Literature and Cultural Studies

Structural forms of inequality have appeared throughout all forms of art and cultural production, and artists and writers have challenged structural inequalities across every conceivable media.  Professor erin Ninh has published an award-winning book about Asian American literature, about the ways in which Asian American women writers especially have understood their position in Asian American families and in American society.  Professor Sameer Pandya’s scholarly and creative works have explored issues of South Asian American identity—his protagonists want to belong, even as their struggles leave them unsettled, to the point where they find themselves unsettling.  Professor Cho’s work explores how Asian American artists and performers have tried to carve a distinctive place for themselves through art, performance, and material culture. 
 
All of their courses offer a breathtaking range of approaches in literary and cultural studies.  Students in the introductory classes develop a fine sense for close readings of texts and for conceptual ways of understanding important themes in novels, films, and other creative productions.  The upper division courses offer more refined ways of seeing—students will develop a finer aesthetic sensibility, as well as an expansive vocabulary to discuss and to understand media in all of its variety.