Course Description
The purpose of this directed reading is to enable the student to become familiar with, and then critically engage with, key moments in the development of Asian American critical discourses. The working hypothesis of this directed reading is that Asian American culture is not a stable pre-constituted object awaiting excavation and discovery; we will instead approach it as an process of contestation and critical reformulation that is not yet settled. Our starting point will be critical accounts of the Asian American movement dating from the 1968-1969 students strikes at San Francisco State College and UC Berkeley. We will then examine other key moments including but not limited to the following: “the fall of the International Hotel” in San Francisco; the murder of Vincent Chin in Detroit; the controversy over the popularity of Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior; the heated debates surrounding Ron Takaki’s popular history Strangers from a Different Shore; and the near implosion of the Association for Asian American Studies following the granting–and subsequent rescinding–of a book award for Lois-Ann Yamanaka’s novel Blu’s Hanging. As we explore these key moments, we will read key texts by critics and scholars including Elaine Kim, Sau-ling Cynthia Wong, King-Kok Cheung, Roy Miki, Iyko Day, Mark Chiang, and Christopher Lee.