This course on Asian literary and cultural diaspora explores the migration in recent history of Asian people to places beyond Asia (such as Brazil, France, and the United States) or to locations within the Asia Pacific regions (Singapore, Australia, Fiji, Hawaii) (see Required Primary Texts below). The class will look at the ways that filmmakers, artists, writers, and scholars have depicted aspects of this diaspora in ways that have essentially shaped and transformed literary, artistic, and cultural landscapes in Asia (such as in Singapore), in the US, in South America, and in Britain. Partially due to contributions from artists and thinkers of the Asian diaspora, the field of English Studies today is significantly larger, more complex and diverse than it was several decades ago.
Several of the secondary readings trouble the prevailing understanding of Asian diaspora as it is accounted for using a western-centric teleology. This focus on Asia (itself a problematical term) is a distorted view of the long history of economic, cultural, and political exchanges within this vast region. A few of the secondary readings explore narratives of the socio-economic and political circumstances that urge people to travel and to migrate; other readings critique dominant tropes of assimilation, nation, and binary forms of identity formations and categories.
The course juxtaposes the traditional definition of diaspora with recent scholarship on identity, subject formations, and globalized media and commodity culture. Experiences of diaspora can become a kind of productive volatility of non-binary and transgressive agency. In the US, the concept of diaspora is often confined within the knowledge structures of the Jewish diaspora, which has been appropriated by a nationalistic discourse of immigration and articulated to a complex of ideas such as alienation, culture clash, and normative assimilation. Nowadays, such concepts may be useful in understanding a small number of Asian diaspora texts in the US. On the other hand, contemporary narratives push back against dominant nationalistic mythologies through tactics of temporal and spatial appropriation and re-inscription.
This is primarily a seminar course in which class members will 1) lead class discussion based on one of the secondary/critical readings for this class; 2) develop a research paper germane to issues such as the discursive formation of identity categories, including but not limited to ‘nation,’ ‘ethnic,’ ‘race,’ ‘gender,’ as well as concepts such as ‘spatiality,’ ‘postmodern geographies,’ etc.; and 3) otherwise engage with the readings and with discussions in class.
Assignments:
Research paper: 12 to 15 pages, double-spaced; in advanced stage, in preparation for submission to academic or literary journals;
Leading class discussion, 30 minutes, with a 2-pages, double-spaced, paper on the discussion topic;
Three or four forum posts in response to primary and/or secondary texts: each a minimum of 600 words.
Required Primary Texts:
Adam Aitken, Kim Cheng Boey & Michelle Cahill, eds., Contemporary Asian Australian Poets, 2013 (selection);
Dong Kai-cheung, Atlas: The Archeology of an Imaginary City, 2012 (HK, fiction, eBrary);
Gao Xing Jian, Wild Man (drama. PRC, France);
Amitav Ghosh, River of Smoke, 2012 (fiction);
Zack Linmark, Leche, 2011 (fiction);
Sarith Peou, Corpse Watching, 2007. (poetry. Cambodia, US);
Fiona Sze-Lorrain, Starry Island: New Writing from Singapore, 2014 (selection);
WaWa, Pei Pei, the Monkey King, 2016 (poetry, TinFish);
Xi Xi, Marvels of a Floating City, 1997 (short fiction, HK, PDF);
Karen Tei Yamashita, Circle K Cycles, 2001 (fiction. US);
Ansari and Yang, Master of None (Season 1) (Netflix Original, comedy, US);
Beth Yahp, Eat First, Talk Later, 2015 (memoir; Malaysia, Australia);
Secondary Texts include (provided as PDF or available via UHM eBooks):
Ien Ang, On Not Speaking Chinese, 2001 (selection);
Marc Augé, Non-Places: An Introduction to Supermodernity. 2009 (selection);
Augé, Oblivion, 2004 (selection);
Homi Bhabha, Location of Culture, 1994 (selection);
Braziel and Mannur. Theorizing Diaspora, 2003 (selection);
Deleuze & Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 1978 (selection);
Wai Chee Dimock, Through Other Continents: American Literature through Deep Time, 2008 (selection);
Lisa Lowe, The Intimacies of Four Continents, 2015 (selection);
Ma Sheng‐mei, Diaspora Literature and Visual Culture: Asia in Flight, 2010 (selection);
Yi-Fu Tuan, Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience, 2001 (reprint) (selection)
Student Learning Outcomes:
Develop a complex understanding of the contributions of Asian diaspora literature and cultures to the formation of the field of English Studies in the 21st Century;
A stronger ability to undertake advanced critical analysis in both written and oral formats (especially in relation to the unconventional elements of some of the primary texts in this course);
A stronger ability to undertake advanced research methods and to prepare an essay for submission to an academic or literary journal;
Develop a complex understanding of the origins and consequences of literary and cultural interpretative frameworks based on concepts of identity and subjectivity, at varying discursive scales.