Cornell Course Catalog: Asian American Studies 2011-2012

The purpose of this seminar is four-fold: (1) to introduce you to the major themes in Asian American history; (2) to question the conventional narrative of American history – a narrative that largely excludes Asian Americans; (3) to analyze past Asian American experiences within the context of complicity with and challenges to hierarchies of race, gender, and class; and (4) to examine the continuities and discontinuities between past experiences of Asian Americans and those of Asian Americans today.

Instructor: Derek Chang
4.0 credit hours
MWF 1:25PM-2:40PM

The common perception of ethnicity is that this is a “natural” and an inevitable consequence of cultural difference. “Asians” overseas, in particular, have won repute as a people who cling tenaciously to their culture and refuse to assimilate into their host societies and cultures. But, who are the “Asians”? On what basis can we label Asians an ethnic group? Although there is a significant Asian presence in the Caribbean, the category “Asian” itself does not exist in the Caribbean. What does this say about the nature of categories that label and demarcate groups of people on the basis of alleged cultural and phenotypical characteristics? This identity, namely ethnicity, by comparing and contrasting the multicultural experience of Asian populations in the Caribbean and the United States. Ethnographic case studies focus on the East Indian and Chinese experiences in the Caribbean and the Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Filipino, and Indian experiences in the U.S.

Instructor: Viranjini Munasinghe
4.0 credit hours
TR 1:25PM-2:40PM

This course examines how Asian Americans have constituted and positioned their identities through various mediums of popular culture from the 1930s onward. While we will not ignore the legacy of Orientalism and Orientalist representational systems with which and against which Asian American cultural practices are often in dialogue, this course emphasizes Asian American-produced popular culture in order to centralize the agency of Asian Americans. Focusing on popular institutions like music, theater, fashion, television, film, and the internet, we’ll examine the complex relationship between Asian American representational practices and their material experiences and sociopolitical locations. In addition, we will consider the multiple and differentiated interpretive strategies of Asian American consumers of popular culture. How are Asian American consumption and reception practices constituted differently across class, gender, and sexuality?

Instructor: M. Pham
4.0 credit hours
Tu 2:30- 4:25pm

In this course, we’ll be reading literature—primarily novels—produced by hemispheric American women writers of the mid- to late 20th century. We will look at how these writings articulate concerns with language, home, mobility, and memory, and at how the work is informed by the specificities of gender, race, region and class. Readings may include work by Leslie Marmon Silko, Sandra Cisneros, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Jamaica Kincaid, Gwendolyn Brooks, Ann Petry, Fae Myenne Ng, Carolivia Herron, Helena Maria Viramontes, and Shani Mootoo. Course requirements will include class presentations, short responses to the readings, and a longer research essay.

Instructor: S. Wong
4.0 credit hours
Tu 12:20 PM - 2:15 PM

The most baffling aspect of ethnicity is that while ethnic sentiments and movements gain ground rapidly within the international arena, the claim that ethnicity does not exist in any objective sense is also receiving increasing credencewithin the academic community. How can something thought “not to exist” have such profound consequences in the real world? This course introduces students to some of the major theoretical approaches to ethnicity, primarily but not exclusively within anthropology. Through a careful reading of ethnographic case studies we will explore the relationship of ethnicity to culture, history, nation and state. The course also engages the more recent literature on the formation of identities at centers and margins within national and transnational contexts, and colonial and postcolonial contexts. We will also address the contradictory logics informing democratic and liberal formulations of identity politics.

Instructor: V. Munasinghe
4.0 credit hours
Fr 10:10 AM -12:05 PM

Interested in researching Asian American issues? Want to develop closer connections with faculty? Consider an Independant study in Asian American studies. Research topics examples: Korean American churches in the U.S. ,Asian American queerness, Identity and Asian Cosmetics eyelid sergery, Roles of gender in South Asian American media, Implications of Asian adoptions in the U.S., Influence of restaurant culture on chinese american families, Asian American poetry, History of Filipino labor migration in the Americas, Asian American representation in U.S. politics, Race and Identity in contemporary Asian American art

Instructor:
Variable credit hours

An Interdisciplinary, cross-cultural introduction to Asian American Studies focusing on historical and contemporary issues. Major themes include: Identity and stereotypes, gender, family, community, education, migration and labor, and anti-asianism. We will go beyond the U.S. mainland to include Asians in other parts of the Americas--Caribbean and Latin America. We will focus on Chinese, Filipinos, Japanese, Koreans , South Asians and Southeast Asians in the Americas. The purpose of this course is four-fold: (1) to introduce students to the multifaceted experiences of Asians in the United States and other parts of the Americas; (2) to examine how a diverse group of people came to be identified as “Asian Americans,” (3) to understand the role of difference -- gender, class, ethnic -- in the formation of “Asian American” identities; and (4) to link historical experiences with contemporary issues.

Instructor: Minh-Ha Pham
3.0 credit hours
TR 2:55- 4:10 PM

This course will introduce both a variety of writings by Asian Americans and some critical issues concerning the production and the reception of Asian American texts. In reading through selected works of prose and drama, as well as viewing some films and documentaries by Asian American filmmakers, we will be asking questions about the historical formation of Asian American identities, about the forms of representation available to Asian American writers and artists, and the problem of defining an Asian American literary or cultural tradition.

