Topics in American Culture Studies:

Who is a "real" Asian and who is "fake"? Why do stereotypes like "banana" and "coconut" exist? Is cultural identity real or are we just performing certain identities to fit into social positions? This course will address these identarian questions that shape Asian American Literatures. We will draw from the "pen wars" in the 1970's and reflect on the liminality of various Asian American writers caught between Asian and American loyalties. We will unpack real, fake and fabricated identities and discuss how identities have been historically shaped by race, gender, class, but are gradually moving beyond these categories into intersectional realities of selective racialization, desirable, and cosmopolitan Asianess. Utilizing the concept of "racial formation", the course will specifically interrogate four central dynamics of Asian American identity: the politics of Asian American scholarship, frameworks of Asian American representation, the task of the ethnic writer, and the liminal dynamics of New Asian American identities in the age of digitalization and social media. Finally, the course will help students reflect, question and realize their own identarian influence and characteristics, improving critical thinking on modern issues and the habit of reflective reading and writing.
Course Attributes: EN H; BU Hum; AS HUM; FA HUM; AR HUM

Topics in American Culture Studies:

HISTORY 3521

Section 01