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Mid-term exam: May 18th, under 20 minutes per passage

Mid-term exam: May 18th, under 20 minutes per passage. Sections not quizzed on four texts: America is in the Heart, China Men, Obasan, Native Speaker. Choice of three questions per text: select one passage per text.

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Mid-term exam: May 18th, under 20 minutes per passage

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  1. Mid-term exam: May 18th, under 20 minutes per passage • Sections not quizzed on four texts: America is in the Heart, China Men, Obasan, Native Speaker. • Choice of three questions per text: select one passage per text. • Identification: author, title, ethnic community, historical context, close readings for language devices, action, character, thematic analysis

  2. Being a Man/ A Man’s Being/Masculinity: cultural differences; gendered imaginary? • “Freedom,” independence: free, separate of women/ domesticity/ rules: 251 • Sexuality: pursuit, desire, physical need • ? • ?

  3. Being a Man/ A Man’s Being/Masculinity • Courage, 136 • Strength, 251 • Adventurous • Pioneer/Settler • Fatherhood • Provider • ?

  4. Grandfather, Sierra Nevada Mountains, MHK’s version of ‘founding fathers’: collective & individual male subjectivities Home/sickness: “He felt his heart breaking. . . . not lead him to his family” (129). Isolation: “Suspended . . . he thought all kinds of crazy thoughts,. . . he could just cut the ropes” (131). Sexuality: “dangling in the sun above a new valley. . . sexual desire clutched him (133). Loss: “no record of how many died building the railroad;” 1906 earthquake, 138, 150. Legacy: “built a railroad out of sweat, why not have an American child out of longing?”

  5. “The Making of More Americans”: extended male family (‘eccentric’) • Place of spirit world, link with madness (belief in things unseen): • ‘Demons’/aliens/non-ethnic: outside, fearful • Ghosts: dead who need resolution, between U.S. and China: 169-171; Mad Sao & mother (guilt), 171-79; Uncle Bun (politics), 189-201

  6. Brother in Vietnam: end in ‘present’ time (chapters from 1920’s, 1830s, 1860s, 1900’s, to 1960’s-1970’s) • 269, 272: father and WWll draft • 276-277: brother’s students & Vietnam War draft • 283-285: brother enlists in US Navy “follow orders up to a point short of a direct kill” • 291-2: dreams/trauma • 300: Analyze Pentagon’s Vietnam Phrase Book

  7. “American Father” 237-255, stylistic resolution to dilemma of silent father’s biography(disjointed, realistic-fictive, pastiche, • Close reading: “father’s magic” • “power of going places where nobody else went, and making places belong to him” • Father’s depression/breakdown • Father’s recovery: triumphal, pastoral, Adamic • Father places: basement, house, garden

  8. Concluding story: “On Listening” 307-08 • ‘Book-end’ relation to “On Discovery’ • Role of author/narrator as listener/re-narrator • Multiplicity &commonality of stories on Chinese immigrant/labor movements • Chinese diaspora historically broad and geographically global • Chinese Americans part of Chinese diasporic history & community • Continuous nature of Chinese diaspora & story-telling

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