This course is on minor literatures and films in Chinese, highighting a rich diversity of works by
representative Sinophone writers and directors who draw on their heritage to cultivate the critical practice of
cross-cultural pollination. It considers the recent emergence of Sinophone discourse around the shifting
notions of China as a geopolitical entity and of Chinese culture as part of transnational lived experience.
We shall examine theories of Sinophone and Chinese Diaspora around issues of identity performance—
gender, racial, national, transnational, translational, and so on. Our main focus will be on artists from a rich
diversity of pan Chinese speaking communities, particularly on the ways in which they reinvent traditions to
develop new visions of being Chinese along the direction of linguistic innovation and literary imagination.
Students need to do 20-minute presentations (up to 5 as a group) on the lives and works of sinophone
artists of their choice. They will formulate as a group weekly questions and comments in response to
teading materials. A short paper outlining term project with annotated bibtiography is due in the sixth week.
The final paper should be cogently argued and meticulously documented; it is to turn in at the end of the
quarter.
Write a research project on an author or topic related to Sinophone literature in elaborate detail:
include at least three outside resources not originating online.
Sample Solution
