Welcome to Ethnic American Literature!  This course explores the way in which writers engage directly with dominant narratives of America. We will consider the role the selected literature has played in interrogating questions of ethnicity, class, gender and sexuality in American culture. Issues and topics addressed include: cultural pluralism, the melting pot and American "identity", ethnic and cultural difference; immigration, displacement, and migratory identities; geographical and metaphorical borderlands; mixed blood and the divided self; ethnic nationalism and cultural survival; and "whiteness" as a racial and ethnic category. 

Throughout the course, our focus will be on textual analysis – on how particular literature and films give formal shape to the experiences they depict. You can expect to leave this course able to articulate some of your own claims about how literature interacts with, and shapes, the social context out of which authors write. In the course, you will learn to engage in important conversations about the boundaries of America, by paying close reading attention to the complexity of the literary texts at hand.  You will also tell you own stories, and you will do so in a digital context.  This blog will be our "home base" for sharing and reflecting on our collective American stories.

Looking forward to a special semester with all of you,

Dr. Zamora