| Course | Title | Instructor | Description |
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| ASIANAM 60B | INTR ASIA AMR ST II | MIMURA, G. | (Same as Soc Sci 78B) This class will cover the major issues affecting Asian Americans in the post-World War II era, particularly in regard to race, class, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality. Topics will include labor, immigration, colonialism, community formation, public policy agendas, political participation, education, and cultural production. The requirements will be a mid-term, a final exam, and participation in discussion section. |
| ASIANAM 100W | RSCH METH/FIELD RES | FUJITA-RONY, D. | This seminar will introduce students to a range of key methodological issues in Asian American Studies. The readings are organized around questions, approaches, and critiques that will help students develop skills in qualitative research and analysis, as well as examine how researchers have studied the community transformations, economic realities, and political changes that shape social relations. We will gain a critical understanding of some of the theoretical, empirical, and ethical challenges posed by scholarly research in the humanities and social sciences. Students are required to complete a fieldwork research project with accompanying paper, short writing assignments, and a presentation. |
| ASIANAM 110 | AUTOBIOG FICTIONS | KATRAK, K. | This course explores the multi-dimensional facets of autobiography as literary form, and the literary expressions of this form by Asian American writers. We analyze the interstices between telling the truth of one’s life as conveyed in memoir, and in autobiographical novels. Personal stories are contextualized within their authors’ cultural and political histories. Just as there is no one way of representing and recreating history, so there are many ways, points of views, and perspectives in recounting a life. We discuss the interplay of autobiography with memory, and how new diasporic locations for immigrants influence looking back on the past. Such memories inspire the literary production of autobiographical stories along with the assertion/erasure of ethnic identities. Selection of literary texts includes a memoir by Meena Alexander, and Maxine Hong Kingston, as well as innovative recreations of autobiographical fictions in Joy Kogawa’s novel, Obasan, and multi-genre autobiographies in Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s, Dictee, and Denise Uyehara’s Maps of City and Body. Our study also includes representations of family and personal history on videos about the Japanese-American internment, and about the struggles of recent immigrants in making a home in the U.S. Course Requirements: Attendance and participation, Class presentation, in-class Midterm, and Final Essay. |
| ASIANAM 110 | LIT SO. ASIAN DIASPOR | SHROFF, B. | (Same as Eng 105) In this class we analyze the work of writers who are of South Asian ancestry living in North America and Britain. A central concern is how through literary and cinematic representations, spaces of “home” and “belonging” are negotiated through narratives of disjunctures and displacements. How do the literary and cinematic texts represent multiple and contradictorily organized spaces where new identities must be negotiated? How do writers and filmmakers construct and negotiate their identities in their own specific cultural context and also in the larger diasporic context? We analyze texts such as Meena Alexander’s “Fault Lines”, Jhumpa Lahiri’s short stories “The Interpreter of Maladies”, Hanif Kureishi’s screenplay “My Beautiful Laundrette”, and Agha Shahid Ali’s poems “The Half Inch Himalayas”, among others. |
| ASIANAM 114 | ASNAM LIT/FLM ADAPT | SHROFF, B. | (Same as HA 101) This course analyzes the historical context within which Asian American texts have been adapted into films. There is a vast body of Asian American Literature but very few texts have been adapted to cinema since issues of audience and market are primary considerations. A historical context demonstrates how representations of Asian Americans have changed from the stereotypical images in the 1920s to self-representations by Asian American writers and filmmakers in contemporary times. We analyze different literary genres such as novels and dramas, for example Amy Tan's novel The Joy Luck Club, Le Ly Hayslip's memoir When Heaven and Earth Changed Places, David Henry Hwang's drama, M. Butterfly and Philip Kan Gotanda's drama, The Wash. Cinematic adaptations/versions of literary texts sometimes retitle and reconstruct texts as suitable for a mass audience such as Heaven and Earth directed by Oliver Stone, and others such as Hot Summer Winds directed by Emiko Omori based on two Hisaye Yamamoto short stories, Seventeen Syllables and Yoneko's Earthquake. We employ literary and film theory in reading the novels and plays to analyze language, structure, characterization and historical representation. We also discuss how the literary form translates into a visual medium, and the modifications of story/plot and characterization for the screen--for instance, how dramas lend themselves to screen adaptation more easily than do novels. We interrogate the strengths of each medium such as the scope of the fictional framework, and the spatio-temporal capabilities of the cinematic medium. |
| ASIANAM 142 | MUSLIM IDENT NO AMR | LEONARD, K.B. | (Same as Anthro 125Z) This course explores multiple identities of Muslims in North America, including African American Muslims and immigrants of many national origins. We explore religious, political, cultural, ethnic, and class differences among American Muslims, paying particular attention to recent efforts to mobilize and participate in American politics. The course involves a team research effort in the local communities. |
| ASIANAM 150 | ASIANAM & POP CLT | MIMURA, G. | (Same as Comp Lit 103) Do Asian Americans have a stake in popular culture? Why and how? Since the 1960s, Asian Americans have been producing distinct and exciting popular cultures that challenge racism, create new experiences of leisure, and advance democratic values. We will examine the relationship between Asian Americans and popular culture in several areas: image culture, popular music, high and low fashions, street cultures, and shopping malls. Grading is based on the following: attendance and participation 20%, midterm 40%, and final 40%. |
| ASIANAM 150 | ASIANAM ED & SCHOOL | HUH, C. | (Same as Educ 155) This course is designed to introduce students to the major issues facing Asian Americans in their education and schooling experiences of K-16 through the social scientific and historical perspectives. This year, the class aim to explore Asian American education issues in the context of mainstream education as well as minority education. The main objectives of the course are: to expose students to a broad literature on Asian American education and schooling experiences; to help students understand Asian American education from historical contexts; to get students familiar with the theories and methods that help students examine the current issues of the Asian American education in depth from a social scientific perspective; to help students further their knowledge of Asian American education in terms of differences of inter-group and intra-group; and to help students prepare to educate Asian American students with better understanding.
