CSP 9 Asian/American Communities Writing for Social Change

In this course, students will explore writing as a practice that is socially constructed by people across time and space and within specific cultural contexts. To do this, students will learn to analyze writing beyond the more familiar approaches of textual analysis, which is to interpret and critique. In these familiar cases, writing is understood as a final published product with a single or small group of authors. Drawing from theoretical frameworks that position writing as a social practice, we will explore the larger inquiry: How have Asian/American communities used writing and rhetoric to respond to social injustices? Students will read qualitative studies that demonstrate how methods of textual analysis (e.g. discourse analysis, textual analysis, narrative analysis, rhetorical analysis) can be used as analytical lenses to trace the diverse texts and literacy practices of various communities. We will also discuss the limitations of these methods by exploring the scholarship in cultural rhetoric that critique traditional ideas of what counts as writing and rhetorics of resistance. Using these tools and analytical framework, we will take up the following inquiries throughout the semester: What literacy practices and texts have Asian/American communities developed historically to respond to social inequity? What are contemporary modes of digital writing or hybrid genres of writing that Asian/American communities have used to respond to social injustices affecting their communities? How can archives be used to explore how Asian/American communities in the U.S. have used writing to enact social change? How have Asian/American communities used writing to respond to social injustices on a personal and political level? What role has gender and race played in reading what is defined as writing and rhetorics of resistance?