| source Northwestern (X) |
level |
department ASIAN_AM Asian American Studies (X) |
This course is an introductory survey of the history of Asian immigrants and Asian Americans in the United States. We will examine the experiences of Asian immigrants and Asian Americans from a historically-grounded, interdisciplinary perspective that locates these experiences within the international context of diaspora and labor migration and the domestic context of race relations, nation-building and U.S. prominence as a world power. Reaching back to the earliest encounters of Asians with the Americas, we will discuss how European imperialism and American expansionism shaped those encounters into a history that is often closer in nature to the forced migration of African slaves than to the migration of European settlers. We will examine the ways in which images such as the Yellow Peril and the Model Minority have concrete impact on the lived experience of Asian immigrants and Asian Americans, and explore their significance in American discourse on race and racial difference. The significance of race and ethnicity, class, and gender in the ongoing creation of the American nation and Asian American communities will be an important leitmotif throughout this course. Topics include work and labor; nationalism, nativism and anti-Asian movements, including the internment of Japanese Americans; gender, family and generational change, post-1965 immigration, global restructuring and Asian American communities; civil rights and the emergence of Asian American identities; and Asian Americans and multiculturalism in the so-called post-civil rights era.
Score: 13.3296585 Details | Listing | Web page
REBELS IN ASIAN AMERICAN CULTURE: Asian Americans are active producers of popular culture and in this seminar we will study novels, films, short stories and hip hop by Filipino American, Vietnamese American, Korean American, Japanese American, Desi, and Chinese American artists and writers. This course will pivot around the themes of Ârebelling and Âtransgressing which we will study in several ways. First, we will consider how these Asian American texts represent rebellious and transgressive figures such as the hustler in American Son, queer boys and girls in Rolling the RÂs and the draft resister in No-No Boy. We will consider how Asian American authors draw on these figures in order to contest the Âmodel minority stereotype, American racism, homophobia in Asian American and American societies, conflicts between 1.5 and 2nd generations and more. Secondly, we will consider how some of these works Âtransgress by crossing generic, formal or lingual expectations. For example, praCH Ly deliberately merges Khmer, the language of Cambodia with English in his hip-hop lyrics whereas Theresa Cha incorporates images, poetry and non fiction prose with traditional elements of the novel form in Dictee. These aesthetic acts of transgression has the potential to unsettle and reveal the assumptions that underwrite the idea that there is only one Âcorrect way of seeing, reading, writing and knowing. Finally, we will consider the differences and similarities between individual acts of rebellion and collective acts of resistance in these texts, to tap the well of Asian American collective imaginations to dream of a more just future.
Score: 13.3296585 Details | Listing | Web page
Beyond Geishas and Fu Manchus: Asian Americans and Gender: This discussion seminar examines the intersection of gender, sexuality, and race in the lives of Asian American men and women from the late nineteenth century to the present. Topics surveyed include migration and diaspora, empire and nationalism, family and community, Asian American masculinity and feminism, and gay and lesbian experiences. Weekly readings will emphasize how encounters between diverse racial groups, in both domestic and international settings, structured gender relations as well as the role of the federal government and the media in defining those relations. Course readings will draw on a variety of disciplines with a special attention to how race and sexual orientation become interwoven aspects of Asian American experience and identity formation.
Score: 13.3296585 Details | Listing | Web page
"Multiethnic Chicago: Race, Space and Boundary Making": Chicago is well known as the most segregated city in the United States, yet it is also celebrated as Âthe city of neighborhoods for its rich immigration history and cultural diversity. If you take a tour of Chicago, do you notice that different neighborhoods have their distinct characteristics? Do you wonder why? How does post -1965 immigration transform the Black/white racial landscape in Chicago? How do earlier European immigrants interact with latecomers who are mainly immigrants from Asia and Latin America? In this interdisciplinary seminar we will read historical and ethnographic writings on different racial and ethnic groups in Chicago. We will explore how urban spaces are racialized in specific ways and how apparently distinct minority experiences are inherently related. The course aims to help students understand the socially constructed nature of boundaries along lines of race, gender and class, and how the trespassing of these boundaries can both reinforce existing social hierarchies and create new spaces of negotiation and resistance.
Score: 13.3296585 Details | Listing | Web page
This course explores civil rights issues in Asian America from a contemporary and historic perspective. Topics examined include: immigration policy and immigrant rights; voting rights and political empowerment; employment discrimination and the Âglass ceilingÂ; hate crimes and hate speech; affirmative action in education and government contracting; language access to health care and the legal system; post-9/11 racial profiling; and human trafficking. We will analyze legal, political and community-based campaigns and other alternatives for redress and social justice. The course will focus primarily on civil rights issues facing Asian Americans but will draw upon African American and Latino case studies and advocacy strategies. Readings are drawn from law review articles, judicial filings and opinions, social science and policy journals, reports from community-based and government sources and contemporary readings. Short films and video clips will also be shown.
Score: 13.3296585 Details | Listing | Web page
Asian Americans have increasingly become a visible part of the American national landscape in recent years. While image of exotic Chinatowns, inscrutable math wizards, and strange rituals have long dominated the American popular imagination of post-1965 Asian communities and cultures, there are emerging images and narratives that defy these conventions and stereotypes. The class will examine these multi-faceted dimensions of Asian American lives and communities through the lenses of ethnography, film, music, the internet and other media. The course follows several themes including race and ethnicity, immigration, food ways, youth cultures, religion, gender and sexuality.
Score: 13.3296585 Details | Listing | Web page
This course offers an interdisciplinary, chronological, and thematic examination of Black and Asian race relations in America in order to understand and interrogate the increasing economic, political, social, and ideological gaps between these two groups. By focusing on relations of conflict and cooperation, we will analyze early exchanges between these communities in the American south, the impact of the Black Power Movement on the development of an Asian American consciousness in the 1960s, to contemporary appropriations of both Black and Asian American cultures in popular cultural forms like hip hop and film. This thematic exploration of the causes and consequences of inter-minority conflict disrupts the Black/White binary of American race relations. Additionally, a concluding section on the cultural and political expressions created by Asian American and Black youth, collectively, will highlight the processes through which inter-minority alliances are taking place today.
Score: 13.3296585 Details | Listing | Web page
This course is designed to suit both theater and non-theater majors interested in probing various issues regarding Asian American history, experience, and identity through examination of selected Asian American plays. The class will examine Asian American theater not as a mere reflection of reality but as a site in which Asian American identity is reconstructed, redefined, and often challenged. The readings are organized thematically rather than chronologically nor in terms of ethnic categories.
Score: 13.3296585 Details | Listing | Web page
The Radical 70s: Race, Violence and Cultures of Resistance. In this class we will study the culture, politics and ideologies of the radical 70s, exploring in particular expressions that emerges from and flourishes in urban spaces. We will watch blaxploitation and kung fu films and discuss how the double feature saved the ailing Hollywood film industry in addition to bringing together multiracial youth audiences; the study of cultural forms such as hip-hop and the 70s horror film revival further reveal the complex role race, gender, and the critique of normativity play in shaping the 70s cultural landscape. We will also study 1970s radical social movements, such as the Black Panthers, Yellow Power Movement, Radical Feminists, AIM and others, who in addition to advocating their own causes included an indictment of the U.S. war in Vietnam as an act of imperialist incursion. The 1970s is a dynamic decade that in this course will be studied through interplay of violence, ethnic nationalism, and resistant cultures.
Score: 13.3296585 Details | Listing | Web page