Content
This option analyses a cross-section of "ethnic" or "minority" literature by Native American, African American, Asian American, and Chicana/o writers. Our focus is on the role this literature has played in interrogating questions of ethnicity, class, gender and sexuality in post-World War II 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 suvival; and "whiteness" as a racial and ethnic category.

1. Introduction: What is "Ethnic" American Literature?

Michael Fischer, "Ethnicity and the Post-Modern Arts of Memeory" in "Writing Cutlture", ed
James Clifford and George Marcus, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986
Lisa Lowe, "Heterogeneity, Hybridity, Multiplicity: Asian American Differences", in her "Immigrant Acts: On Asian American
Politics", Durham: Duke University Press, 1996
Werner Sollors "Foreword: Theories of American Ethnicity", "Theories of Ethnicity: A Classical Reader", ed. Werner Sollors,
London: Macmillan, 1996

2. Native American Literature

Leslie Marmon Silko, "Ceremony" (1977)

3. Chicana/o Literature

Gloria Anzaldua, "Borderlands/La Frontera" (1987)
Jimmy Santiago Baca, "Martin & Meditations on the South Valley" (1987)

4. Asian American Literature

Maxine Hong Kingston, "The Woman Warrior" (1976)

5. African American Literature

Toni Morrison, "Beloved" (1987)

Secondary Reading

Ruoff, A. LaVonne Brown and Jerry W Ward, Jr. "Redefining American Literary History". New York: Modern Language Association, 1990
Singh, Amritjit, Joseph T Skerrett and Robert E Hogan. Eds. "Memory, Narrative and Identity: New Essays in Ethnic American Literatures". Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1994