How Does the Empire Write Back? This upper-division course focuses on Asian Pacific American literature and the United States empire. By reading stories, plays, historical documents, poems, and films, students will learn how empire affects the experience of different generations of Pacific Islanders and Asians in America. We will examine the continuing impact of wars in the Pacific that established the U.S. as a global power, focusing especially on Filipino American, Hawaiian, Vietnamese American, and South Asian American texts. This diverse range of writers and artists proposes creative ways of thinking beyond, against, and without the U.S. empire. Most importantly, this course will be an opportunity for students to develop their own research or creative projects, which will contribute to this body of writing. While students are expected to work on individual research topics from the very beginning of the course, the last third of the semester is set aside for the development and presentation of projects. This course satisfies the "Cultural Expression" Requirement for the Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies Minor.