LETTERATURA MULTIETNICA DEGLI STATI UNITI

Starting from the analysis of US multicultural and immigration historical past and present, the course in U.S. 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 teaching in the first module will include individual or group readings of theoretical and critical texts. Focus will be given to comprehension practice and to critical discussion.

In the second module a special focus will be given to academic writing practice (essays, reports, guided Q & A), thanks to which the students will be able to actively relate to the topics discussed during the reading and critical analysis session. The students should have already developed a good understanding of the Angloamerican cultural and literary context: during the course in Multiethnic Literatures they will be invited to analyze and interpret the didactic material and decode crucial key concepts that will guide them through various textual topographies.

Attendance is not mandatory but strongly recommended. Frontal teaching will be alternated to classroom and lab practice (classroom discussions, paper writing, question answering, worksheets), and frequent absences may result in shifting to non attendance student group and to non- attendance exam modality.

On the basis of the objectives indicated above, the course program in U.S. Multiethnic Literatures will be divided into two main modules.

In the first module analysis will focus on the specific historical, socio-cultural and literary contexts of multi-ethnic North America, while in the second module it will be offered a contrapuntal study of selected literary readings and several critical and theoretical texts.
1. Ethnicity, Race and Migration. Debates on concepts of ethnicity, race, nationality; historical, demographic and cultural analysis of the ethnic and immigrant populations in the United States.
2. Analyzing literary forms: Ethnic identity and narration; redefining of the Anglomerican and World literary canon; postcolonial realities and trans-national affiliations: post- 09/11 narratives.

1. Critical and Theoretical Readings.

1. Antonelli, Sara, Scannavini, A., Scacchi, A., 2005. La Babele Americana. Lingue e Identità negli Stati Uniti ad Oggi. Donzelli Editore, Roma.

2. Bavaro, Vincenzo. 2013. Una storia etnica? Capitale Culturale e performance etnica nella letteratura degli Stati Uniti. Napoli: La scuola di Pitagora.

3. Camboni, Marina, 2009. “Identities in Critical Times. Obama's 'Patchwork' and the 'Melting Pot'. American Patchwork. Multiethnicity in the United States Today. RSA Journal N. 20, AISNA - Associazione Italiana Studi Nord Americani: 5-27.

4. Hollinger, david A. 1995.Postethnic America. Beyond Multiculturalism. New York: Basic Books.

5. Izzo, Donatella, 2011. “Estetica etnica: modernismo asiaticoamericano”. Ácoma 1 n.s., inverno: 109-124.

6. Morrison, Toni. 1992. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, Harvard: Harvard UP.

7. Nelson, Emmanuel S., 2015. Ethnic American literature: an Encyclopedia for Students. Santa Barbara, Greenwood, 2015.

8. Palumbo Liu, David, 1995. The Ethnic Canon. Histories, Institutions, and Interventions. Minneapolis, Minnesota UP.

9. Singh, Amritjit and Schmidt,P., 2000. Postcolonial theory and the United States : Race, Ethnicity, and Literature. Oxford, U of Mississippi P, 2000.

10. Sollors Werner, 1987. Beyond Ethnicity, New York, Oxford UP.

11. Dictionary: Merriam Webster (online version); Roget’s Thesaurus (online version);
Wordreference (www.wordreference.com).

2. Selections from:

Alexie, Sherman. 2003. Ten Little Indians: Stories. New York: Grove.

Anzaldúa, Gloria., Cantú, Norma E.,Hurtado, Aída. 1987. Borderlands: The New Mestiza = La Frontera. San Francisco : Aunt Lute Books.

Du Bois, W. E. B. (1968). The souls of black folk: essays and sketches. Chicago, A. G. McClurg, 1903.

Gates,Henry L. Jr., et al. 2014. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. New York: Norton.

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

Truong, Monique. 2003. The Book of Salt, Boston:Houghton Mifflin.

Hamid, Mohsin. 2007. The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Philadelphia: Harvest Books, 2008

Jhumpa Lahiri. 2004. The Namesake, New York:Houghton Mifflin.

____________ 1999. The Interpreter of Maladies. New York:Houghton Mifflin.

Zora Neale Hurston, selections : “Sweat,” “How It Feels to be Colored Me,” “Characteristics of Negro Expression”.

__________Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York :Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006.