Drawing Asia America: Immigration, identities, and Representation in Asian / American Graphic Novels

The seminar works through Asian American literature by focusing on the genre and form of comics and graphic novels.  Through these illustrative and textual works, we will explore the Asian American experience of immigration and racial difference as well as the construction of Asian American identity and representation through possible works, such as Adrian Tomine’s Shortcomings, and Thi Bui’s The Best We Could Do.  The course will also open up to consider the transnational and global literature of Asian/American graphic novels from other sites of Asian migration and diaspora, including Vietnamese Australian Matt Huynh’s The Boat, Japanese Gengoroh Tagame’s My Brother’s Husband, and Korean Belgian Jung’s Couleur de peau: miel.  As such, this course seeks to examine literary works and cultural productions in the form of comics and graphic novels that engage with and articulate the Asian American experience as well as the sense of being Asian in the world.