ASIAN STUDIES UNDERGRADUATE COURSES FOR SPRING 2010

ASIAN STUDIES COURSES

SPRING 2010

AS 110, The Asian American Experience, Reg #224431

Instructor: Yasuko Kase

Tuesday & Thursday, 15:00-16:50, 102 Clemens

This class is a basic introduction of Asian American issues.  Though the Asian American experience has been a crucial part of US national history, their existence has been kept effaced.  On the other hand, main stream media creates and circulates problematic stereotypical images of Asian Americans.  This class surveys the challenging registration of the Asian American experience in the space of American history and culture form their own perspective.  We will start from the study of the historical background of Asian American issues including the establishment of Asian American Studies in American academia.   Then, we will study the history of Asian immigration and move on to various contemporary issues which are situated in the intersection of race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality.  Using various films and articles, we will study the following issues: US orientalism and Asian American stereotypes, family and community, interracial marriage, inter-ethnic issues in the group of Asian Americans, the Vietnam War and refugees, the effect of affirmative action on Asian Americans, transnational adoption of Asian children, 9/11 and its effect on Asian America, and Asian American popular culture.

AS 394, Buddhism, Reg #170174

Instructor:  Jeannette Ludwig

Tuesday & Thursday, 12:30-13:50, 102 Clemens

A survey of Buddhist thinking and practice over 2,500 years, this course investigates the historical development of the religion, its teachings, and its key practices.  We will first briefly consider of the life of the founder, Siddhartha Gautama, known as the Buddha ‘the enlightened one,’ then go on to examine the chief tenets of the faith.  We will look at the major schools of Buddhist thought – Theravada, Vajrayana, and Zen – and pay attention to three aspects or variables: 1) the culture into which the teaching was introduced, 2) the major teachers and their impact, and 3) the real-world practices that typify Buddhist practice in each homeland.  The course concludes with a discussion of ethics from a Buddhist perspective, taking up some of the vexing issues of the 20th century.

AS395, Varanasi--Indian Culture, Reg #114790

Instructor:  Manish Arora

Mon/Wed/Fri, 12:00-12:50, 102 Clemens

This course focuses on the holy city of Varanasi (also called Banares and Kashi) as a window through which to explore Indian culture and life.  Topics for discussion include visual representations, festivals, and literature.  

AS 431/531, Asia’s Sacred Sites, Reg #452652/227605 (cross listed w/ARC486/597, Reg #340818/266588)

Instructor:  Jeffrey Albert

Monday, 17:00-19:40, 111 Wende

India, China, Japan and Southeast Asia have produced remarkable spiritual traditions with unique sites, art and architecture. These traditions have influenced world history, aesthetics and the nature of spiritual experience.  As we have entered a new millennium, a tremendous exchange between Western and Eastern cultures and their traditions continues to occur. The emphasis of this course will be to teach, from direct experience, the character and spiritual nature of the sites described.  A serious attempt to interpret the underlying meaning of sacred space will be helpful to students involved in the course for the paper due at mid term.  Students will also be encouraged to consider and evaluate the significance of the buildings and sites presented with an emphasis on the poetic experience, rather than the purely technical expression of each site discussed.

HIS 182, Asian Civilizations II, Reg #482648

Instructor: Thomas Burkman

Mon/Wed/Fri, 9:00-9:50, 4 Knox

The energetic growth of Asian populations and economies in Asia evidences the fundamental dynamism of these civilizations.  In the present and future, the impact of Asia on culture, society, and economic life of the world is marked.  The course seeks to impart a basic knowledge of the history and social dynamics of Asia. Asia is too large to be comprehensively treated in one course.  There are also limitations in the expertise one instructor brings to the classroom.  Therefore the class will focus on selected variations of Sinitic civilization - China, Korea, and Japan – and to a lesser extent on India.  Comparative references will be made to South and Southeast Asian civilizations.  Reading and discussion of works of literature will provide insight into the social and cultural mores and the lifestyles of people.  Methods of historical and cultural analysis taught in this course will be of general value in the study of other civilizations.

