The Craft of Writing 1

The Bay Area is and has always been a significant site for Asian American creativity. It is home to the oldest Asian Pacific American arts organization in the nation, the Kearny Street Workshop, which was founded in 1972, and, in the East Bay, the Oakland Asian Cultural Center, founded in 1984. In fact, the genre of “Asian American literature” emerged as an academic category because of a demand for representation by undergraduates at San Francisco State University and UC Berkeley in the late 1960s. Among this vibrant historical and cultural setting, our course seeks to explore works of art and artistic practices by local writers and artists who identify as Asian-Pacific Islander American, who are/have been categorized as such, and/or whose work refuses identification; it also interrogates representations of Asian Americans among popular culture.

This is a writing-intensive course designed for remote learning. As writers, we will work in groups to develop two (2) individual writing projects throughout the semester. These projects will be self-directed and oriented to questions of identity, representation, and individuation. We will approach such projects creatively, critically, and tactically, engaging primary sources whenever possible. Contemporary scholarship from Asian American Studies, Ethnic Studies, and Black Feminist studies will provide our theoretical inroads that may help us to intensify our examination of identification and imagination. 

Course evaluation is labor-based, which means grades are contingent upon your effort and commitment to a writing process and not based on our assessment of your writing products. We welcome all persons to our course with one caveat to prospective students: this is a writing-intensive course that will require more time and energy than conventional R1As.