From Hollywood blockbusters like Crazy Rich Asians (2018) and Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022), to authors whose novels have shot to the top of the New York Times bestseller list like R.F. Kuang’s Yellowface (2023) and Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You (2014), there has never been a more exciting time to see Asian American narratives woven into the popular cultural imagination.
This course gives a survey of Asian American cultural works (including prose, plays, graphic novels, and films) that have gained mainstream attention from the 20th through the 21st century. What is Asian America, a term that was coined in the late sixties? What features and themes define Asian American stories, and what makes a work “popular”? Finally, how do artists navigate longstanding issues around racial stereotype and representation? Throughout the semester, we will ask how Asian American cultural works have utilized, contested, and expanded conventions around both artistic forms and racial forms. As an Emily Balch seminar, class time will be discussion-based and teach the fundamentals of college-level writing through critical, close analysis of Asian American popular cultural works. Writing assignments will focus on the process of drafting, writing, and revising short analytical essays.
This course gives a survey of Asian American cultural works (including prose, plays, graphic novels, and films) that have gained mainstream attention from the 20th through the 21st century. What is Asian America, a term that was coined in the late sixties? What features and themes define Asian American stories, and what makes a work “popular”? Finally, how do artists navigate longstanding issues around racial stereotype and representation? Throughout the semester, we will ask how Asian American cultural works have utilized, contested, and expanded conventions around both artistic forms and racial forms. As an Emily Balch seminar, class time will be discussion-based and teach the fundamentals of college-level writing through critical, close analysis of Asian American popular cultural works. Writing assignments will focus on the process of drafting, writing, and revising short analytical essays.
- Instructor of record: Sophia Mao