Topics in Asian American Literature: Gender and Sexuality in Asian American Literature

What's queer about "Asian America"? All too often, queerness typifies signs of injury and victimization for this racial formation (e.g., castration, hyper-/de-sexualization). Historically, the legal and symbolic parameters for who counts as an American were fortified against the Asian body as a threatening alien Other. Cultural discourses invoked notions of deviant genders and perverse sexualities as proof that Asian/Americans are inassimilable to the heteronormative domestic ideals of the nation. Since these depictions were used to substantiate exclusionary policies, Asian Americans often unwittingly refute queerness in making claims to national belonging. Yet, this strategy effectively marginalizes LGBTQ groups among Asian American communities and further stigmatizes non-normative genders and sexualities. Countering these tendencies, scholarly works in queer Asian American studies join a growing corpus of Asian American creative works that feature LGBTQ protagonists in foregrounding the rich intersectionality of race, gender, and sexuality. Guided by the theoretical insights of these writings, this course approaches queerness as not an identity, but rather a critical paradigm that elucidates and interrogates the inequities of US citizenship. We will explore how Asian American literatures envision queerness as a creative force for activating convivial practices, desires, and socialities that exceed disciplinary norms of the nation-state. This course may feature readings by such authors as Kiku Hughes, Maxine Hong Kingston, SJ Sindu, Kai Cheng Thom, and Ocean Vuong. This course satisfies the Global and Minority Literature Requirement.
Course Attributes: BU Hum; AS HUM; AS SD I; FA HUM; EL TC; EL GML; AR HUM; EN H

Topics in Asian American Literature: Gender and Sexuality in Asian American Literature

AMERICAN CULTURE STUDIES 310

Section 01