Posted: December 14th, 2015

For the first question, can you please use (Re)Collecting the Vietnam War and The Sympathizer. And for the second question, please use American Son and The Sympathizer

Below are the two questions that need to be answered. Please answer each question in 1/2 a page, making it the 1 page total. For the first question, can you please use (Re)Collecting the Vietnam War and The Sympathizer. And for the second question, please use American Son and The Sympathizer. This will make it easiest for you I believe.

The overall directions are: As always, the goal is rigorous and insightful analysis: make clear, interpretive, debatable claims and support them with careful attention to details from the literary texts. Depth>breadth.

The Books:
American Son by Brian Ascalon Roley
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
(Re)Collecting the Vietnam War from the Asian American Literary Review

Please let me know if you have any questions or need additional information.
Thank you.
_____________________The Questions:___________________________________

1. Several of our course texts—A Gesture Life, (Re)Collecting the Vietnam War, and The Sympathizer—take up the subject of war and its complex legacies. Pick two of these works. Where do you see their engagements importantly overlapping and where do you see them importantly departing from one another?

2. American Son, A Gesture Life, and The Sympathizer all feature extended meditations on what might be called “the white gaze”—how Asian Americans are looked at by white Americans, and a hyper-consciousness of being looked at, with complex responses to that gaze. Drawing from two of these works, build some larger conclusions about the politics of “racial” looking and being looking at.