English 179 - Winter, 2021

Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States

Class Information

Instructor: Hsu, Hsuan L.
Time: TR 1:40-3:00
Location: Remote Instruction
GE Areas: American Cultures, Governance, and History Domestic Diversity Writing Experience

Description

This course will consider how literary works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People-of-Color) authors have framed and responded to specific historical contexts of racialization (or the social making and remaking of ?race?)?such as slavery, immigration, refugee migration, Islamophobia, imperial wars, colonization, racialized labor, and environmental injustice. To that end, we will put literary concepts in dialogue with concepts drawn from interdisciplinary scholarship, such as trauma, microaggression, criminalization, mimicry, comparative racialization, survivance, and settler colonialism. Through readings, discussions, and writing assignments, the class will explore conceptual frameworks for understanding how different contexts of racialization (as well as its interactions with other aspects of identity such as class, gender, sexuality, and ability) inflect psychological, historical, and social aspects of everyday life, as well as how these conditions of experience shape?and are shaped by?literary form.

Grading

participation, attendance, and informal writing: 30%
five 2-pg response papers: 50%
presentation: 20%

Texts

Citizen, Claudia Rankine
Brother, David Chariandy
Under the Feet of Jesus, Helena Maria Viramontes
The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Mohsin Hamid
The Marrow Thieves, Cherie Dimaline