Programs and Areas

Asian American literature—typically understood as literature produced by people of Asian descent in the United States—is a diverse and rapidly growing body of work whose history extends at least as far back as the nineteenth century. Asian American studies, as a field of research and teaching, however, is much more recent, having emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s as a result of the anti-war, student, and ethnic movements energized during that period. In light of these conditions, Asian American literary studies has undertaken a variety of research projects and pursued several lines of inquiry: recovering lost or neglected writers of Asian descent; formalizing Asian American literature as a distinct body of work while simultaneously recognizing its inherent heterogeneity; and moving beyond a “cultural nationalist” approach and toward engagements with issues of gender and sexuality, class, comparative racialization, imperialism, and diaspora.

580: Special Topics in Gay and Lesbian Literature and Language (periodically taught with a focus on queer Asian American and African American literatures)
581: Special Topics in U.S. Ethnic Literature and Culture (periodically taught with a focus on a specific Asian American group)
587: Studies in Asian American Literature and Culture
758: Introduction to Graduate Study in U.S. Ethnic Literature (periodically taught with an Asian American literature focus)
858: Seminar in U.S. Ethnic Literature and Culture (when taught with an Asian American literature focus)

Pranav Jani, Assistant Professor
Martin Joseph Ponce, Assistant Professor

Binaya Subedi, Assistant Professor, Teaching and Learning
Judy Wu, Associate Professor, History and Women’s Studies