Introduction to Asian American and Diaspora Studies

To what extent does Asian American invisibility betray a constitutive role in U.S. history? After reviewing the rise of Asian American as a category and of Asian American studies as a field, this course will chart the shifting place of Asians in the modernizing of America by reading literary and cultural texts with ethnic historiography and criticism focused on im/migration, empire’s wars, and interracial diaspora and the future. In providing a critical history of Asian America, this course expands the field’s foundational concerns toward a transpacific and hemispheric Asia/America while exploring minor adoptions and resistances of America, including of its aesthetic and social movements. Instructor: Ku