In this course, we will explore a range of research methodologies in Asian American Studies and, more broadly, in Ethnic Studies. The readings are organized around questions, approaches, and critiques that will help students develop qualitative research skills, while also considering the politics of research and representation. Students are required to complete daily short written assignments, a research project, and in-class presentations. Peer-writing exchange workshops will be a key component of our learning.
Days: MO  09:00-11:50 AM

This interdisciplinary course examines documentary film, experimental nonfiction, oral history, community media, archival practice, and podcasting not simply as forms of representation, but as modes of testimony, evidence, memory work, political intervention, and community history.

The course also introduces students to documentary modes and points of view, and introductory training for oral history and interviewing. We also study Asian Americans’ active interventions to access and develop institutional infrastructures that continue to support story work, including community media organizations, festivals, and archives.
Days: TU TH  11:00-12:20 PM

This course examines how the global reach of popular Hindi-language cinema of India referred to as Bollywood film creates new representations of nationalism and national narratives. Increasing travel, changing modes of life and material expansion even within India and within the Indian diasporas have generated transnational and international movements of people, media and commodities and Bollywood is a major player in these movements and markets.

The masculinist space of nation as represented in older films is transformed as gender and sexuality intersect with social categories of class and particularly caste and religion. As an increasingly transnational and global product,  Bollywood’s glittering, glitzy dance and song routines reconstruct femininity and masculinity, gender and sexuality, and family identities in ways that attempt to challenge patriarchal,  and nationalist discourses. Selected films include The Lover Wins the Bride, Monsoon Wedding and My Name Is Khan.

As a counterpoint to Bollywood's conventions of gender production, we analyze some independently produced films that deploy the language of Bollywood, and attempt to contest its conflicted messages of gender and nation.
Days: TU TH  03:30-04:50 PM

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 citizenship dilemmas after 9/11 and selected films like Turbans, Junky Punky Girlz and Knowing Her Place.
Days: TU TH  12:30-01:50 PM

This course examines the lives, histories, narratives, media, and cultures created and experienced by “Asian American women.” As I hope our readings and discussion will make clear, although it appears to be a self-evident term describing a definable group of people, “Asian American women” actually operates as a highly contested category, in which different discourses and histories surrounding race, gender, sexuality, class, nationality, and filiation collide. We will study the history of Asian women in the United States from the nineteenth century to the present as well as the pervasive cultural narratives that have been and still are associated with Asian American femininity. The primary focus of the class will be to analyze the multitudinous ways that Asian American women have resisted and/or negotiated these stereotypes via literature, art, film, documentary, stand-up comedy, and digital culture. The material we will discuss in class ranges widely, from literary texts, to documentaries, to stand-up comedy, to articles from the disciplines of English, sociology, public health, gender studies, legal studies and history.
Days: TU TH  09:30-10:50 AM

Japanese culture is often portrayed as having a uniquely harmonious relationship to nature. From Shinto to Buddhism, from haiku poetry to the animated films of Miyazaki Hayao, nature has served as a central concern for Japanese thinkers, writers, and artists more broadly. At the same time, Japan has suffered from devastating natural disasters and industrial pollution. This course begins with two questions: 1) How can the human relationship to nature be both harmonious and harmful? and 2) What happens when we stop seeing nature as merely the background for human action, and start considering it as a character in a text? To answer these questions, we will adopt an interdisciplinary approach from the emerging field of environmental humanities. We will focus on examples of modern Japanese literature and film in which landscapes and non-human animals and plants play a central role, as well as religious texts, works of Japanese environmental philosophy, environmental history, and anthropology. We will examine the different ways nature is represented in all of these texts, and what these descriptions might say about the human relationship to nature. All readings will be in English translation; no Japanese language ability is required.

