What controversies arise around literary representations of ethnic identity? How can we learn to read these controversies critically and thereby deepen our understanding of broader social issues? This course focuses on works of ethnic literature that have sparked enduring questions and offered important answers to the meaning of class, ethnicity, gender, indigeneity, race, and other configurations of national and transnational identity. We will pay close formal attention to these texts and read them in the context of the varied histories and critical conversations that attend them. Our challenge will be to make sense of the social through the literary by grappling with the complexity of ethnic representation. Readings will include the following: Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior, Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony, Richard Rodriguez’s Hunger of Memory, Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine, and other works.