Women's and Gender Studies 36 Amherst College, Fall 1992 Friday, 1-4 Chapin 119 Lisa Majaj Office: Infirmary 205 Office Hours: Friday 4:00-5:00 and by appt. Asian American and Arab American Women's Literature Required texts (available at the Jeffery Amherst Bookshop): Elmaz Abinader, Children of the Roojme Naomi Shihab Nye, Yellow Glove Cathy Song, Picture Bride Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior Kim Ronyoung, Clay Walls Bharati Mukherjee, Wife Hisaye Yamamoto, Seventeen Syllables Joy Kogawa, Obasan Recommended: Making Waves: An Anthology of Writings By and About Asian American Women Additional suggested background reading on reserve: Alixa Naff, Becoming American: The Early Arab Immigrant Experience Ronald Takaki, Strangers From a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans Schedule of Readings Sept. 11 Introduction Diana Abu-Jaber, "On Reading Difference" Visiting writer Trisha Harper Sept. 18 Trinh T. Minh-ha, "Not You/Like You" Alixa Naff, "In Search of Arab Heritage in the U.S."; "Arabs in America: A Historical Overview" Evelyn Shakir, "Starting Anew: Arab-American Poetry" Sharon McIrvin Abu-Laban, "Arab-Canadian Family Life" Mary Macron,"A Celebration of Life" Shakir, "Syrian-Lebanese Women" Diana Abu-Jaber, "In the First Generation" D.H. Melhem, Rest in Love, I and IV Vicki Salloum, "Sitty Victoria" Deborah Najor, "Selma's Weddings," "Painful Discourse" Pauline Kaldas, "What America Has to Offer"; "Exotic;" "ABC" Sept. 25 Elmaz Abinader, Children of the Roojme Abinader, "Here I'm Arab, There I'm American;" selected poems Oct. 2 Abla Farhoud, "The Girls from the Five and Ten" Diana Abu-Jaber, "At the Continental Divide"; "Rooms"; Joanna Kadi, "Dusk"; "Lesbian Love Letter"; "Listening to the Stars" Oct. 9 Naomi Shihab Nye, poems from Yellow Glove and handout S.V. Atalla, "Rock Cakes;" "Story" Alia Arasoughly, "A Palestinian Woman's Journey" D.H. Melhem, "As Lebanon Dies"; "To My Unknown Sister in Beirut"; "Boy in a Hospital"; Shebab;" "On the Massacre;" "For the Palestinian People;" "Gulf War" Laila Halaby, "August 16, 1990" Louise Cainkar, "Palestinian Women in the U.S." Oct. 16 Short paper due Film: "Dim Sum" Making Waves (MW) 1-22, Introduction Amy Ling, "Chinese American Women Writers" MW 29-30, "Okasan/Mother" MW 423-431, Chronology Morrison Wong, "The Chinese American Family" Oct. 23 Cathy Song, Picture Bride MW 32-33, Song, "Magic Island" MW 33-42, "The World of Our Grandmothers" Oct. 30 Amy Tan, Joy Luck Club MW 132-135, Tsui, "Chinatown Talking Story" Film: "Two Lies" Nov. 6 Maxine Hong Kingston, Woman Warrior MW 240-241, "Behind the Shadow" Nov. 13 Kim Ronyoung, Clay Walls MW 50-60, "Korean Immigrant Women" Pyong Gap Min,"The Korean Family" Nov. 20 Bharati Mukherjee, Wife MW 337-344, "Matchmaking" MW 148-159, "Ladies on the Line" Nov. 27 Thanksgiving Break -- NO CLASS MW 349-351, Mirikitani, "In Remembrance" Dec. 4 Hisaye Yamamoto, 17 Syllables MW 115-126, "Nisei Women and Resettlement" MW 243-251, "Growing Up Asian in America" Harry H. L. Kitano, "The Japanese American Family" Dec. 11 Portfolio of response papers due Joy Kogawa, Obasan MW 76-79 (Mirikitani, "Shadow in Stone") Film: "The Displaced View" Dec. 18 Long paper due Course Requirements: 1. Regular and prepared class participation. The class will be conducted as a seminar in which each person assumes responsibility for sustaining class discussion; it is, therefore, crucial that you come to class having read and thought about the assigned texts. Absences and failure to participate will affect your grade. 