LETTERATURA MULTIETNICA DEGLI STATI UNITI

Starting from the analysis of US multicultural and immigration historical past and present, the course in US Multiethnic Literatures will focus on the reading and the discussion of selected works (novels, short stories, poetry, drama, oral literature) and on the way these texts reflect and problematize the African American, Asian American, Latinx and Native American experiences. The course will examine how ethnic writing both resists and enables integration into the American mainstream, and how the works of selected authors negotiate racial, cultural and national belonging across several conceptual and "material" borders.

The course in Multiethnic American Literatures will focus on key concepts and theories on race, ethnicity, and de-colonization, aiming at offering students a basis in the broad, interdisciplinary field of comparative ethnic studies. The course satisfies the requirements for a curriculum in American Language and American Literatures and Culture.

Through the close reading of essays and articles proposed from time to time, the students of U.S. Multiethnic Literatures will deepen their English comprehension and textual analysis abilities.

Regular lab practice will allow the students to confront their own composing processes, to broaden their critical anlysis capabilities and to stimulate a research-based writing activity.

Frontal lessons and inclass discussions. Attending students will be required an active, autonomous and creative participation to the course. They will be guided through close reading and active reading sessions, analyses of several theoretical and critical approaches. A comparative, contrapuntal text approach will be elicited, also through several activities ( i.e. writing/Q&A sessions, questionnaires).

The course program will be articulated into two main modules, wherein US multiethnic literary works will be read, analyzed and discussed vis a vis theoretical and critical selections, and along with a historical overwiew of the immigrant experiences in the USA
1. "Ethnicity/ Race. Migration/Nation". The debates on ethnicity, race, nationality; historical and demographic overview of several immigrant and ethnic communities in the USA; US immigration policies across time

2. "Analyzing literary forms: issues". Ethnic identities and narrations; US and World Literature; literary canons and aesthetics; postcolonility and transnationalism; post 9/11 narratives.

Theoretical and Critical Texts

1. Antonelli,Sara, Scannavini, A., Scacchi, A., 2005. extracts: La Babele Americana. Lingue e Identità negli
Stati Uniti ad Oggi. Donzelli Editore, Roma.
2. Bavaro, Vincenzo. 2013. extracts:“Razza e capitale: Il valore della differenza.” 11-60; “Il dibattito
asiaticoamericano.” 171-198. Una storia etnica? Capitale Culturale e performance etnica nella
letteratura degli Stati Uniti. Napoli: La scuola di Pitagora.
3. Hollinger, David A. 1995. extracts: Postethnic America. Beyond Multiculturalism. New York: Basic
Books.
4. Izzo, Donatella, 2011. “Estetica etnica: modernismo asiaticoamericano”. Ácoma 1 n.s., inverno:
pp. 109-124.
5. Palumbo Liu, David, 1995. extracts: The Ethnic Canon. Histories, Institutions, and Interventions.
Minneapolis, Minnesota UP.1.

Literary Texts

1. Anzia Yezierska, "Water and Soap", "How I Found America." from Collected Stories of Anzia Yezierska. New York : Persea Books, 1991.

2. Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera. The New Mestiza. San Francisco : Aunt Lute Books, 1987.

3. Sherman Alexie, Ten Little Indians. New York, NY Grove Press, 2022 ed..(2004)

4. Mohsin Hamid, Exit West. Philadelphia: New York: Riverhead Books, 2017.

5. Zora Neale Hurston, selections : “Sweat,” “How It Feels to be Colored Me,", “Characteristics of Negro Expression.” from Z.N. Hurston et al., I Love Myself When I Am Laughing ...[...]: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader , 2020.

6. Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior: Memoirs Of A Girlhood Among Ghosts. New York : Vintage International, 1989, 1976.

7. Jhumpa Lahiri, The Interpreter of Maladies. New York:Houghton Mifflin, 1999.

Il materiale didattico verrà fornito durante il corso e caricato sullo spazio web dedicato (STUDIUM),

https://studium.unict.it/dokeos/2022/