Asian American Literature

Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian-American Writers (1974) was one of the earliest attempts to collect writings that were, to quote the editors, "exclusively Asian-American." Yet as their lengthy—and controversial—explanation of the selection process makes clear, Asian-American literature defies neat categorization. How do we determine that a work of literature is Asian American when the term itself has been continuously revised, contested, and expanded since it first came into common usage in the late 1960s as a political, pan-ethnic identification? Furthermore, when assessing whether a literary work is Asian American, how important are considerations of its thematic concerns, its relationship to specific cultural forms and traditions, and the author's background? This course is both a survey of Asian-American literature and an introduction to ongoing debates about what constitutes Asian America.