239715 Ethnic Literatures in the Americas (Summer School IAS/Geschichte/BMBF) (BS) (SoSe 2012)

From a comparative perspective, this workshop on ethnic literature will engage with literary works by African American, Asian American, and Latin@ writers in an attempt to grasp the history, complexity, and richness of literatures that inevitably exceed, and often precede, the established boundaries of literary canons and nation-states. We will focus on concepts of ethnicity and post-ethnicity in the discussion of selected literary texts. In addition, with reference to the US in particular, we will look at literary texts claiming their right to be acknowledged as integral to the literary tradition of "the" nation of immigrants par excellence, which too often has thwarted the immigrants' desires to belong and enjoy the American Dream of perpetual improvement.