Instructor: Shelley Wong
4.0 credit hours
TR 1:25- 2:40PM

This research seminar is offered to students who are currently conducting research or planning to do research in the near future on one of the three topics—memory, self, or emotion. We examine current data and theories concerning the topics from a variety of perspectives and at multiple levels of analysis, particularly focusing on the interconnections among these fields of inquiry. The “scale of observation” is viewed as occurring within the person (brain mechanisms, including genetics), at the level of the person (content-goals, beliefs, desires, etc.), and between persons (relationships and group interaction—including culture).

Instructor: Qi Wang
3.0 credit hours
TR 1:25- 2:40 PM

What is a university, what does it do, and how does it do it—these are the broad questions that animate this course. The course begins with a look at how the idea (as well as the actual functioning) of the American university has changed over the past century. The sketching out of that historical context will then give rise to other sorts of questions: What kinds of knowledge are valorized within the academy? What kinds of people have historically been seen as properly belonging –or not belonging—within its precincts? How has the emergence of fields of inquiry such as Ethnic Studies (with its analytical platform built on the intersection of race, class and gender) brought to the fore (if not brought to crisis) some of the more vexing questions that strike at the core of the idea of the university as the pre-eminent site of disinterested knowledge? This seminar will give students the opportunity to examine American higher education (especially in the form of its major research institutions) as a prism through which to view the shifting linkages between knowledge, power, equality and democracy.

Instructor: Shelley Wong and Derek Chang
4.0 credit hours
We 12:20- 2:15pm

Credits and topic will be determined by faculty and student together. Permission of instructor.

Instructor:
Variable credit hours
Variable

This course asks students to consider how race and gender shape and are shaped by the uses and design of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) such as blogs, Twitter, and Facebook. As ICTs are becoming an ever more significant part of our social infrastructure and our everyday lives, it is crucial that we understand what norms and values are embedded within the technologies we use every day. How do ICTs impact dominant and minoritized groups differently? How do they reproduce and/or challenge institutional systems of power and knowledge about race, gender, and citizenship? In short, this course asks students to interrogate the assumptions behind technology’s utopian promises of democracy and progress. Examining the Internet as a complex assemblage of technology, technical practices, and people, we will consider the broader social, cultural, and political economic implications of technology design and use.

Instructor: Minh-Ha Pham
4.0 credit hours
TR 8:40-9:55

The purpose of this seminar is four-fold: (1) to introduce you to the major themes in Asian American history; (2) to question the conventional narrative of American history – a narrative that largely excludes Asian Americans; (3) to analyze past Asian American experiences within the context of complicity with and challenges to hierarchies of race, gender, and class; and (4) to examine the continuities and discontinuities between past experiences of Asian Americans and those of Asian Americans today.

Instructor: Derek Chang
4.0 credit hours
TR 2:55 PM - 4:10 PM

The common perception of ethnicity is that this is a “natural” and an inevitable consequence of cultural difference. “Asians” overseas, in particular, have won repute as a people who cling tenaciously to their culture and refuse to assimilate into their host societies and cultures. But, who are the “Asians”? On what basis can we label Asians an ethnic group? Although there is a significant Asian presence in the Caribbean, the category “Asian” itself does not exist in the Caribbean. What does this say about the nature of categories that label and demarcate groups of people on the basis of alleged cultural and phenotypical characteristics? This identity, namely ethnicity, by comparing and contrasting the multicultural experience of Asian populations in the Caribbean and the United States. Ethnographic case studies focus on the East Indian and Chinese experiences in the Caribbean and the Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Filipino, and Indian experiences in the U.S.

Instructor: Viranjini Munasinghe
4.0 credit hours
TR 1:25 PM- 2:40 PM

The most baffling aspect of ethnicity is that while ethnic sentiments and movements gain ground rapidly within the international arena, the claim that ethnicity does not exist in any objective sense is also receiving increasing credence within the academic community. How can something thought “not to exist” have such profound consequences in the real world? In lay understandings, ethnicity is believed to be a “natural” disposition of humanity. If so, why does ethnicity mean different “things” in different places? Anthropology has much to contribute to a greater understanding of this perplexing phenomenon. After all, the defining criterion for ethnic groups is that of cultural distinctiveness. Through ethnographic case studies, this course will examine some of the key anthropological approaches to ethnicity. We will explore the relationship of ethnicity to culture, ethnicity to nation, and ethnicity to state to better understand the role ethnicity plays in the identity politics of today.

Instructor: V. Munasinghe
4.0 credit hours
M 2:30 PM- 4:25 PM

Credits and topic will be determined by faculty and student together. Permission of instructor.

Instructor: Staff
Variable credit hours

An Interdisciplinary, cross-cultural introduction to Asian American Studies focusing on historical and contemporary issues. Major themes include: Identity and stereotypes, gender, family, community, education, migration and labor, and anti-asianism. We will go beyond the U.S. mainland to include Asians in other parts of the Americas--Caribbean and Latin America. We will focus on Chinese, Filipinos, Japanese, Koreans , South Asians and Southeast Asians in the Americas. The purpose of this course is four-fold: (1) to introduce students to the multifaceted experiences of Asians in the United States and other parts of the Americas; (2) to examine how a diverse group of people came to be identified as “Asian Americans,” (3) to understand the role of difference -- gender, class, ethnic -- in the formation of “Asian American” identities; and (4) to link historical experiences with contemporary issues.

Instructor: Viranjini Munasinghe
3.0 credit hours
TR 1:25-2:40pm

This seminar offers and in-depth analysis of Asian American communities. Ranging form the mid-19th century to late-20th century, this course uses the community study as a lens to explore the development of Asian America. It focuses on themes of collective strategies of resistance to discrimination as well as tensions within Asian American populations. The course also explores how race and racism, migration, family relations, gender, and ethnic and national identity have shaped different ideas of community.

