Category: Contemporary Asian American Storytelling

Course One – Literature This course seeks to examine contemporary Asian American literature through its different parts: novels, short stories, and personal essays. While reading all of the texts is highly recommended, the course objectives can be applied to individual texts as well. Prominent themes that emerge throughout the readings in this course include form, national identity, intergenerational family, blackness, and fiction versus nonfiction. Course Readings Novels Native Speaker by Chang-Rae Lee The Other Side of Paradise by Staceyann Chin Short Stories & Essays “The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu…

Course Two – Poetry This course seeks to examine how Asian American poets have utilized page poetry as narrative storytelling. Particularly, it seeks to interrogate how Asian American writers have used poetry in a distinct way from literature to express complex lived realities. Themes in the readings include the production of history, biracialism, postmodernism, Asian futurism, immigrant masculinity, colonialism, and language. Course Readings Collections Engine Empire by Cathy Park Hong Lucky Fish by Aimee Nezhukumatathil Poems “The Gift” by Li-Young Lee “Thaw” by Jane Wong “March of the Hanged Men”…

This course seeks to expand the conventional understanding of Asian American narrative storytelling beyond literature and poetry. Particularly, it engages with new forms and mediums afforded by the modern era that blur the line between traditional forms. The seminal text in this section, Dictee, is a postmodern work demanding complex analysis and secondary sources. This section also explores spoken word poetry as a unique vehicle for Asian American narrative expression. The central themes in this section include fragmented identity, gender, sexual assault, queerness, imperialism, language, and family. Suggested Readings Hybrid…