The premise for this class is that race and ethnicity are social constructions that materially impact our lives and every aspect of the world(s) in which we live. Another premise for this class is that literary texts can provide particularly important insights into formations of race and ethnicity. As we read texts written within the borders of the US during the past several decades that centrally engage with issues of race and ethnicity, we will consider how this literature reflects on, resists, and provides alternatives to dominant narratives about the US’s founding; its status as a democracy and a “nation of immigrants”; the legitimacy of its borders and indeed its very existence; and the wars it fights within and beyond its expanding borders. We will read literature by Black American, Turtle Islander (Cowlitz), Kanaka Maoli, Palestinian American, and Filipinx writers. We will analyze similarities and borrowings as well as differences among the literary traditions in which these authors work. As well, we will identify differences in authors’ responses that we can trace to each group’s distinct history and processes of racial and ethnic formation in the United States. By putting the texts in dialogue with one another, we will think about how Indigenous and migrant struggles work together and at times at odds, and about how attempts to make the US more inclusively multicultural and democratic articulate with the struggles of Indigenous peoples for political independence and decolonization within and beyond the borders of the US. We also will think about how categories of race and ethnicity intersect with those of class, gender, sexuality, and other identity markers.
ASSIGNMENTS: Two midterms. A final with a take-home essay component. Short writing assignments and frequent quizzes. Attendance is mandatory; missed classes will negatively impact your grade.
Tentative listing of texts
Zaina Arafat, YOU EXIST TOO MUCH (young adult novel)
Laurel Fantauzzo, MY HEART UNDERWATER (young adult novel)
Fady Joudah, […] (poetry)
Zamora Linmark, ROLLING THE Rs (novel)
Toni Morrison, BELOVED (novel)
Claudia Ranklin, CITIZEN (mixed genre)
No‘u Revilla, ASK THE BRINDLED (poetry)
Elisa Washuta, MY BODY IS A BOOK OF RULES (mixed genre)
Shorter readings will also be posted to Lamakū.
ASSIGNMENTS: Two midterms. A final with a take-home essay component. Short writing assignments and possible quizzes. Attendance is mandatory; missed classes will negatively impact your grade.