Instructor: Derek Chang
4.0 credit hours
TR 2:55-4:10

This course examines the ideas, ideals, and political and social context that influenced the political mobilization of Asian Americans and other communities of color in US cities during the late 1960s and 1970s. It assesses the factors that encouraged and sustained their mobilization around social justice and anti-racism issues as well as the factors that created opportunities for multiracial alliance building. The course also addresses the social-spatial contexts out of which activists emerged and the kinds of communities they strove to build through their grassroots mobilization. We begin the course examining key theorists and ideas that influenced political mobilization, studying this in terms of social movement theory and in terms of the spatial linkages that activists were making between neighborhood issues, their campuses, and anti-colonial struggles throughout the Global South. Next we consider first person accounts of activists, considering why they became political engaged, what they accomplished, and what happened to them. Finally, we conclude with group projects investigating the state of ethnic studies today that will emphasize the development of qualitative research methods, including interviewing and archiving oral histories.

Instructor: Clement Lai
3.0 credit hours
TR 11:40-12:55

This research seminar is offered to students who are currently conducting research or planning to do research in the near future on one of the three topics-memory, self, or emotion. We examine current data and theories concerning the topics from a variety of perspectives and at multiple levels of analysis, particularly focusing on the interconnections among these fields of inquiry. The “scale of observation” is viewed as occurring within the person (brain mechanisms, including genetics), at the level of the person (content-goals, beliefs, desires, etc.), and between persons (relationships and group interaction-including culture)

Instructor: Qi Wang
3.0 credit hours
TR 1:25-2:40pm

This seminar is a study of the cross-cultural flows between China and the West via literature, translation, and cinema. It focuses on yellowface as racial ventriloquism performed by writers, translators, actors, directors, and other cultural go-betweens. The most notable yellowface performance is obviously in Hollywood films (Charlie Chan, Fu Manchu, and David Carradine’s “Kung Fu” series), but it is also increasingly evident in the self-representations by contemporary Chinese filmmakers. We will also examine poetic translations, wisdom products (philosophy, aphorisms, and fortune cookies), and other areas of culture, high and low, elite and popular.

Instructor: Yunte Huang
4.0 credit hours
T 2:30PM - 4:25PM

The purpose of this seminar is four-fold: (1) to introduce you to the major themes in Asian American history; (2) to question the conventional narrative of American history a narrative that largely excludes Asian Americans; (3) to analyze past Asian American experiences within the context of complicity with and challenges to hierarchies of race, gender, and class; and (4) to examine the continuities and discontinuities between past experiences of Asian Americans and those of Asian Americans today.

Instructor: Derek Chang
4.0 credit hours
TR 1:25-2:40PM

The common perception of ethnicity is that this is a natural and an inevitable consequence of cultural difference. Asians overseas, in particular, have won repute as a people who cling tenaciously to their culture and refuse to assimilate into their host societies and cultures. But, who are the Asians ? On what basis can we label Asians an ethnic group? Although there is a significant Asian presence in the Caribbean, the category Asian itself does not exist in the Caribbean. What does this say about the nature of categories that label and demarcate groups of people on the basis of alleged cultural and phenotypical characteristics? This identity, namely ethnicity, by comparing and contrasting the multicultural experience of Asian populations in the Caribbean and the United States. Ethnographic case studies focus on the East Indian and Chinese experiences in the Caribbean and the Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Filipino, and Indian experiences in the U.S.

Instructor: Viranjini Munasinghe
4.0 credit hours
TR 1:25-2:40PM

The seminar examines the histories and geographies of urban Asian American communities. We begin with an introduction to key geographical terms and spatial theories and then use them to analyze different Asian ethnic communities throughout North America. This includes an investigation of 19th and early 20th century segregated ethnic enclaves on the West Coast and the East Coast as well as an examination of postwar Asian American communities in suburbs.

Instructor: Clement Lai
3.0 credit hours
TR 1:25-2:40PM

The seminar explores spatial theory with particular attention to the production of both urban space and spatial scale. The course will be divided into three parts. In the first six weeks, we examine the work of geographers and other urbanists in sociology and political science to establish a theoretical framework for understanding political economic approaches to space and spatial theory. In the second part of the course, we investigate scale and the production of spatial difference, paying attention to studies on gender and/or race. In the final section, we apply our understanding of spatial theory and scale to four areas of analysis broadly grouped under the themes of property, redevelopment, labor organizing, and housing.

Instructor: Clement Lai
4.0 credit hours
TR 2:55-4:10PM

The most baffling aspect of ethnicity is that while ethnic sentiments and movements gain ground rapidly within the international arena, the claim that ethnicity does not exist in any objective sense is also receiving increasing credence within the academic community. How can something thought not to exist have such profound consequences in the real world? In lay understandings, ethnicity is believed to be a natural disposition of humanity. If so, why does ethnicity mean different things in different places? Anthropology has much to contribute to a greater understanding of this perplexing phenomenon. After all, the defining criterion for ethnic groups is that of cultural distinctiveness. Through ethnographic case studies, this course will examine some of the key anthropological approaches to ethnicity. We will explore the relationship of ethnicity to culture, ethnicity to nation, and ethnicity to state to better understand the role ethnicity plays in the identity politics of today.

