Between here and there: Asian diaspora literatures and cultures

What it covers

Located within the field of diaspora studies, this unit introduces you to Asian-Australian, Asian-Canadian and Asian-American literatures and cultures. Connected to Asia by legacies of birth/inheritance/origin, Asian presence in Anglophone countries is often dual by citizenship and interlinked through complex circuits of transnationalism. Diasporic Asians navigate the possibilities and challenges of belonging to multiple countries, communities and cultures. These transnational demographic groups have fundamentally changed the discourse of multiculturalism in Anglophone white-settler colonies through diverse histories and multiple processes of settlement. In this unit, you will study how transnational Asian diasporas narrate the (hi)stories of their arrival and affiliation within and outside Anglophone white-settler nations. You will explore narratives of diasporic Asians through literary texts like essays, novels, poems, stories; and performative cultures like comedy, films, graffiti, television series. By chronologically tracing Asian diasporas in Australia, Canada and the United States from the formation of these nations and leading up to the idea of the Asian century, you will consider how Asian diaspora narratives challenge that Asia is not “out there” somewhere and explore how it exists within the geopolitical-historical and cultural-spatial bounds of the Anglophone country/continent in question.

Assessment

When and where