GSS121G

This course introduces students to some major themes and concerns addressed in the literature of Asian American and Pacific Islander women writers. The course spans the twentieth century into the twenty-first, covering canonical and noncanonical texts, including novels, poetry, short stories, memoirs, and experimental and visual texts by Sui Sin Far, Maxine Hong Kingston, Hisaye Yamamoto, Lisa Linn Kanae, Caroline Sinavaiana, Jessica Hagedorn, Nora Okja Keller, and Miné Okubo. This course combines literary analysis with empire studies, cultural studies, women of color feminisms, and queer theory. Students explore the social, political, economic, and historical realities that shape the literature Asian American and Pacific Islander women produce, particularly the authors’ resistances to U.S. military histories and legal policies. They examine writers’ decolonial practices in spaces of U.S. imperialism and their responses to American immigration policies, war, and adoption practices.