Instructor: Viranjini Munasinghe
4.0 credit hours
M 2:30-4:25PM

In this course, we’ll be reading literature—primarily novels—produced by hemispheric American women writers of the mid- to late 20th century. We will look at how these writings articulate concerns with language, home, mobility, and memory, and at how the work is informed by the specificities of gender, race, region and class. Readings may include work by Leslie Marmon Silko, Sandra Cisneros, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Jamaica Kincaid, Gwendolyn Brooks, Ann Petry, Fae Myenne Ng, Carolivia Herron, Helena Maria Viramontes, and Shani Mootoo. Course requirements will include class presentations, short responses to the readings, and a longer research essay.

Instructor: Shelley Wong
4.0 credit hours
W 12:20-2:15PM

Credits and topic will be determined by faculty and student together. Permission of instructor.

Instructor:
Variable credit hours

Graduate level. See 3801 for description.

Instructor: Clement Lai
3.0 credit hours
TR 1:25-2:40PM

Graduate level. See AAS 3950 for description.

Instructor: Clement Lai
4.0 credit hours
TR 2:55-4:10PM

What’s in a name? For starters, the contemporary term “Asian Pacific American” has been taxed to hold together in a classificatory embrace a complex, diverse, and rapidly changing population of people of Asian/Pacific descent in the Americas. In this course, we’ll track the ongoing adventures of this term “Asian Pacific American” and try to understand how the social and political twists and turns in meaning over the course of its historical journey come to shape individual and collective identities. This interdisciplinary course will introduce students to key ideas and issues in the study of Asian American histories, cultures, and racial formation including, for example, matters of migration, social/cultural/legal citizenship, social movements, and cultural politics. Materials for the course will include films, literature, historical and sociological texts, and media and popular culture texts and productions. NOTE: This course can be used to satisfy either social science or humanities distribution requirement.

Instructor: Shelley Wong
3.0 credit hours
TR 10:10-11:25

This course will introduce both a variety of writings by Asian Americans and some critical issues concerning the production and the reception of Asian American texts. In reading through selected works of prose and drama, as well as viewing some films and documentaries by Asian American filmmakers, we will be asking questions about the historical formation of Asian American identities, about the forms of representation available to Asian American writers and artists, and the problem of defining an Asian American literary or cultural tradition.

Instructor: Shelley Wong
4.0 credit hours
TR 01:25:PM-02:40:PM

This course examines the experiences and representations of Asian American women from the mid-19th century to the present. It explores the lives & contexts of immigrant women and of women both in the U.S. Questions of identity and power are at the heart of this course as we explore the intertwined nature of race, gender, and nation.

Instructor: Derek Chang
4.0 credit hours
MW 2:55-4:10

United States political institutions have shaped Asian American immigration, legal rights, community formation, and political expression. They have also influenced racial status and political identity. This course examines public policy and political issues that affect Asian Pacific Americans, including electoral politics, social justice/grassroots movements, affirmative action, and multiracial/interracial coalitions. We investigate the interaction between state institutions and political movements and also how this interaction frames political issues and accommodates political challenges. Particular attention will be paid to different means of political organization and different strategies toward political empowerment. The course will be situated within the broader context of post civil-rights racial politics and postwar political economic restructuring.

Instructor: Clement Lai
3.0 credit hours
TR 1:25-2:40PM

This research seminar is offered to students who are currently conducting research or planning to do research in the near future on one of the three topics—memory, self, or emotion. We examine current data and theories concerning the topics from a variety of perspectives and at multiple levels of analysis, particularly focusing on the interconnections among these fields of inquiry. The “scale of observation” is viewed as occurring within the person (brain mechanisms, including genetics), at the level of the person (content-goals, beliefs, desires, etc.), and between persons (relationships and group interaction—including culture).

Instructor: Qi Wang
3.0 credit hours
TR 1:25:PM-2:40:PM

United States political institutions have shaped Asian American immigration, legal rights, community formation, and political expression. They have also influenced racial status and political identity. This course examines public policy and political issues that affect Asian Pacific Americans, including electoral politics, social justice/grassroots movements, affirmative action, and multiracial/interracial coalitions. We investigate the interaction between state institutions and political movements and also how this interaction frames political issues and accommodates political challenges. Particular attention will be paid to different means of political organization and different strategies toward political empowerment. The course will be situated within the broader context of post civil-rights racial politics and postwar political economic restructuring.

Instructor: Clement Lai
3.0 credit hours
TR 1:25-2:40PM

The purpose of this seminar is four-fold: (1) to introduce you to the major themes in Asian American history; (2) to question the conventional narrative of American history a narrative that largely excludes Asian Americans; (3) to analyze past Asian American experiences within the context of complicity with and challenges to hierarchies of race, gender, and class; and (4) to examine the continuities and discontinuities between past experiences of Asian Americans and those of Asian Americans today.

Instructor: Derek Chang
4.0 credit hours
TR 10:10-11:25

This course is dedicated to reading and analyzing a number of textual materials, both literary and critical, that deal with the following problem: that of the affective, ethnic, social, economic, and political relationship between Filipinos in America and the Philippines. According to what socio-political categories does one identify as Filipino, and in what ways is this identification in its turn created and reinforced by a much more general notion of the Filipino diaspora's subjectivity--that is, of the diaspora's modes of self-identification concomitant with its relationship to the Philippines as its putative "basis?" In asking this question, we will also ask how Filipino diasporic political cultures produce models of communities and notions of belonging that undermine and challenge not only the hierarchies of the American status quo, but also those of the global geopolitical order and its attendant inequalities and injustices.

