This course is an introductory survey of Asian North American literature and criticism. Given their similar immigration policies and cultural specificities, North America here includes Canada and the U.S.A., and Asia here is understood as East Asia as South(east) Asia has another complicated British or European colonial history. Since this is an introductory class in nature, we will read the excerpts and a long novel from major works from the late 19th century to the present. While discerning the broad scope of Asian American literature as a whole, we will emphasize the recurring themes, the bi-cultural contexts in which these writers wrote, and their literary experimentation and innovation over the time.

To supplement our readings of literary texts, we will study selected works of criticism, history, and social sciences. As heterogeneity is a crucial concept in defining the umbrella term “Asian American,” an important goal will be to understand Asian North Americans as diverse groups and individuals given their different historical and cultural backgrounds. Not only will we study East Asian (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Eurasian) North American (American and Canadian) writers, but we will also attend to varieties of sexual, regional, and religious identity, noting especially how these are shaped in and through history. The course also attempts to cover all genres (short story, poetry, fiction, prose, graphics) to give the students a panoramic view of the “heterogeneity” in this quite established discipline.