Course:

ANTH 363  Asia and America: Imperial Formations

Professor:

Naoko Kumada  

CRN:

90556

Schedule:

    Thur   2:00 PM - 4:20 PM Olin 301

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis

Class cap:

12

Credits:

4

Cross-listed:  American Studies; Asian Studies; Global & International Studies

The Atlanta shooting and the sharp increase in anti-Asian violence have taken racial politics in the US to a new level. These attacks echo the anti-China rhetoric spread by mainstream and social media, corporations, and policymakers. Taking an anthropological approach, this course attempts to offer historical, cultural, and geopolitical contexts for understanding the racial tension surrounding Asian communities in the US and abroad today. It takes into account the long-standing historical and systemic factors in US society as well as new global challenges brought by the pandemic and the rise of China. Seeing the US as an empire, the course explores how its imperial formations and practices shaped, and were shaped by, Asia and its interactions with Asia. It examines how America continued its westward capitalist and militarist expansion, shifting its frontier as it added territories, colonies, and military bases across the globe, in the islands in the Pacific and Asia (Hawaii, Samoa, Marshall Islands, Okinawa, and Diego Garcia). Moving beyond the clear-cut boundaries of sovereign nation-states, we explore layered forms of sovereignty, nationhood, and (extra)territoriality between Asia and America. Topics include racial and gendered forms of Asian labor and migration (‘coolies’ and ‘prostitutes’), the practices of building and maintaining US military bases, America’s wars on Asia (the Philippines, Vietnam), and local responses. This course is part of the Racial Justice Initiative, an interdisciplinary collaboration among students and faculty to further the understanding of racial inequality and injustice in the United States and beyond. This course is part of the Racial Justice Initiative, an interdisciplinary collaboration among students and faculty to further the understanding of racial inequality and injustice in the United States and beyond.

 

Course:

ARTH 398  Converging Cultures: Diasporic Artists in the United States

Professor:

Tom Wolf  

CRN:

90246

Schedule:

  Wed     2:00 PM - 4:20 PM Olin 301

Distributional Area:

AA Analysis of Art

Class cap:

15

Credits:

4

Cross-listed:  American Studies; Asian Studies

The point of departure for this seminar will be an exhibition I am curating for the Samuel Dorsky Museum at the State University of New York at New Paltz.  The exhibition will feature works by three artists:  Winold Reiss, Aaron Douglas, and Isami Doi—a European American, an African American, and an Asian Pacific Islander.  Reiss and Douglas were instrumental in creating the visual culture of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and Doi, who studied with Reiss at that time, eventually returned to Hawai’i to become one of the most important artists in the place of his birth.

                The seminar will consider how these artists reflected their inherited cultures in their art while being active in the United States in the first half of the Twentieth century.  In a broader context we will also examine questions of identity in the works of American artists such as Joseph Stella, from Italy, the Soyer brothers, from Russia, Isamu Noguchi, from Japan, and several others.  Complex issues about artists who repeatedly portrayed people of ethnicities other than their own will be raised, and the mechanics of putting together the Reiss, Douglas, Doi exhibition will be discussed.  Students will present two short talks to the seminar, and submit a midterm and final paper.

 

Course:

CHI 403  Beyond China: Chinese Literature in the Diaspora

Professor:

Li-Hua Ying  

CRN:

90202

Schedule:

 Tue      10:20 AM - 12:40 PM Olin 309

Distributional Area:

FL Foreign Languages and Lit

Class cap:

15

Credits:

4

Cross-listed:  Asian Studies

This course is an introduction to modern and contemporary Chinese literature focusing on Chinese cultural spheres beyond the People's Republic and Taiwan. We will read Chinese diasporic literatures along a transnational itinerary, analyzing poetry and fiction hailing from Southeast Asia, Europe, and the U.S. At each location, Chinese immigrants must confront a multiethnic and multicultural society of layered histories and politics and find their own voice in their new home. The authors we will study, Yu Dafu, Zhang Ailing, Bai Xianyong, Nie Hualing, Li Yongping, Huang Jinshu, Gao Xingjian, Yang Lian, Ma Jian, Yan Geling, etc., each in their unique ways, have to confront issues such as exile and alienation, conceptions about being Chinese, understanding of the self and other, and the ways to narrate belonging and cultural identity. While examining their writings through close reading, we will learn to think critically about topics such as globalization with its impact on literary production and dissemination, the processes of cultural contact, and the representations of transnational experiences. This course fulfills Difference and Justice requirements as it deals with Chinese literature in a global context, focusing on unpacking the thorny problems of race and ethnicity, prejudices and discrimination, nationalism, and translational experiences. Prerequisite: three and more years of college Chinese language instruction or with the approval of the instructor. Taught in Chinese.

 

Course:

PS 323  Migration Citizenship and Work

Professor:

Sanjib Baruah  

CRN:

90026

Schedule:

Mon       2:00 PM - 4:20 PM Olin 310

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis

Class cap:

15

Credits:

4

Cross-listed:  Asian Studies; Human Rights

Large-scale migration has long been integral to global processes that have shaped the modern world. The modern history of international migration begins with European colonization of large parts of the New World, Africa and Asia. The forced migration of millions of Africans to the Americas is also a legacy of this era. Flows out of Europe had dominated international migration until the early twentieth century.  The direction began to change only in the middle of that century when Africa, Asia, and Latin America became a growing source of international emigration.  Starting with a historical overview of international migration, the course will focus on the modern territorial order of formally sovereign states, which is premised to a significant extent on the disavowal of migration. Since employment eligibility is tied to citizenship status, significant segments of the work force in many countries are now undocumented.

 

Course:

WRIT 216  Contemporary Asian American and Asian Diasporic Poetics

Professor:

Jenny Xie  

CRN:

90387

Schedule:

Mon  Wed     2:00 PM - 3:20 PM Olin 308

Distributional Area:

PA Practicing Arts

Class cap:

12

Credits:

4

Cross-listed:  American Studies; Asian Studies; Literature

When Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian American Writers arrived on the U.S. literary scene in 1974, it was both manifesto and provocation, inflaming what are still-ongoing debates over the borders, sensibilities, obligations, and political allegiances of the "Asian American writer." Since the entrance of Aiiieeeee and the beginnings of the Asian American Movement in the late 1960's, Asian American poetry has expanded to cover vast political and aesthetic terrain, though knotted questions remain over what designating a work as "Asian American" allows us to see and understand. In this course, we'll examine the aesthetic heterogeneity and capaciousness of this slippery category through the lens of contemporary AAPI and Asian diaspora poets who write in invigoratingly diverse modes, forms, styles, and visions. How do contemporary AAPI poets innovate poetically to address evolving concerns of the AAPI community? How do works by these poets deepen or destabilize our understanding of race and racialization? Course readings will include the poetry of Nellie Wong, Garrett Hongo, Theresa Cha, Bhanu Kapil, Rajiv Mohabir, Monica Youn, Solmaz Sharif, John Yau, Sarah Howe, Sally Wen Mao, Monica Sok, Hieu Minh Nguyen, and more. The class will also feature writings by Anne Anlin Cheng, Timothy Yu, Dorothy Wang, and Cathy Park Hong as critical frameworks for our conversations around race, form, and intersections between politics and aesthetics. In tandem with the course texts, students will write their own poetry, and engage in interdisciplinary modes of response. This course is open to all students with an interest in AAPI poetry and poetics, along with larger discussions around race and poetic innovation.