Instructor: Ryan Canlas
4.0 credit hours
TR 02:55:PM 04:10:PM

This course is designed for seniors, especially those working on senior projects concerning race dynamics in the United States. The course will familiarize students with current theories and methods of research in the field of Asian American Studies. Students will be introduced to both the practice of interdisciplinary research as it has evolved within Asian American Studies and to comparative approaches to studies of race and ethnicity. In this course, students will have the opportunity to explore different modes of comparison and to examine how these various modes of comparison invite or decline particular kinds of analytical questions. Students will be required to attend a number of lectures on course-related topics by visiting speakers?the required number will vary depending on the availability of appropriate lectures in a given semester.

Instructor: Derek Chang
1.0 credit hours
W 1:25:PM-2:15:PM

VOIDING THE POPULAR: ASIAN AMERICA AND THE POLITICS OF CULTURE To what extent can culture be a vehicle for political change? In what ways does culture become a way of securing the status quo? By looking at the presence of Asians and Asian Americans in American popular culture, from music to literature to films, this course will analyze and interrogate popular culture’s representation and circulation of Asian Americans as the objects of culture as well as its subjects, as images and ideas to be consumed as well as the creators of an identity circulated in and as this thing called pop culture. In particular, this course will ask what popularization entails and of what, as a socio-political category, “the popular” consists. Is there a single, homogeneous culture in America under which every apparent subcategory and subculture, whether ethnically- or socially-based, eventually becomes absorbed? Are there enclaves and zones of relative autonomy in which culture can be pluralized? If the term popular culture is to be respected, can one thus challenge the notion of the popular as a singular demographic category? These questions bear upon Asian Americans not only as ethnic minorities, but as a racialized group whose identity is marked by a history in which the status of “American” has been denied and the very “Asian-ness” of a given group circumscribed by both legal, political, and economic mechanisms of power and the representational apparatuses of culture. In what ways do certain representations of Asians and Asian Americans reinforce this history of racialization? Are there ways in which these representations challenge the norm of American culture, and in so doing reconfigure the concept of “the popular”––that is, the populace, the masses, the people, the citizenry––itself?

Instructor: Ryan Canlas
4.0 credit hours
TR 2:55-4:10 pm

ASIAN AMERICA: VIOLENCE AND THE HORIZONS OF CROSS-ETHNIC SOLIDARITY Like any other ethnic marker, the identity called Asian American is unstable. It is also, much like its counterparts, subject and prone to the abuses of power, a term that is beset with a history of violence both specific to it and generalizable across ethnic and class lines. And yet, the identity of Asian American has also been a catalyst for social, political, educational, and economic transformation, most notably from the late sixties to the seventies, from the San Francisco State College Strike of 1968 – 1969 to establishment of the Red Guard Party. This course will focus on the history and problems of “Asian America” in order to understand the state of ethnically-based political and social activism today. More specifically, this course will ask a series of questions revolving around the following, central theme: the social and political consequences of identifying as––by calling oneself––Asian American. Through a variety of works in the fields of history and theory and in the media of novels and the visual and musical arts, we will move through the Japanese American internment of World War II to the wartime activism directed against the American invasion of Vietnam and end with the contemporary geopolitical situation, asking along the way what it means to “be” Asian American and what it means to “use” this identity as a foundation for activism both in the name of Asian Americans and in solidarity with other minority groups.

Instructor: Ryan Canlas
4.0 credit hours
TR 11:40-12:55 pm

An Interdisciplinary, cross-cultural introduction to Asian American Studies focusing on contemporary issues. Major themes include: Identity and stereotypes, gender, family, community, education, migration and labor, and anti-asianism. Coverage is given to both, Hawaii and the U.S. mainland and to Chinese, Filipinos Hawaiians, Japanese, Koreans South Asian and Southeast Asians. The purpose of this course is four-fold: (1) to introduce students to the multifaceted experiences of Asians in the United States; (2) to examine how a diverse group of people came to be identified as "Asian Americans," (3) to understand the role of difference -- gender, class, ethnic -- in the formation of "Asian American" identities; and (4) to link historical experiences with contemporary issues.

Instructor: Clement Lai
3.0 credit hours
TR 11:40 - 12:55pm

This course will introduce both a variety of writings by Asian Americans and some critical issues concerning the production and the reception of Asian American texts. In reading through selected works of prose and drama, as well as viewing some films an documentaries by Asian American filmmakers, we will be asking questions about the historical formation of Asian American identities, about the forms of representation available to Asian American writers and artists, and the problem of defining an Asian American literary or cultural tradition.

Instructor: Shelley Wong
4.0 credit hours
TR 2:55 - 4:10pm

The seminar explores spatial theory with particular attention to the production of both urban space and spatial scale. The course will be divided into three parts. In the first six weeks, we examine the work of geographers and other urbanists in sociology and political science to establish a theoretical framework for understanding political economic approaches to space and spatial theory. In the second part of the course, we investigate scale and the production of spatial difference, paying attention to studies on gender and/or race. In the final section, we apply our understanding of spatial theory and scale to four areas of analysis broadly grouped under the themes of property, redevelopment, labor organizing, and housing.

Instructor: Clement Lai
4.0 credit hours
W 1:25-4:10pm

This course offers an in-depth analysis of Asian American communities. Ranging from the mid-19th century to late-20th century, this course uses the community study as a lens to explore the development of Asian America. It focuses on themes of collective strategies of resistance to discrimination as well as tension within Asian American populations. The course also explores how race and racism, migration, family relations, gender and ethnic and national identity have shaped different ideas of community.