2. Written responses to assigned readings. You will be asked to turn in ten response papers(1-2 pages), responding to weekly readings; these may be analytical or may explore your personal reactions to the text and to issues raised in class. Turn in one per week, skipping whichever three weeks you like. Typing is greatly appreciated, but is not required. I will comment on response papers but will not grade them throughout the term; however, they must be turned in on the day on which the text is discussed. At the end of the term, all your response papers should be resubmitted in a portfolio. Bonus: At the end of the term, you may, if you wish, write a short personal essay for extra credit reflecting on the development of your thinking throughout the term. 3. In-class presentation. Working singly or in groups (depending on class size and interest in specific texts), you will make a presentation on one of the texts or group of short texts which we will be reading. Exactly what you do will be up to you; your central goal, however, will be to help the class understand and appreciate the text under consideration, and to stimulate further discussion. To this latter end you should provide a list of discussion questions to be distributed in class. 4. Short (5-6 pages) paper. This should be a textual analysis of one or more of the readings on the syllabus, and may be related to your presentation. 5. Term paper (10-12 pages) on a topic of your choice. You do not have to write about the texts we have read in class, but the paper should engage in some way with the ideas and themes which emerge over the course of the term. Partial Bibliography Abinader, Elmaz. Children of the Roojme: A Family's Journey. New York and London: W.W. Norton and Co., 1991. ---. "Here, I'm an Arab, There, an American." Washington Report on Middle East Affairs July 1991: 61. ---. "Letters from Home." In Grapeleaves: A Century of Arab America Poetry (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1988). ---. "Pigeon Rock: Lebanon." In Grapeleaves: A Century of Arab America Poetry (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1988). Abu-Jaber, Diana. "At the Continental Divide." Writer's Forum Vol. 17 (Fall 1991): 130-153. ---. "In the First Generation." The Seattle Review Vol. XIII No. 1 (Spring/Summer 1990):11-19. ---. "On Reading Difference." Confronting Racial Difference. Special Issue of Ploughshares (Vol. 16, Nos. 2-3 (Fall 1990): 20-22. ---."Rooms." The Sun, Issue.178 (1990): 26-28. Abu-Laban, Sharon McIrvin. "Arab-Canadian Family Life." Arab Studies Quarterly 1.2: 135-156. Atalla, S.V. "Rock Cakes." The Arab/Muslim World. Special Issue of Mr. Cogito, Vol. X, No. 1 (1991): 1. ---. "Story." The Arab/Muslim World. Special Issue of Mr. Cogito, Vol. X, No. 1 (1991): 2. Cainkar, Louise. "Palestinian Women in the U.S.: Who Are They and What Kind of Lives Do They Lead?" In Images and Reality: Palestinian Women Under Occupation and in the Diaspora. Sabbagh, Suha and Ghada Talhami, Series Editors. IAWS Monograph Series Women of Palestine, No. 1. Washington D.C.: The Institute for Arab WomenÕs Studies, 1990. Farhoud, Abla. "The Girls from the Five and Ten." In Plays By Women: An International Anthology. USA.: Ubu Repertory Theater Publications, 1988, pp. 103-159. Halaby, Laila. "August 16, 1990." The Arab/Muslim World. Special Issue of Mr. Cogito, Vol. X, No. 1 (1991): 6. Kadi, Joanna. "Dusk." Sinister Wisdom No. 46. ---. "Lesbian Love Letter." In Piece of my Heart: A Lesbian of Color Anthology, anthologized by Makeda Silvera. Toronto, Canada: Sister Vision Press, 1991. 100-104. ---. "Listening to the Stars." Hurricane Alice. (Spring 1992). Kaldas, Pauline. "ABC" Lift 3 (July 1990): 24. ---. "Back." Lift 6 (April 1991):57-58. ---. "Bird Lessons." Michigan Quarterly Review XXXI.4 (Fall 1992): 549-550. ---. "Exotic." Lift 3 (July 1990): 26. ---. "The Roof Crumbles." Lift 3 (July 1990): 25. ---. "Streets are Endless Configurations." Lift 6 (April 1991): 59. ---. "What America Has to Offer." Unpublished. Kitano, Harry H. L. "The Japanese American Family." In Ethnic Families in America: Patterns and Variations. Ed. Charles H. Mindel, Robert W. Habenstein and Roosevelt