ENGL 3834 Immigrant Narratives and the Idea of America

In this course, we will examine narratives about various immigrant experiences in the United States, many of them written by authors who identify as immigrants or refugees. We will consider how literary and cultural works in multiple genres--fiction, memoir, plays, graphic narratives, and film--have contributed to the idea of America and to debates about national, transnational, and diasporic identity that continue into the present. Possible texts include Israel Zangwill's The Melting Pot, Mary Antin's The Promised Land, Thi Bui's The Best We Could Do, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah, Javier Zamora's Solito, andElizabeth Graver's Kantika as well as short stories by Sui Sin Far, Abraham Cahan, Anzia Yezierska, Lara Vapnyar, Lan Samantha Chang, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Viet Thanh Nguyen and films such as Brooklyn and The Brutalist.