Instructor: Derek Chang
4.0 credit hours
M 12:20-2:15PM

This course explores a range of writing-novels, stories, poems, essays-by American women writers of color in the twentieth century. We look at how these writings articulate concerns with language, home, mobility, and memory, and at how the work is informed by the specificities of gender, race, region, and class. Readings may include works by Joy Harjo, Leslie Marmon Silko, Sandra Cisneros, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Singrid Nunez, Jamaica Kincaid, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Gwendolyn Brooks, Ann Petry, CaroLivia Herron, Shani Mooteo, Helena Maria Viramontes.

Instructor: Shelley Wong
4.0 credit hours
T 10:10-12:05PM

Credits and topic will be determined by faculty and student together. Permission of instructor.

Instructor:
Variable credit hours

The seminar explores spatial theory with particular attention to the production of both urban space and spatial scale. The course will be divided into three parts. In the first six weeks, we examine the work of geographers and other urbanists in sociology and political science to establish a theoretical framework for understanding political economic approaches to space and spatial theory. In the second part of the course, we investigate scale and the production of spatial difference, paying attention to studies on gender and/or race. In the final section, we apply our understanding of spatial theory and scale to four areas of analysis broadly grouped under the themes of property, redevelopment, labor organizing, and housing.

Instructor: Clement Lai
4.0 credit hours
W 1:25-4:10PM

The seminar examines the histories and geographies of urban Asian American communities. We begin with an introduction to key geographical terms and spatial theories and then use them to analyze different Asian ethnic communities throughout North America. This includes an investigation of 19th and early 20th century segregated ethnic enclaves on the West Coast and the East Coast as well as an examination of postwar Asian American communities in suburbs.

Instructor: Clement Lai
3.0 credit hours
TR 11:40-12:55PM

Seminar examining America during the overlapping eras of segregation and immigration exclusion. Beginning with contest over the meaning of freedom during reconstruction and running through the institution of Jim Crow legislation and immigration exclusion, the course ends with an evaluation of mid-20th century movements for civil rights and equality. Themes include the links between racial economic oppression, legal and de facto restriction, everyday resistance, and struggles for equality.

Instructor: Derek Chang
4.0 credit hours
W 12:20-2:05PM

This writing workshop will examine the history of the United States through the experiences of immigrants. It surveys the migration of people from Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America to the U.S. Its goals are: (1) to introduce you to problems themes in U.S. immigration history; (2) to explore immigrants' experiences through their cultural, social, and political expressions; (3) to investigate the role of political and economic structures in shaping immigrant experiences; and (4) to analyze the links between immigration and American national identity. (Freshman Writing Class)

Enrollment limited to 17

Instructor: Derek Chang
3.0 credit hours
TR 11:40-12:55AM

An Interdisciplinary, cross-cultural introduction to Asian American Studies focusing on contemporary issues. Major themes include: Identity and stereotypes, gender, family, community, education, migration and labor, and anti-asianism. Coverage is given to both, Hawaii and the U.S. mainland and to Chinese, Filipinos Hawaiians, Japanese, Koreans South Asian and Southeast Asians. The purpose of this course is four-fold: (1) to introduce students to the multifaceted experiences of Asians in the United States; (2) to examine how a diverse group of people came to be identified as "Asian Americans," (3) to understand the role of difference -- gender, class, ethnic -- in the formation of "Asian American" identities; and (4) to link historical experiences with contemporary issues.

Instructor: Thuy Tu
3.0 credit hours
TR 2:55-4:10PM

This one credit course complements the core course of the Asian American Studies Program 's curriculum, "Introduction to Asian American Studies", AAS 110. This course will introduce students to a wide range of topics related to race and comparison from a multi- and interdisciplinary perspective by requiring those registered to attend eight university-sponsored public lectures on topics pertaining to race and indigeneity. These lectures will be drawn from those sponsored annually by the Asian American Studies Program, as well as from the vast array of lecture series offered through other departments and programs. By efficiently using the resources that are already in place within the institution-the wealth of speakers that pass through this campus we hope to expose undergraduates to the methods, questions and concerns of comparative studies in race and indigeneity. In addition to these eight events featuring external speakers, students will also attend three other events featuring individual Cornell Asian American Studies faculty, who will be presenting their work.

Permission of instructor required

Instructor: Shelley Wong
1.0 credit hours
TBA

How does the legal construction of race/ethnicity influence how we see ourselves and how others perceive us in the workplace, and consequently, impact our career paths and career mobility? At once the model minority, the perpetual foreigner, the quiet American, and the math and science whiz, Asian Americans assume a unique but stereotypical position in our racial terrain. As such, studying the legal construction of this racial category will throw new light on our understanding of citizenship, identity, work, and above all, what it means to be an American worker. This course will draw heavily from critical race theory and case law to help us understand how the legal construction of race impacts the Asian American worker.

This course covers the following topics: alienage, citizenship, identity, immigration, internment, the right to work, exclusion, national security, foreign affairs, law and society, international and domestic political economy, race and ethnicity, gender, and class. Course materials will be drawn from casebook, case law, law review articles, and films.

Enrollment limited to 20

Instructor: Jonathan Ying
3.0 credit hours
MW 10:10-11:25AM

Who is an American? Who is an American citizen? Who is an American worker? How does the law shape and challenge the identity of citizen-workers and (im)migrant-workers in America? We will read and discuss texts drawn from multiple disciplines to help us analyze workplace manifestations of alienage, citizenship, gender, race, and racism. We will analyze how race connotes full citizenship for some while it suggests alienage and foreignness for those whom Gotanda has called "other non-whites" in the American context. We will also attempt to understand better the factors that contribute to inclusion, exclusion, and subordination within and across national borders. As a site of comparison and to broaden our understanding of the American experience, significant attention will be given to the changing meanings of Chinese, Chinese citizen, and Chinese worker.

