This thesis analyzes the periodical literary magazine ShūKaku [Harvest], a Japanese-language magazine published between 1936 and 1939. The purpose of this analysis is to advance scholarship on pre-World War II Japanese American literature and to explicate the connection between early Japanese American literary aesthetics and the literary periodical format from a transnational perspective. Drawing on established scholarship about early Japanese American literature, historical background, as well as theories from a range of disciplines including transnational, Asian Americanist, and spatial studies, this thesis argues that ShūKaku served as a "space" in which Japanese American writers from different positions—including geophysical, generational, and ideological—could present, theorize, and debate different versions of "Japanese American literature." By dedicating itself to iminchi bungei [immigrant literature], a literary aesthetic movement devoted to representing Japanese American life "as it is," the magazine accommodated a range of works with diverse forms, subjects, and perspectives. Studying these diverse works over the course of the magazine's lifespan reveals not only the different ways in which Japanese Americans conceived of themselves as subjects, but also how they conceived of their own literature, and how those conceptions shifted over time in response to economic and political pressures that resonated from global to local contexts. This thesis additionally extends existing scholarship about ShūKaku by analyzing yet unexplored themes and topics present in the magazine. Part literary analysis and part translation project, this thesis joins a few other scholars in bringing early Japanese American literature into contemporary literary discourse. But many works written by Japanese Americans prior to 1942 remain understudied and undertheorized. Further research will help enrich modern understandings of Japanese American history and may illuminate new ways of reading and theorizing not only pre-World War II Japanese American literature but internment era and post-war Japanese American literature, as well.

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The focus of my study is the creation of a special topics American literature or Women's Studies course about the women writers of the Beat Generation; this course provides students with a variety of explorations of women's writing during and after Post World War II America. This period saw many changes in terms of women's roles as they challenged the mid-20th century societal constructs. My research examines the women Beat writers by centering on their distinct women's discourse and how their voices challenged the patriarchally-driven canon of Beat Generation writers. To accomplish this task, my research focuses on expanding the Beat Generation literary canon beyond the male Beats by creating a digital archive of the women writers of the Beat Generation. As a feminist digital humanities project, this Women Writers of the Beat Generation Omeka website can be used as a resource for undergraduate students to research the work of these women writers and, as a result, elevate the women's prominence in the Beat literary canon. While the women are no longer a postscript in Beat Generation scholarship, the curriculum I developed for undergraduate students expands the general notion of Beat Generation writers usually covered in literature survey courses and exposes students to the Beat women's texts. The scholarship done in the past that brought the women's work to the forefront has not always impacted undergraduate teaching, and this Women Writers of the Beat Generation website and the focused curriculum provides students have a new way to discover the women Beats' work. This dissertation discusses how the Open Educational Resource materials including the interface, digital database, metadata, and the Omeka website can assist undergraduate students studying the women writers of the Beat Generation. Using open-source software called Omeka, this project's website provides a single space to research the work of the women Beat writers, elevating the women's importance in the Beat literary canon.

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