| Course | Title | Instructor | Description |
|---|
| ASIANAM 52 | ASAM COMMUNITIES | VO, L. | Asian American Communities will introduce students to a range of social, cultural, economic, and political discourses concerning the formation and construction of Asian American communities. We will study the historical and contemporary developments of ethnic communities as geographical sites as well as analyze emerging communities as non-territorial social networks. We will discuss how these communities negotiate the spatial and social terrains of generational, ethnic, gender, sexual, class, religious, and ideological differences. Our discussions will examine theories about voluntary and involuntary communities, ethnic enclaves, ethnic economies, and race relations. Integral to this discussion will be issues of nationalism, colonialism, globalization, immigration, citizenship, politics, education, and representation and how these issues frame the debates of inclusion and exclusion.
Same as SOC SCI 78B. |
| ASIANAM 110 | CMNG OF AGE IN ASAM | LEE, J. | This course examines narratives of identity formation—also known as the bildungsroman—in contemporary Asian American literature. Our focus will be on understanding the unique demands placed on Asian American subjects as they emerge from childhood and adolescence into adulthood. How does the experience of racial alterity affect the development of Asian American individuals and the kinds of stories of self they tell? What role do issues surrounding ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality play in these kinds of narratives?
Class meetings will be a combination of lecture, discussion, and group work. Texts may include Eddie Huang’s Fresh Off the Boat, Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake, Patti Kim’s A Cab Called Reliable, Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior, Bich Nguyen’s Stealing Buddha’s Dinner, Lois Ann Yamanaka’s Blu’s Hanging, and Kenji Yoshino’s Covering.
Instructor: Julia Lee.
Same as ENGLISH 105. |
| ASIANAM 114 | ASNAM LIT/FLM ADAPT | SHROFF, B. | This course analyzes the historical context within which Asian American literary texts have been adapted into filmic texts. 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, dramas and short stories, for example Jhumpa Lahiri's novel, The Namesake, Le Ly Hayslip's memoir When Heaven and Earth Changed Places and David Henry Hwang's drama, M. Butterfly. Cinematic adaptations/versions of literary texts sometimes re-title 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 which is 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. We interrogate the strengths of each medium and the spatial and temporal capabilities of the cinematic medium.
Same as ENGLISH 105 (Section B). |
| ASIANAM 143 | RELIGIOUS TRAD ASAM | MAZUMDAR, S. | Same as SOCIOL 136. |
| ASIANAM 144 | POLITICS OF PROTEST | KIM, C. | Same as POL SCI 124A. |
| ASIANAM 150 | PHILIPPINE CINEMA | LIM, F. | This class introduces Filipino Cinema through a matrix of intersecting discourses: national cinema, nationalism, class, historiography, Filipino film criticism, star discourses, and genre study. Tracing the development of Philippine cinema from early archival films and the Studio Era to the auteurist New Cinema and contemporary Filipino popular and independent digital filmmaking, the course aims to familiarize students not only with the films themselves but to a wide range of critical approaches. The films were chosen to familiarize the student not only with the canonical directors of Filipino cinema but also to foster an appreciation for the commercial cinema's talented array of genres, stars, directors, and screenwriters. The course examines Philippine cinema’s rich and nuanced articulation of nation, history, sexuality, and diasporic experience in relation to the intersecting discourses of filmmakers, stars, critics, and audiences.
Same as FLM&MDA 160. |
| ASIANAM 150 | AMRCN WAY OF EATNG | CHEN, Y. | Confucius proclaimed in the Book of Rites that the pleasures in food and sex embody the great human desires. Unlike human sexuality, however, the paramount significance of food remains under-appreciated. This course explores the changes in what and how Americans eat since the early 20th century. We will look at the domestic and global forces that turned America from an Anglo culinary monotony into a landscape of increasing diversity. We will also examine the pressing issues facing American consumers in terms of health as well as class, race, and gender.
Topics include fundamental concepts and perspectives; the relationship between the nation and national cuisine; representations of food; nutrition; myths and science about food; the roles of women and immigrants; and the development ethnic food. Grading will be based on mid-term and final.
Same as HISTORY 152. |
| ASIANAM 151C | KOREAN AMER EXPER | CHO, J. | We will investigate the question, 'How do Korean Americans influence the world, and how does the world influence Korean Americans?' Our study will look at transnational factors that compel Korean Americans to work in global, local, material, and imagining arenas of the Korean “nation.” The first half of the course introduces affect through fiction excerpts, studies of pre-immigration racial identity, history of U.S.-Korea relations, and issues of religion, gender, and family, in connection to our core reading on Korean American students in the university. The second half examines contemporary racial formation, political organizing, adoptee social movements, and imagining the future of Korean American communities through emerging cultures.
Class meetings will primarily be dedicated to discussion and small group work, with occasional screenings and guest speakers. Outside of class, students will author individual posts at the class blog site. Major projects include a short ethnography paper, and final research project on an emergent cultural practice relating to Korean Americans.
Same as SOC SCI 178C. |
| ASIANAM 151F | SO ASIAN AMER EXP | SHROFF, B. | The class brings together diverse perspectives on the experiences of South Asians in America. South Asian countries include India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh among others. From the historical presence of South Asians in America in the 1920s, to the experience of pop culture like bhangra remix, and the lives of working class taxi drivers in New York City, after 9/11. We examine the experience of South Asians in America as one of multiple belongings, and hybrid identities that are complicated connections between the culture of the U.S. and the homeland. Selected materials include stories by Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri, sociological readings on domestic violence, and citizenship dilemmas after 9/11 and selected films like Turbans, Knowing Her Place and Pardes—the latter a Bollywood version of the South Asian in America.
Same as SOC SCI 178F. |
| ASIANAM 164 | KOREAN ADOPTION | LEE, J. | This course introduces students to the 60-year political economy of transnational adoption of children from Korea to the US (and other parts of the West) and the cultural productions of Korean adoptees. We will critically engage the discourse of the "rescue" of children and the construction of the Korean "orphan" to create Western desire and demand, and explore how adoptees themselves are reframing adoption through literature, film, and activism, as well as building new networks of solidarity with unwed mothers in Korea. Readings may include work by Jane Jeong Trenka, Jennifer Kwon Dobbs, Sun Yung Shin, Lee Herrick, Eleana Kim, and Catherine Choy. We will also view video and film work by Deann Borshay Liem, Tammy Chu, and Nathan Adolfson.
Instructor: James Lee. |
| ASIANAM 168 | ANIMAL RIGHTS | KIM, C. | Same as POL SCI 126F. |
| ASIANAM 200B | CONTEMP ISS ASAM ST | VO, L. | 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 considers the interventions made by transnational feminist and racialized queer critiques. In this respect, we will examine the methodological and theoretical development of Asian American Studies from an interdisciplinary perspective and critique its intersectionality with other disciplines. We will evaluate approaches to the study of racialization and ethnicization as well as the contemporary challenges facing Ethnic Studies projects. |
| ASIANAM 290 | DIRECTED RESEARCH | BALANCE, C. | |
| ASIANAM 290 | DIRECTED RESEARCH | FUJITA-RONY, D. | |
| ASIANAM 290 | DIRECTED RESEARCH | KIM, C. | |
| ASIANAM 290 | DIRECTED RESEARCH | LEE, J. | Instructor: Prof. James Lee. |
| ASIANAM 290 | DIRECTED RESEARCH | LEE, J. | Instructor: Prof. Julia Lee. |
| ASIANAM 290 | DIRECTED RESEARCH | VO, L. | |