ENGL 3290 Asian American
Literature
Instructor: Dr. Su-ching Huang
(huangsu@ecu.edu)
 Taught fully online: Students are required to have
high-speed Internet access and an ECU Blackboard
account.
 Prerequisite: ENGL 1200 Composition.
 Can be taken as an Asian Studies elective.
Course Description
This course analyzes Asian American texts in their historical contexts, both as historical documents and
as literary texts that are relevant to readers in varied situations. We will begin the semester with a
historical overview of Asian American immigration and its depiction in film and literature. Then we
will examine how Asian American identity has been constructed, from the angles of labor and
immigration, internment of Japanese on the West Coast, sexuality, gender conflict, language, culinary
practice, cultural negotiation and assimilation, and so on.
Required Texts (Available from amazon.com)
Kingston, Maxine Hong. The Woman Warrior. New York: Random, 1977.
Louie, David Wong. The Barbarians Are Coming. New York: Berkley-Penguin, 2000.
Okada, John. No-No Boy: a Novel. Rutland, VT.: Charles E. Tuttle, 1957.
Selections from (Selections available on Bb)
Hagedorn, Jessica, ed. Charlie Chan Is Dead: An Anthology of Contemporary Asian American Fiction.
New York: Penguin, 1993.
---, ed. Charlie Chan Is Dead 2: At Home in the World. New York: Penguin, 2004.
Huynh, Jade Ngoc Quang. South Wind Changing. St. Paul, MN: Graywolf, 2000.
Lahiri, Jhumpa. Unaccustomed Earth. New York: Knopf, 2008.
Lee, Li-Young. Behind My Eyes: Poems. New York: Norton, 2008.
Lim, Shirley Geok-lin, ed. Asian-American Literature: An Anthology. Lincolnwood, IL: NTC, 2000.
Lim, Shirley Geok-lin. Sister Swing. Marshall Cavendish Editions, 2006.
Films
Carved in Silence (Dir. Felicia Lowe, 1988, 45 min, clips available on Bb)
The Cats of Mirikitani (Dir. Linda Hattendorf, 2006, 74 min, available from amazon.com)
My America, or Honk If You Love Buddha (Dir. Renée Tajima-Peña, 1997, 87 min, clips available on
Bb)
Picture Bride (Dir. Kayo Hatta, 1995, 95 min, available from amazon.com or Netflix.com)
Rabbit in the Moon (Dir. Emiko Omori, 1999, 84 min, available from amazon.com)
Saving Face (Dir. Alice Wu, 2004, 91 min, available from amazon.com or Netflix.com)