Asian American Studies
- AMS 101/ASA 101/LAO 101: America Then and NowThis course introduces students to methods of American Studies, Asian American Studies and Latino Studies through discussion of some of the signature ideas, events, and debates in and about America's past and present. It presents students various scholarly approaches to historical and mythic manifestations of America from local, national, and global perspectives and considers the historical and cognitive processes associated with the delineation of America. The course examines a wide range of material and media from the point of view of multiple fields of study.
- AMS 406/ASA 406/LAO 406: Advanced Seminar: The 1970s in 10 ObjectsThe 1970s are one of the most fascinating periods in recent American history, marking a turn from the countercultural turmoil of the 1960s to the rising conservatism of the 1980s. Often overlooked, these years nonetheless encompass tremendous social, political, and cultural change. In this seminar, we'll examine the 1970s through 10 intriguing objects--some famous, some obscure---that shaped and reflected the decade's art, politics, economics, technology, and culture. We'll use each object as an occasion for looking deeper at the issues it encapsulates or represents, how those issues reverberate across the decade, and their legacy for today.
- EAS 350/ASA 350: Moving Images: Contemporary Asian American CinemaThis course convenes experiences of watching and thinking about contemporary Asian American film. The syllabus is built around narrative films made by and about ethnicized Asians that have crossed the threshold of commercial viability or popular visibility in America. The central critical theme: how can the structure, flow, and mood of film, diminished in cultural capital but still vital as a form of imaginative storytelling, inspire incisive modes of seeing, feeling, and thinking what it means to be Asian in the world today? Core methods of film analysis and surveys of Asian American history inform the meditations on that central theme.
- ENG 291/GSS 291/ASA 291: Asian MothersDespite the stereotypes of the over-bearing Tiger Mom and the Immigrant Mom, the figure of the mother has been surprisingly absent (either missing, dead, or otherwise gone) in 20th and 21st century Asian American literature and cinema. This class explores how the missing maternal figure structures the lifeline of Asian American imagination. Why is such a primal figure of origin ghostly? What happens to the mother-child relationship in the shifting contexts of diaspora, migration, nationhood, interracial relation, technology, and/or adoption? What happened to the "Asian Mother" in the late stage of American neoliberalism and racial reckoning?
- SOC 392/ASA 362: Asian American Women and Everyday ViolenceThe course examines the gendered racialization of Asian American women. It identifies and interrogates experiences of everyday violence, looking at their hypersexualization, labor market precarity, intimate partner violence, and poverty. It situates the discussion in the law, family, workplace, and campus community.