Instructor: Jonathan Ying
3.0 credit hours
MW 1:25-2:40PM

This course explores how contemporary immigrant experiences are expressed through visual culture. In this class, we will examine a variety of expressive forms--including visual and material arts, video/performance art, and film--produced by recent immigrants, and will consider the ways that they function as a type of "migration narrative." By doing so, we will make connections between visual representations and other modes of narration, including literary and musical. We will ask: How does the visual arts operate within immigrant communities as a mode of story-telling or history-making? How have immigrants employed visual culture to narrate their cross-cultural movements, community-building efforts, political struggles, and cultural memories? Is there such a thing as "immigrant art?" If so, what are its characteristics and how does it help to reshape our understanding of contemporary artistic productions.

Enrollment limited to 17

Instructor: Thuy Tu
4.0 credit hours
TR 8:40-9:55AM

The common perception of ethnicity is that this is a "natural" and an inevitable consequence of cultural difference. "Asians" overseas, in particular, have won repute as a people who cling tenaciously to their culture and refuse to assimilate into their host societies and cultures. But, who are the "Asians"? On what basis can we label Asians an ethnic group? Although there is a significant Asian presence in the Caribbean, the category "Asian" itself does not exist in the Caribbean. What does this say about the nature of categories that label and demarcate groups of people on the basis of alleged cultural and phenotypical characteristics? This identity, namely ethnicity, by comparing and contrasting the multicultural experience of Asian populations in the Caribbean and the United States. Ethnographic case studies focus on the East Indian and Chinese experiences in the Caribbean and the Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Filipino, and Indian experiences in the U.S.

Instructor: Viranjini Munasinghe
4.0 credit hours
TR 1:25-2:40PM

The seminar explores spatial theory with particular attention to the production of both urban space and spatial scale. The course will be divided into three parts. In the first six weeks, we examine the work of geographers and other urbanists in sociology and political science to establish a theoretical framework for understanding political economic approaches to space and spatial theory. In the second part of the course, we investigate scale and the production of spatial difference, paying attention to studies on gender and/or race. In the final section, we apply our understanding of spatial theory and scale to four areas of analysis broadly grouped under the themes of property, redevelopment, labor organizing, and housing.

Instructor: Clement Lai
4.0 credit hours
W 1:25-4:10PM

Who, or what, is a stranger? How is the category of the "stranger" to be marked off from, for example, that of the foreigner, outsider, refugee, exile, wanderer, pariah, or barbarian? What is the history of the social function of the stranger in American life? What does this figure tell us about belonging or not belonging? How has the "stranger" (across registers of race, class, sexuality, gender, or nationality) figured in twentieth-century U.S. literature? What can we learn about the figure of the stranger as sociological type and as literary type? These are some questions that will guide out inquiry this semester. Permission of Instructor required

Instructor: Shelley Wong
4.0 credit hours
W 2:30-4:25PM

Credits and topic will be determined by faculty and student together. Permission of instructor.

Instructor:
Variable credit hours

The seminar explores spatial theory with particular attention to the production of both urban space and spatial scale. The course will be divided into three parts. In the first six weeks, we examine the work of geographers and other urbanists in sociology and political science to establish a theoretical framework for understanding political economic approaches to space and spatial theory. In the second part of the course, we investigate scale and the production of spatial difference, paying attention to studies on gender and/or race. In the final section, we apply our understanding of spatial theory and scale to four areas of analysis broadly grouped under the themes of property, redevelopment, labor organizing, and housing.

Instructor: Clement Lai
4.0 credit hours
W 1:25-4:10PM

Prior to the end of the Second World War, urban Asian American communities were highly segregated ethnic enclaves. These communities dramatically changed through suburbanization and through a new influx of Asian migration after the war. This seminar examines the histories and geographies of urban Asian American communities. The first part of the course focuses on the historical formation of ethnic enclaves, largely on the West Coast but also in the Midwest and on the East Coast. The remainder of the course focuses on postwar Asian American communities to understand the interplay between race and space. We pay particular attention to the impact of migration, historical forces of urban transformation, and the effects of mid-20th century political economic restructuring. The urban communities we will examine include traditional ethnic enclaves, like New York's Chinatown, and newer suburban communities like Orange County's Little Saigon and suburban "ethnoburbs" in Southern California's San Gabriel Valley. We will also investigate key issues in these urban communities involved the politics of growth, nativism, NIMBYism, and the prospects of multiracial politics.

Enrollment limited to 20.

Instructor: Clement Lai
3.0 credit hours

This course is designed for seniors, especially those working on senior projects concerning race dynamics in the United States. The course will familiarize students with current theories and methods of research in the field of Asian American Studies. Students will be introduced to both the practice of interdisciplinary research as it has evolved within Asian American Studies and to comparative approaches to studies of race and ethnicity. In this course, students will have the opportunity to explore different modes of comparison and to examine how these various modes of comparison invite or decline particular kinds of analytical questions. Students will be required to attend a number of lectures on course-related topics by visiting speakers?the required number will vary depending on the availability of appropriate lectures in a given semester.

Enrollment limited to 10.

