*本課程開放給外系研究生修習，國際學生亦歡迎選修，如名額有剩，可開放給外文系四年級學生，但須由老師同意。

In the new millennium, globalization has changed – in many productive or reductive ways – cultural productions and political realignments, including literary and cinematic representations in Asian North American imagination. This seminar proposes to tackle the interplay of history, geography, and desire in post-millennial Asian North American writing by providing a new narrative form of reading four literary works produced after 2000. With a focus on works underpinned by re-routing/rooting (literary) histories and locations, we will look at political as well as epistemological limits that open up various sites for questioning historical authenticity and fictionalizing geographical fixture. The four novels to be studied include Malaysian American Shirley Geok-Lin Lim’s Joss and Gold (2001); Vietnamese American Monique Truong’s The Book of Salt (2003); Singaporean Canadian writer Lydia Kwa’s The Walking Boy (2005); and Chinese Canadian writer Larissa Lai’s Salt Fish Girl (2002). The four novels written in the 21st century signal a new direction in Asian North American literature in their new take on conceptualizing race and nation through the relationship between aesthetic and social modalities of form in the postnational era. The seminar will also look at how the four writers imply or underpin the sense of “transnationalism” and “transhistoricism” before such idea emerged in the late 20th century.

評量方式 Grading
Presentation and Participation (40%)
One 20-page Research Paper (60%)


進度 Syllabus

第1週 Introduction

第2週 Theoretical Approaches and Topic Assignment

第3週 Joss and Gold

第4週 Joss and Gold

第5週 Joss and Gold

第6週 The Book of Salt

第7週 The Book of Salt

第8週 The Book of Salt

第9週 （Mid-term exam） Reading Week

第10週 The Walking Boy

第11週 The Walking Boy

第12週 The Walking Boy

第13週 Salt Fish Girl

第14週 Salt Fish Girl

第15週 Salt Fish Girl

第16週 Workshop on Paper Writing

第17週 Related Issues

第18週 Paper Due