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| ASIANAM 151C | KOREAN AMER EXPER | HUH, C. | (Same as Soc Sci 178C) This course introduces students to the major issues in the contemporary Korean American community through social scientific and historical perspectives. The class aims to explore how the experiences of Korean Americans have been woven into their daily lives, such as their family, small entrepreneurship, religion, education, identity issues, and inter-ethnic relations. Examining these issues will help students understand Korean Americans and their community within minority communities as well as the United States.
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| ASIANAM 151E | JAPANESE AMER EXPER | LIU, J. | (Same as Soc Sci 178E) This course will examine the history, culture, and contemporary experiences of Japanese Americans from an interdisciplinary perspective. Specific topics to be covered include patterns of immigration, the social construction of community, acculturation and identity issues, internment, intergenerational relations, and political participation. All these discussions will take into consideration contrasts among Japanese Americans on the mainland and in Hawaii.
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| ASIANAM 161 | RACIAL/ETHNIC COMM | LIU, J. | (Same as Soc Sci 175B) This course will examine different conceptions of how racial and ethnic communities are formed and maintained as well as the conditions that enable these communities to continue to exist. Contemporary Chinese, Korean, South Asian, and Khmer communities will be looked at to determine the applicability of these varying conceptions. Although the focus is primarily on various Asian American communities, comparison to African American and Latino communities will be made when appropriate.
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| ASIANAM 162 | ASIAN AMER WOMEN | STAFF | |
| ASIANAM 164 | ASNAM/AFAM RELATION | FUJITA-RONY, D. | (Same as Af Am 160/Hist 152B) This course will explore the comparative and often connected history of Asian Americans and African Americans in the United States, with particular emphasis on the contemporary era. Themes will include labor, community formation, political mobilization, and cultural expression. Requirements will be a 5-page paper, midterm, final exam, and engaged class participation. |
| ASIANAM 190B | ASIANAM HONORS II | VO, L. | In the second of the three-part honors sequence, students work closely with a Faculty Advisor on their chosen research project. Emphasis is given to the writing process. At the end of the quarter, students are to complete the first draft of their thesis. Prerequisite: Asian American Studies H190A. |
| ASIANAM 200B | CONTEMP ISS ASAM ST | VO, L. | (Same as Hist 202) This course examines the interrelations between history, theory, and race in the aftermath of the twentieth-century decolonial movements, offering an account of race through post-colonial and postnationalist approaches in comparative, multiregional contexts. It also consider the interventions made by transnational feminist and racialized queer critiques. Course requirements include active participation in seminar discussions (20%); one in-class presentation (20%); and a seminar paper (60%). Course prerequisite: graduate standing. |
| ASIANAM 201 | INDIAN-AM CLT TRANS | KATRAK, K. | This course explores theories of diaspora, and how diasporic communities translate cultures—literary and expressive--in homeland spaces and in new locations. Literary expressions include fiction, poems, essays, memoir, and expressive forms include dance (video, dance reviews, essays). We study how location influences the formation of ethnic communities particularly for shared languages, food, and cultural expression via dance and music. Indian-American writers such as Jhumpa Lahiri, Meena Alexander among others are studied along with the teaching and performances of classical Indian dance in the diasporic community of Southern California. Bollywood cinema is part of this cultural scenario. We may be able to attend a classical Indian dance performance in the Los Angeles area. Issues of tradition and innovation, authenticity and hybridity, gender and generation are discussed as they impact the celebration and/or erasure of ethnicity.
Readings include Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies, Meena Alexander’s Fault Lines, selections from Our Feet Walk the Sky: South Asian Women of the Diaspora; Contours of the Heart: South Asians Map North America, and a reading packet of theoretical materials on diaspora, on cultural translation, and interviews with performing artists.
Requirements: Attendance and participation, weekly write-ups on required readings, and Final Research essay.
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| ASIANAM 290 | DIRECTED RESEARCH | MIMURA, G. | |
| ASIANAM 290 | DIRECTED RESEARCH | FUJITA-RONY, D. | |