(same as 22776 Com Lit 144, Lec B; and 31175 Rel Std 120, Lec A)

Days: TU TH  03:30-04:50 PM

This course is an introduction to Japanese sociolinguistics, which is the study of the relationship between a language and society. We will explore variety of language uses in modern Japanese and how such variation is constructed by identity and culture. An exploration of attitudes and ideologies about these varieties will be of importance to understanding this relationship. Its main goal is to provide students a systematic introduction to the nature and characteristics of the language use. The course covers:

• Language assimilation and unification of a nation
• Speaking a dialect as manifestation of identity
• Inside and outside of a social group
• Honorific system as the art of socializing in the society
• Use of male/female language based on social norms


(same as 65150 LSCI 165S, Lec A)

Days: TU TH  12:30-01:50 PM

This course will examine the history of Korean popular culture--from the early 20th Century to the present.  In so doing, the course will learn concepts like ‘colonial modernity,’ ‘postmodernism,’ ‘mimicry,’ and ‘cultural hybridity.’ The class will first think about whether it is possible for Koreans to extricate nationalism (minjok-juui) from its popular culture by examining the pop culture of the colonial period.  Then we will examine, via pop music, sports, television, food, film, and visual materials, how the globalization pursued by Korean Wave has defined the core of Korea’s national identity over the past several decades. The course will tackle each area of the aesthetic, geopolitical, and ‘authenticity’ debates that are crucial to the redefining of Korean popular culture.

(same as 24250 Flm&Mda 145, Lec A)

Days: MO WE  02:00-03:20 PM

This class introduces novels, stories, documentaries and ethnographies from modern Japan to discuss care and care work. Why is it so hard to take care of others, and why does care work, when performed for a wage, pay so poorly? If we think of care work as taking care of children, the elderly and the sick, is it only ever drudgery? Or does it teach us something? Is care work “healing?” Topics include eldercare (feminist poet Ito Hiromi), environmental care (Minamata novelist Ishimure Michiko), care for mental illness (Karen Nakamura), care of the neurodivergent self (Murata Sayaka, Shishido Daisuke) and care in the age of #MeToo/Epstein (Ito Shiori).

Assignments include discussion board posts, mid-term and final lists, and weekly reading quizzes (easy if you do the reading).

Days: MO WE  03:30-04:50 PM

This course explores evolving techniques, styles, and meanings of ceramic art and functional pottery in Japan. While famous ancient developments will be discussed, emphasis will be placed on modern and contemporary experimental and avant-garde approaches to firing clay. "Ceramics" is defined broadly to include a wide variety of media – sculpture, murals, installation, and performance – that employ clay and earth. Firing earthy materials for artistic purposes is considered from ecological perspectives such as global warming.

(same as 21036 Art His 150, Lec A)

Days: MO WE  05:00-06:20 PM

How many historically significant Asian Americans can you identify? This racialized group has been represented as the yellow peril and the model minority. How might historical and creative approaches to research and narration give us insight into the lived experiences and the identities of Asian Americans of diverse ethnic and generational backgrounds?
(same as AsianAm111)
Days: TU TH  12:30-01:50 PM

Japanese culture is often portrayed as having a uniquely harmonious relationship to nature. From Shinto to Buddhism, from haiku poetry to the animated films of Miyazaki Hayao, nature has served as a central concern for Japanese thinkers, writers, and artists more broadly. At the same time, Japan has suffered from devastating natural disasters and industrial pollution. This course begins with two questions: 1) How can the human relationship to nature be both harmonious and harmful? and 2) What happens when we stop seeing nature as merely the background for human action, and start considering it as a character in a text? To answer these questions, we will adopt an interdisciplinary approach from the emerging field of environmental humanities. We will focus on examples of modern Japanese literature and film in which landscapes and non-human animals and plants play a central role, as well as religious texts, works of Japanese environmental philosophy, environmental history, and anthropology. We will examine the different ways nature is represented in all of these texts, and what these descriptions might say about the human relationship to nature. All readings will be in English translation; no Japanese language ability is required.

Category 2

Days: TU TH  03:30-04:50 PM