved in Silence (Dir. Felicia Lowe, 1988, 45 min, clips available on Bb)

The Cats of Mirikitani (Dir. Linda Hattendorf, 2006, 74 min, available from amazon.com)

My America, or Honk If You Love Buddha (Dir. Renée Tajima-Peña, 1997, 87 min, clips available on Bb)

Picture Bride (Dir. Kayo Hatta, 1995, 95 min, available from amazon.com or Netflix.com)

Rabbit in the Moon (Dir. Emiko Omori, 1999, 84 min, available from amazon.com)

Saving Face (Dir. Alice Wu, 2004, 91 min, available from amazon.com or Netflix.com)