ASIANAM Course Descriptions for 2017-2018

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Winter Course Descriptions
CourseTitleInstructorDescription
ASIANAM 52ASAM COMMUNITIESVO, L.ASIAN AMERICAN COMMUNITIES

Asian American Studies 52 (21520)/Social Science 78B (70175)

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.

ASIANAM 110ASAM AUTOBIOGRAPHIELEE, J.
ASIANAM 138RACE & URBAN SPACELEE, J.This course examines the impact of urban space on experiences of race and racial difference. We tend to think of space as simply setting – a blank canvas upon which we live our lives. This class hopes to make clear that urban and other kinds of environments play a crucial role in the formation of both individuals, communities, and the interactions between these groups. The first part of the quarter will be devoted to considering how the space of the city produces, naturalizes, and/or replicates various social and political hierarchies. The second and third units of this class are case-studies and will focus on two kinds of urban spaces associated with Asian Americans: the ethnic ghetto (Chinatowns, K-towns, Little Tokyos, Little Saigons, and the like) and the ethnoburb (ethnic suburbs attached to large cities). Drawing upon the fields of anthropology, geography, cultural studies, queer studies, ethnic studies, literary criticism, and urban history, we will explore how Asian Americans negotiate their racial identities within these specific kinds of spaces.

ASIANAM 143RELIGIOUS TRAD ASAMMAZUMDAR, S.
ASIANAM 144POLITICS OF PROTESTKIM, C.
ASIANAM 150ASAM FOOD CULTURESLEE, J.
ASIANAM 151DVIET AMER STUDIESLE-HUYNH, N.This course will explore the major issues affecting Vietnamese Americans in the United States. The seminar covers a wide range of topics starting with the Vietnam War to refugee migration to acculturation issues. Contemporary subjects for discussion include the challenges of transnational marriage, mixed-race identity and political representations.  Students will be expected to develop their critical thinking skills not only by learning about specific issues but also by making important connections among them. 

The scholarship on Vietnamese American community is rather limited, so more needs to be recorded and documented about their history.  Toward this end, a major component of this course is an oral history each student will complete with a Vietnamese American elder.  Students are trained in oral history methodology and will conduct and process (transcribe, translate, and index) one oral history interview to donate to Viet Stories: Vietnamese American Oral History Project, which will be archived in the UCI Libraries Orange County & Southeast Asian Archive Center (OC&SEAA).   
ASIANAM 151HSE ASAM STUDIESFUJITA-RONY, D.
ASIANAM 200BCONTEMP ISS ASAM STLEE, J.This course explores the intersections between Asian American Studies and other interdisciplinary fields that take up questions of difference and oppression. The readings (and hopefully discussion) will reflect on the fields that established themselves around the same time as Asian American Studies and with which it is traditionally allied institutionally (African American, Chicana/o, Native American, gender and sexuality) as well as areas of scholarship that are still emerging but are no less urgent (including but not limited to ecocriticism, disability studies, critical refugee studies, migration and diaspora, transnational labor, the transpacific, and surveillance). Our purpose will be to examine how these concepts inform contemporary Asian American Studies as well as, more broadly, how they impact the study of race, gender, sexuality, and difference within the US and globally. 
ASIANAM 201TOPICS VARYFUJITA-RONY, D.
ASIANAM 290DIRECTED RESEARCHBALANCE, C.
ASIANAM 290DIRECTED RESEARCHFUJITA-RONY, D.
ASIANAM 290DIRECTED RESEARCHKIM, C.
ASIANAM 290DIRECTED RESEARCHLEE, J.
ASIANAM 290DIRECTED RESEARCHLEE, J.
ASIANAM 290DIRECTED RESEARCHVO, L.
ASIANAM 290DIRECTED RESEARCHWU, J.