Carol Siegel
English 311 — Asian/Pacific
American Literature – TTh
Office MMC 202S, office hours: TTh
Office (360) 546-9641, Home (503)
226-4272, E-Mail siegel@vancouver.wsu.edu
BASIC INFORMATION:
Attendance and participation: More than
three absences may lower your grade substantially. Because we cannot hope to discuss everything,
I rely on you to direct my attention to what interests you. Your participation will be reflected in your
grade.
Students with Disabilities: I am committed to providing assistance to
help you be successful in this course. Reasonable accommodations are available
for students with a documented disability. Please notify me during the first
week of class of any accommodations needed for the course. Late notification may cause the requested
accommodations to be unavailable.
Students needing accommodations must have them approved through the
Associate Director of Student Services, SSV, Room 203
Written Work: All written work must be
typed or printed, double spaced with one inch margins all around. Documentation must conform to MLA Works Cited
style.
Late Papers: Grades will be lowered, at
my discretion, as much as one degree (e.g. from A to A-), for each class day
that the paper is late. èNOTE: No late work will be accepted for a grade after
December 7 under any circumstances.
Academic Integrity: As an institution of higher education,
WRITING ASSIGNMENTS AND GRADES: One 5-6
page paper and one 8-10 page research paper are required. You may write on any topic so long as you
focus on one or more of the texts assigned for this class and follow the
guidelines in the "Writing About Literature"
handout. The first paper should be a
"position paper" in which you make an interpretive claim about a
literary text and then devote the rest of the paper to supporting that
claim. For the second paper you have
three options -- see the attached handouts for more guidance. Paper #1 will count as 1/4 of your grade and
Paper #2 as 3/4, prior to adjustment for attendance and participation. Work
will be graded on a twelve point scale (A+=12, F=0).
REQUIRED TEXTS:
Maxine Hong
Kingston, The Woman Warrior
Julie Otsuka, When the Emperor Was Divine
Louis Chu, Eat a Bowl of Tea
Ruth Ozeki, My Year of Meats
Lan Cao,
Shawn Wong, Asian
American Literature
Chang-Rae Lee, A Gesture Life
Milton Murayama, All I Asking for Is My Body
Bharati Mukherjee, Desirable
Daughters
Syllabus
KEY: AAL = Asian American Literature anthology
Tuesday,
August 22: Orientation: Discussion of assignments and requirements.
Introduction: American "Orientalism" and
Asian-American Cultures.
Thursday,
August 24: Introduction and first section of AAL, through p.
62.
Tuesday,
August 29: Eat a Bowl of Tea, through Chapter XXXVIII
Thursday,
August 31: Finish Eat a Bowl of Tea & Sui Sin Far's "The
Americanization of
Tuesday,
September 5: The Woman Warrior "No Name
Woman" and "White Tigers"
Thursday, September 7: The Woman
Warrior: "Shaman," "At the
Tuesday,
September 12: All I Asking For Is My Body
Thursday,
September 14: When the Emperor was Divine, through p.
105
Tuesday,
September 19: Finish When the Emperor was Divine and
Lawson Fusao Inada's "Legends from Camp" (AAL
299-)
Thursday,
September 21: Carlos Bulosan's
"The Romance of Magno Rubio" (AAL
101-) and Vince Gotera's
poetry (AAL 355-)
Tuesday,
September 26: PAPER
#1 DUE. A Librarian will visit the
class and provide instruction in research.
This is VERY important! Please be
here on time.
Thursday,
September 28: A Gesture Life, through Chapter Seven
(p. 152)
Tuesday,
October 3: A Gesture Life, through Chapter Twelve, (p. 271)
Thursday,
October 5: Finish A Gesture Life and Myung Mi Kim's poems (AAL 387-)
Tuesday,
October 10: LAST DAY TO TURN IN PAPER #1 REVISION. (revision is
optional.) Marked original MUST accompany revision. Janice Mirikitani's
"Spoils of War" (AAL 186-) and
Monique Thuy-Dung Truong's "Kelly" (AAL
288-)
Thursday,
October 12: Research Day. No
Class will be held. Please use this time
to begin, or continue, research for the term paper.
Tuesday,
October 17: Desirable Daughters, through Chapter 5 (p. 95)
Thursday,
October 19: Desirable Daughters, through Chapter 10 (p. 170)
Tuesday,
October 24: Finish Desirable Daughters
Thursday,
October 26: Fae Myenne
Ng's "Backdaire" (AAL 252-), Woon Ping Chin's poems (AAL
317-), Marilyn Chin's poems (AAL 363-)
Tuesday,
October 31:
Thursday,
November 2:
Tuesday,
November 7:
Thursday,
November 9: Darrell Lum's "Primo
Doesn't Take Back Bottles Anymore" (AAL 215-)
and Wini Terada's "
Tuesday,
November 14: PAPER
#2 DUE. Film will be shown in class.
Thursday,
November 16: Film continued and discussion.
Tuesday,
November 21: THANKSGIVING BREAK
Thursday,
November 23: THANKSGIVING BREAK
Tuesday,
November 28: My Year of Meats, through p. 167.