History 403, Historiography: A History of Reconciliation, Reg #494777

Instructor:  Prof. Thomas W. Burkman

Wednesday 13:00-15:40 p.m., 112 Baldy

Historians often analyze wars.  Less frequently do they grapple with the subject of this advanced undergraduate seminar, reconciliation.  The course is premised on the assumption that history provides cases of successful human efforts to address the causes of conflict, work out solutions, and establish civil society on a national or international basis.Through readings, discussion, and writing, members of the seminar will deal first with noteworthy historical writings by theorists of reconciliation, including M. Gandhi, M.L. King, D. Tutu, and the Dalai Lama.  It will then treat several historical cases where a measure of reconciliation has been achieved.  These may include Truth and Reconciliation projects, non-retributive postwar settlements, and the establishment of civil society after regimes of violence and terror in such places as Germany, Japan, Chile, and Ireland.

We may discover lessons of history that are applicable to present-day conflicts.  Students will conduct research on a historical instance of reconciliation.

UGC 211, American Pluralism, Reg #183168

Instructor: Yasuko Kase

Tuesday & Thursday, 11:00-12:20, 103 Clemens Hall

The course “American Pluralism” examines how the crisscrossing of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and class shapes American society and history from perspectives of Asian Americans and other racial and ethnic minorities.  Using literary texts, articles, and visual media, we will survey various aspects of our life in the U.S such as family, communities, education, media, and the law.  In our study, we will pay attention to racial and ethnic frontiers where the boundaries of race and ethnicity make contact, separate, and, merge.  The racial and ethnic contact zone is also a gendered and sexualized space where desire, violence, and coalition are generated.  How have racial and ethnic frontiers been regulated, extended, and redefined in U.S. society?  How have the boundaries been constructed, transgressed, and reaffirmed?  How have racial and ethnic minorities negotiated the boundaries?  The topics of focus will include: Interracial and interethnic conflict and coalition, immigration laws, U.S. racial formation and people of mixed racial and ethnic heritage, cultural nationalism and sexuality, heterosexism and family, stereotypes and body images, affirmative action, the racialized body and aesthetic values.

Required Texts

Larsen, Nella. Passing.

Eaton, Winnifred. Me.

Jen, Gish. Mona in the Promised Land

Colombo, Gary et al. Rereading America: Cultural Contexts for Critical Thinking and Writing  (RA)

ENG 270 Asian American Literature, Reg # 324136

Instructor Professor Susan Muchshima Moynihan

MWF 1:00-1:50pm Alumni 90

This course provides a general introduction to Asian American literature and the field’s literary, cultural, and political concerns.  “Asian America,” as a panethnic coalition born in the response to racism and Orientalism, has been the site of tremendous, yet varied, literary production.  The texts we will explore represent issues as diverse as the challenges of Chinatown life during the early 20th century anti-Chinese “Exclusion Era”; Japanese American internment during World War II; the mixed-race legacy of American military bases in Korea; the ironies marking the young lives of the Vietnamese refugees from “Operation Babylift”; and the impact of 9/11 for Pakistani Americans living in New York City.  The contradictions of postcolonial Philippines will be explored critically through a postmodern lens.  Contemporary anxieties of race, gender, and sexuality will come to the fore in the work of graphic novels.  Throughout the course we will ask how Asian American writers respond to the politics of race and American imaginings of Asia, and how the literary texts register this response in terms of genre, narrative structure, character construction, and style.  Required texts most likely will include Heinz Insu Fenkl’s Memories of My Ghost Brother, Jessica Hagedorn’s Dogeaters, Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior, H.M. Naqvi’s Home Boy, Julie Otsuka’s When the Emperor Was Divine, Aimee Phan’s short-story collection We Should Never Meet, Adrian Tomine’s graphic novel Shortcomings, and H.T. Tsiang’s And China Has Hands.