Past Course Texts and Themes:


The Individual Struggle Against Societal Pressures
Play (Norway):  A Doll’s House  by Henrik Ibsen
Book (Afghanistan)  :  
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Poetry (United States): 
Unsettling America: An Anthology of Contemporary Multicultural Poetry eds. Maria Mazziotti Gillan and Jennifer Gillan

Short stories (Russia/New York): There Are Jews in My House by Lara Vapnyar


Impact of the Changing Media
YouTube: Digital Media and Society Series by Jean Burgess & Joshua Green
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman
Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet by Sherry Turkle
Losing the News: The Future of the News that Feeds Democracy by Alex S. Jones



Exploring Memoir: Overcoming Adversity and Journeying to Selfhood
Philippines – The Oracles: My Filipino Grandparents in America by Pati Navalta Poblete
Vietnam – The Eaves of Heaven: A Life in Three Wars by Andrew X. Pham
Pakistan – In the Name of Honor by Mukhtar Mai
Honduras – Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario


Banned Books: Meanings Behind Censorship
Opposing Viewpoints Series - Censorship (paperback edition) by Andrea C. Nakaya
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Am I Blue?: Coming Out from the Silence by Marion Dane Bauer (editor)
The Color Purple by Alice Walker


Crossing Countries, Crossing Cultures

Poetry:

Dominican Republic – The Other Side: El Otro Lado by Julia Alvarez
Spain – The Selected Poems of Federico Garcia Lorca eds Lorca and Allen

Mexico – Mexican Poetry: An Anthology complied by Octavio Paz, trans. Samuel Beckett

Latin America -- These Are Not Sweet Girls: Poetry by Latin American Women eds. Marjorie Agosin

El Salvador -- The Country Between Us poetry by Carolyn Forche


Novels:
Africa -- Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Cuba -- Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina Garcia

India –
The White Tiger: A Novel by Aravind Adiga

Africa -- Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih

Philippines -- The Umbrella Country by Bino Realuyo

Short Stories:
Russia -- Best Russian Short Stories ed. Thomas Seltzer
Middle East –
Arab Women Writers: An Anthology of Short Stories by Dalya Cohen-Mor

India -- Diamond Dust: Stories by Anita Desai

 

Plays:
Russia –
Chekhov: The Essential Plays by Anton Chekhov, trans. Michael Henry Heim

Britain -- Cloud 9 play by Caryl Churchill
China -- The Other Shore plays by Gao Xingjian
South Africa --
Master Harold and the Boys by Athol Fugard


Living in the U.S.A: American Values and Ideologies
America Street: A Multicultural Anthology of Stories ed. Anne Mazer
Generation Me by Jean M. Twenge Ph.D.
Culture Jam: How to Reverse America’s Suicidal Consumer Binge by Kalle Lasn
The Argument Culture: Stopping America’s War of Words by Deborah Tannen
American Values: Opposing Viewpoints ed. Mary E. Williams
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
I'll Be Short by Robert B. Reich
Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser
Hate Crimes by Jack Levin & Jack McDevitt
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman


Writing as a Form of Protest
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
Why We Can't Wait by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Storm from the East by Milton Viorst
1984 by George Orwell   


Madness and Genius
Mrs. Dalloway
by Virginia Woolf        
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad                      
Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams     
One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest by Ken Kesey


Diaspora: Those Forced from Their Homelands
Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora by Andrew Lam
The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks by Randall Robinson                       
Genocide of the Mind: New Native American Writing ed. MariJo Moore
Our Feet Walk the Sky: Women of the Southern Diaspora
eds. Women of S. Asian Decent Collective


Science Fiction
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley


The African-American Experience (ASTEP)
The Rap on Gangsta Rap: Who Run It? Gangsta Rap and Visions of Violence by Bakari Kitwana
The Envy of the World: On Being a Black Man in America by Ellis Cose
The Black Woman: An Anthology edited by Toni Cade Bambara
The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat
Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member by Sanyika Shakur aka Monster Kody Scott
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas by Frederick Douglas
The Third Life of Grange Copeland by Alice Walker
Makes Me Wanna Holler by Nathan McCall
The Debt by Randall Robinson
What is Cool?: Understanding Black Manhood in America by Marlene Kim Connor
Flat-Footed Truths: Telling Black Women's Lives by Patricia Bell-Scott
Black Boy by Richard Wright
The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor



The Latino Experience (Puente)
House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
A Place to Stand by Jimmy Santiago Baca
Hombres y Machos by Alfredo Mirande
Strangers Among Us by Robert Suro
Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina Garcia
The Red Camp by Debra Diaz
Hunger of Memory by Richard Rodriguez
De Colores Means All of Us by Elizabeth Martinez
The Latino/a Condition eds. Delgado and Stefancic
Harvest of Empire by Juan Gonzalez
Growing Up Chicano/a by Tiffany Ana Lopez
Macho! by Victor Villasenor
Bless Me Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
Always Running by Luis J. Rodriguez
In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez
Savages by Joe Kane



Marginalized Peoples
Mexican Migrant Workers: The Red Camp by Debra Diaz
Asian Americans: Asian Americans: Oral Histories of First to Fourth Generation Americans by Joann Faung Jean Lee
Economics for Women: Glass Ceilings and Bottomless Pits: Women's Work, Women's Poverty by Albelda and Tilly
Homeless Women: Tell Them Who I Am by Elliot Liebow
Gays and Lesbians: Homophobia: How We All Pay the Price by Warren J. Blumenfeld
The Disabled: The Body Silent: The Different World of the Disabled by Robert F. Murphy
Black gangs: Makes me Wanna Holler by Nathan McCall



Revolutionaries    
The Essential Gandhi by Mahatma Gandhi
Why We Can't Wait by Martin Luther King Jr.                         
Feminism is for Everybody by bell hooks
You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train by Howard Zinn
A Triumph of Spirit by Cesar Chavez
A Call to Conscience by Martin Luther King Jr.                       
Motorcycle Diaries by Ernesto "Che" Guevara


Search for Self and Identity   
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
The Awakening by Kate Chopin                        
Growing Up Asian American ed. Maria Hong
Half and Half: Writers on Growing up Biracial & Bicultural ed. Claudine Chiawei O'Hearn
Black Looks: Race and Representation by bell hooks
Honky by Dalton Conley


Two Americas     
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol
Growing Up Asian American ed. Maria Hong
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
8 Ball Chicks: A Year in the Violent World of Girl Gangs by Gini Sikes
Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston & James D. Houston



Exploring California
Toward the Setting Sun by Mary Barmeyer O'Brien
California Time by Ernest J. Finney
Forever Foreigners or Honorary Whites? by Mia Tuan
Five Fires by David Wyatt
Macho! by Victor Villasenor