Thursday,
November 30: Finish My Year of Meats.
Tuesday,
December 5: Russell Leong's poems (AAL
323-)
Thursday,
December 7: Last Day of Class. LAST DAY TO TURN IN PAPERS or PAPER #2 REVISION. (revision is optional.)
Marked original MUST
accompany revision. Retrospective. Course
Evaluation.
A SHORT GUIDE TO WRITING ABOUT LITERATURE
Form: To
be accepted for a grade, papers must be either typed or printed on a computer
printer. No hand-written or hand-printed
papers will be for
credit. Passing papers must have all the
usual attributes of college essays: a TITLE, an introduction, unified and
coherent body paragraphs, a conclusion, and standard documentation of quotes
(following MLA rules). Standard grammar
and usage are also expected. Any grammar
and composition handbook will most of your questions about grammar and
usage. The
The Topic: Choose your own topic, following these
guidelines.
1. The topic should focus on the assigned reading, not on
things in your experience or observation that the reading made you think
about. The topic should focus on the
assigned reading, not on things in your experience or observation that the
reading made you think about. How your
own life resembles that of the narrator in Brainard’s
When the Rainbow Goddess Wept, for example, although obviously
interesting, would not be an appropriate topic for an essay on the novel. Also inappropriate, would be an essay on the
topic of why you feel that Julie Otsuka's When the
Emperor Was Divine does not accurately portray the experience of
Japanese-Americans, since implied in such a statement is the idea that only you
know what Japanese-Americans truly experience.
Instead, you might want to discuss how the novel creates its portrait of
a specific type of Japanese-American experience. One of many appropriate topics for such a
discussion would be how exactly Otsuka's narrative
moves between scenes reflecting typical American mainstream concerns, such as
the daughter's concern about being dressed appropriately in the beginning, and
upsetting images from their life in the internment camps during the war, in
ways that symbolically represent the disjunctions the family experiences in
their life.
2. The topic should not treat fictional characters as real
people or what happens in fiction as real events. Much of our pleasure in reading comes from
understanding things this way as we read.
But analysis demands that we mentally stand back and think about how
effects are achieved. To claim that Brave
Orchid in The Woman Warrior is not a good mother implies that they are
real people. Instead you might focus on how the text defines what a good mother
is and how the depiction of Brave Orchid relates to this definition.
3. The topic should be limited to fit the scope of the
paper and should give your reader direction.
Don't try to say everything possible about any text. The title of the text you are discussing
cannot also be the title of your paper since this implies that you are going to
say everything that can be said about the text.
Successful topics are found by focusing on one particular aspect of a
literary work or group of works. Many
successful papers explore the ways that content (what the text is about) and
form (the way the contents are presented) either work together or at cross
purposes. If you aren't sure whether
your topic will work, please discuss it with me.
The Thesis:
Every successful essay has a clear thesis.
Don't confuse the topic with the thesis.
Your thesis is the main point you make about your topic. Your thesis cannot be "differences and
similarities in The Woman Warrior and Eat a Bowl of Tea." That is a topic. A successful thesis derived from this topic
could be something like this: "Although The Woman Warrior and Eat
a Bowl of Tea both depict female protagonists within a Chinese immigrant
community who face sexual dilemmas. Each
novel focuses on conflicts caused by differences in Chinese and
American/Western gender roles, but the authors' treatment of their material
reflects their different attitudes about Chinese traditions and the sense of
identity they impart to women.
Your thesis must make a different point about your topic than the author
makes. That is, if, for instance, your
topic is the way Wong depicts Chinese-American experience in Homebase, your thesis cannot be that being subjected
to irrational and unfair racial prejudice results in intense feelings of
alienation for men like the hero. That
is Wong's own point, so if you were to develop it as your thesis, you would
just be repeating, in your own words, the plot of the novel. Instead, you might look at how Wong uses
description to suggest the impact of racism on his protagonist's world
view. Rather than simply listing the
images in the book, you might explore how they work by paying attention to
symbolic values and commenting on structural elements like juxtaposition.
Keep in mind that your thesis must be complex enough to
give you material for a paper of the required length. A paper thesis needs to include two or more
subtopics, the development of which will structure your paper. In choosing a thesis, ask yourself not only
what ideas the text conveys but how they are conveyed. Remember that your reader already knows what
is said in the text. In trying to find
something interesting to say about it, ask yourself what details cause you to
interpret the text the way you do and what about the way it is written makes it
give you the impressions it does.
Supporting
Evidence: As much as you need to present your own ideas, you need to
convince your er that they are reasonable and worth
considering. You do this by presenting
supporting evidence for your claims.
There are three ways to do this in an English paper.