Wright, Jr. Elsevier Pub. Co, 1988. Third edition. Macron, Mary. "A Celebration of Life; Memories of an Arab-American in Cleveland." ADC Issues, No. 7, pp. 2-8. Melhem, D.H. "Boy in a Hospital." In American Jihad for Heritage and Hope: Arab American Poets, special issue of Paintbrush, Vol. XVIII, No. 35 (Spring 1991): 9-10. ---. "For the Palestinian People." Ararat 38 (Spring 1991): 27. ---. "Gulf War." Commisioned for Allen Ginsberg's public reading/workshop, "Poems about the War," St. Mark's, May 4, 1991. ---. "Heritage and Hope" (essay). In American Jihad for Heritage and Hope: Arab American Poets, special issue of Paintbrush, Vol. XVIII, No. 35 (Spring 1991):7-8. ---. "On the Massacre in Beirut: Sabra and Shatila Refugee Camps." Time Capsule, 6, no. 1 (Fall/Winter 1982). ---. "Plain String." Unpublished. ---. Rest in Love. New York: Dovetail Press, 1978. 2nd edition. ---. "Retrospect and Renewal." Ararat No. 126 (Spring 1991):23-25. ---. "say french." Ararat No. 126 (Spring 1991):27. ---. "Shebab." Home Planet News. 8.2 (Oct. 1991). ---. "To My Unknown Sister in Beirut." In And Not Surrender: American Poets on Lebanon. Ed. Kamal Boullata. Washington, D.C.: Arab American Cultural Foundation, 1982. Also in Ararat No. 126 (Spring 1991): 26. Min, Pyong Gap."The Korean Family." In Ethnic Families in America: Patterns and Variations. Ed. Charles H. Mindel, Robert W. Habenstein and Roosevelt Wright, Jr. Elsevier Pub. Co, 1988. Third edition. Minh-ha, Trinh T. "Not You/Like You." In Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Women of Color. Ed. Gloria Anzaldua. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Foundation, 1990. Naff, Alixa. "Arabs in America: A Historical Overview." Arabs in the New World: Studies on Arab-American Communities. Ed. Sameer Y. Abraham and Nabeel Abraham. Wayne State Univ. Center for Urban Studies, 1983. ---. "In Search of Arab Heritage in the U.S." Arab Perspectives Vol. 6, Sept.-Nov. 1985. 25-28. Najor, Deborah. "Bebe Khomee." Indiana Review No. 12 (Winter 1989): 14-20. ---. "A Cup of Tea." Unpublished. ---. "Painful Discourse." In Des Colores, Special Issue of The Kenyon Review, Vol. XIII, No. 4 (Fall 1991): 91-93. ---. "Selma's Weddings." Michigan Quarterly Review XXXI.4 (Fall 1992): 607-616. Nye, Naomi Shihab. "Broken Clock." Michigan Quarterly Review XXXI.4 (Fall 1992): 458. ---. "Commerce." Willow Springs No. 28 (Summer 1991): 7073. ---. "The Grieving Ring." In American Jihad for Heritage and Hope: Arab American Poets, special issue of Paintbrush, Vol. XVIII, No. 35 (Spring 1991): 50. ---. Mint. State Street Press, 1992. ---. "One Village." Journal of Palestine Studies. 13, No. 2 (Jan. 1984): 31-47. ---. "Pins." Michigan Quarterly Review XXXI.4 (Fall 1992): 460-1. ---. "Speaking Arabic." Michigan Quarterly Review XXXI.4 (Fall 1992): 462. ---. "Twenty Other Worlds." A Quartet: Texas Poets in Concert. Denton, Texas: Univ. of North Texas Press, 1990. ---. "White Coals." Michigan Quarterly Review XXXI.4 (Fall 1992): 457. ---.[Interview with Naomi Shihab Nye, By Bryce Milligan.] "Writing to Save Our Lives: An Interview with Naomi Shihab Nye." In American Jihad for Heritage and Hope: Arab American Poets, special issue of Paintbrush, Vol. XVIII, No. 35 (Spring 1991): 31-49. ---. Yellow Glove. Portland/ Seattle: Breitenbush Books, 1986. Salloum, Vicki. "Sitty Victoria." In When I am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple. Manhattan Beach, CA: Papier-Mache Press, 1987, pp. 2-11. Shakir, Evelyn. "Starting Anew: Arab-American Poetry." Ethnic Forum Vol. 3, Nos. 1-2 (Fall 1983): 23-36. ---. "Syrian-Lebanese Women Tell Their Story." Frontiers Vo. Vii, No. 1 (1983): 9- 13. Wong, Morrison. "The Chinese American Family." In Ethnic Families in America: Patterns and Variations. Ed. Charles H. Mindel, Robert W. Habenstein and Roosevelt Wright, Jr. Elsevier Pub. Co, 1988. Third edition.