1. You may do research.
That is you may look for books or articles on your topic and find out
what professional literary critics (or experts like historians, psychologists,
sociologists, or anthropologists, when their theories relate to your thesis)
have to say about your topic. When you
do research, keep in mind two things:
(A) Expert opinions are still just opinions,
consequently they can never prove a point. Therefore, when you quote a literary critic's
idea about a text, you have not shown that this is the correct view to
have. If you agree with the critic you
still have to explain what in the text being discussed causes you to
agree. Sometimes the critic will present
evidence that supports your idea. If the
evidence is factual, that is, if it consists of a reference to something that
actually occurs in the text or to a verifiable feature of the text (such as
that it is divided into six stanzas each on a different topic) then you have proof. But if
what the critic does is argue his or her opinion, you must sum up the argument
and add your own ideas in an effort to convince your reader. Remember you can
include critics' views you disagree with and argue with them.
(B) When you PARAPHRASE other peoples' ideas, you must
give them credit or you have plagiarized them. If you and a critic say the same
thing, mention this in your discussion
2. You may and in most cases should quote from the text
you are discussing. When quoting, avoid
providing too much material (words or phrases that are irrelevant to your
point) or providing too little material (so that your reason for thinking this
supports your assertion is unclear).
When it is not clear why you think that a quote supports your claim, you
must explain how it does. The most
common fear among students in English classes is that they will explain
something that does not need to be explained.
This almost never happens. When
in doubt, explain.
3. You may summarize or paraphrase. When you do either of these things remember
that you should be doing so in order to support a claim, not in order to
refresh the reader's memory about what happens in the story. Don't introduce your idea about a specific
scene with a summary of the events leading up to this scene.
GUIDE TO THE RESEARCH PAPER
You have three
options for the research paper.
OPTION ONE: a
conventional English research paper.
This paper should develop and support a thesis claim and include at least two secondary sources, one of
which is academic literary criticism
(not book reviews, film reviews, or summaries like Cliff Notes). The second (and possibly other) secondary
sources can be from academic publications in anthropology, sociology,
psychology, or history.
OPTION TWO: a comparison of a film to one or more
relevant literary text. You may either
compare the film version of Eat a Bowl of Tea to the novel or you may
compare film and literary treatments of the same topic, for instance you might
discuss treatments of Japanese American experience in
OPTION
THREE: A comparative study of the literature produced by one Asian American
group. If you choose this option
you may write about the literature of any ONE
of the following racial/ethnic/geographic/language groups: Chinese Americans,
Filipinos, Japanese Americans, (East) Indians Writing in English, Korean
Americans, Vietnamese Americans, Asian American
For example, you may choose as your topic the depiction of
community in texts by Hawaiian Asian Americans.
Your thesis might be that Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers, while
differing from other Hawaiian texts in some important ways, resembles them in
depicting a unique cultural situation in which, because Anglo Americans are not
the majority, finding a place in the community does not seem to involve giving
up a sense of connection to the family's culture of origin. You would then
discuss this novel and at least two other texts by Hawaiian Asian Americans in
order to support this claim. Another
example: you may choose as your topic attitudes toward mothers in Chinese
American literature. Your thesis might
be that Woman Warrior is unusual in its depiction of the mother as her
daughter's major antagonist, but not in its portrayal of the mother's
power. These are just suggestions, not
necessarily interpretations that I want you to have. Feel free to argue the opposite.
SOME RECOMMENDED BOOKS:
(See
the bibliography at the end of AAL for more. IF everything by an author is recommended I
only include the name below)
JAPANESE
AMERICAN:
John Okada, No-No
Boy
Wakako Yamauchi, And the Soul Shall Dance (a play)
Cynthia Kadohata, In the Heart of the
Yoshiko Uchida, Picture Bride
David Mura, Turning Japanese: Memoirs of a Sansei,
Where the Body Meets Memory
Ruth Ozeki, My Year of Meats
CHINESE
AMERICAN
David Wong
Louie, Pangs of Love
Patricia Chao, Monkey King
Shawn Wong, American
Knees
Gish Jen, Typical American
Louis Chu, Eat a Bowl of Tea
Amy Tan
(everything)
Gus
Maxine Hong
Kingston (everything)
Chuang Hua, Crossings
FILIPINO
Jessica Hagedorn, Dogeaters
Carlos Bulosan (everything)
Arlene J. Chai, The Last Time I
Saw Mother
Bienvenido Santos, Scent of Apples
Cecelia Manguerra Brainard. When the Rainbow Goddess Wept
HAWAIIAN
Sylvia
Watanabe, Talking to the Dead
Kiana
Davenport. Shark Dialogues
M. Evelina Galang, Her Wild
American Self
Garrett Hongo, Volcano
Lois-Ann
Yamanaka. Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers.
EAST INDIAN
AMERICAN and/or written in English
Bharati Mukerjee (everything)
Meena Alexander, Nampally
Road
Ginu Kamani, Junglee
Girl
Arundhati Roy, The God
of Small Things
Jhumpa Lahiri, The
Interpreter of Maladies
KOREAN AMERICAN
Nora Okja
Keller. Comfort Woman.
Theresa Hak
Kyung Cha, DICTEE
Kim Ronyoung,
Clay Walls
VIETNAMESE
AMERICAN
Jade Ngoc Quang Huưnh , South Wind Changing