Instructor: Shelley Wong
4.0 credit hours

This course examines the relationship between ethnicity, globalization and gender as they emerge from and produce Asian American identity in film. How do practices of stereotyping and gender mediate national belonging and migration? We will consider analysis driven by ethnic-based political commitments as well as the role of gender, sexuality, eroticism, masculinity, and kinship in the construction of identities as we view melodrama, martial arts, and Bollywood films such as The Joy Luck Club, I'm the One that I Want, Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle, and Saving Face.

Enrollment limited to 25.

Instructor: Sheetal Majithia
1.0 credit hours
TR 1:25-2:40 PM

This course offers an in-depth analysis of Asian American communities. Ranging from the mid-19th century to late-20th century, this course uses the community study as a lens to explore the development of Asian America. It focuses on themes of collective strategies of resistance to discrimination as well as tension within Asian American populations. The course also explores how race and racism, migration, family relations, gender and ethnic and national identity have shaped different ideas of community.

Enrollment limited to 15.

Instructor: Derek Chang
1.0 credit hours
W 2:30-4:25 PM

Credits and topic will be determined by faculty and student together. Permission of instructor.

Instructor:
Variable credit hours

Should our individual identity be defined by the law and by our employers? How does the legal construction of race/ethnicity influence how we see ourselves and how others perceive us in the workplace, and consequently, impact our career paths and career mobility?

At once the model minority, the perpetual foreigner, the quiet American, and the math and science whiz, Asian Americans assume a unique but stereotypical position in our racial terrain. As such, studying the vicissitudes of this racial category will throw new light on our understanding of citizenship, identity, work, and workplace.

This course will draw heavily from Critical Race Theory and case law to help us better understand how the legal construction of race plays out in the workplace. This course is not open to students who have taken ILRCB 103 (FWS). This course fulfills the undergraduate ILR Advanced Writing requirement.

If interested, please contact Jonathan Ying, jgy1@cornell.edu, for more information.

Enrollment limited to 15.

Instructor: Jonathan Ying
3.0 credit hours

This course explores how contemporary immigrant experiences are expressed through visual and material arts, video/performance art, and film - produced by recent immigrants, and will consider the ways that they function as a type of "migration narrative." By doing so, we will make the connections between visual representations and other modes of narration, including literary and musical. How does the visual operate within immigrant communities as a mode of story-telling or history-making? How have immigrants employed visual culture to narrate their cross-cultural movements, community-building efforts, political struggles, and cultural memories? Is there such a thing as "immigrant art?"

Enrollment limited to 15

Instructor: Thuy Tu
4.0 credit hours
TR 2:55-4:10 PM

This interdisciplinary course, with an emphasis on anthropology, introduces students to the multiple routes/roots, lived experiences, and imagined worlds of South Asians who have traveled to various lands - Fiji, South Africa, Mauritius, Britain, Malaysia, the United States, and Trinidad - as well as within South Asia itself, at different historical moments. The course begins with the labor migrations of the 1930s and continues to the present. We compare and contrast the varied expressions of the South Asian Diaspora to critically evaluate transnational identity.

This is a special seminar sponsored by the John S. Knight Institute Sophomore Seminars Program. Seminars offer discipline-specific study within an interdisciplinary context. While not restricted to sophomores, the seminars aim at initiating students into the disciplines' outlook, discourse community, modes of knowledge, and ways of articulating that knowledge. Enrollment limited to 15. Special emphasis is given to strong thinking and writing and to personalized instruction with top university professors.

Instructor: Viranjini Munasinghe
4.0 credit hours
TR 2:55-4:10 PM

This course will introduce both a variety of writings by Asian Americans and some critical issues concerning the production and the reception of Asian American texts. In reading through selected works of prose and drama, as well as viewing some films an documentaries by Asian American filmmakers, we will be asking questions about the historical formation of Asian American identities, about the forms of representation available to Asian American writers and artists, and the problem of defining an Asian American literary or cultural tradition.

Instructor: Shelley Wong
4.0 credit hours
TR 1:25-2:40 PM

This course will examine the dynamics behind group identity, namely ethnicity, by comparing and contrasting the multicultural experience of Asian populations in the Caribbean and the United States. Ethnographic case studies will focus on the East Indian and Chinese experiences in the Caribbean, and the Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian and Filipino experiences in the United States. The comparative method will be used to deconstruct the popular notion that ethnicity is a uniform phenomenon by emphasizing not only the diversity in expressions of ethnic identity between "Asians" in the North American and Caribbean contexts, but also among the different ethnic groups in each region.

Instructor: Viranjini Munasinghe
4.0 credit hours
TR 1:25-2:40 PM

Examines how new information and communication technologies have altered the ways we visualize and perform racial identities. In this course we question the popular assumption that the "information revolution" has made it possible and even desirable to transcend racial differences by exploring the following: how racial hierarchies have informed debates around techno-literacy, creativity, ownership, and agency; how race is embodied (through visual and linguistic cues) in the ostensibly disembodied domains of virtual media; and how the emergence of interactive, online, electronic entertainment, and mobile technologies have allowed artists to generate new images of and ideas about racial and ethnic identities.

Instructor: Thuy Linh Tu
4.0 credit hours
R 10:10-12:05 AM

Credits and topic will be determined by faculty and student together. Permission of instructor.

Instructor:
Variable credit hours

This writing workshop will examine the history of the United States through the experiences of immigrants. It surveys the migration of peoples from Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America to the U.S. Its goals are: (1) to introduce problematic themes in U.S. immigration history; (2) to explore immigrants' experiences through their cultural, social, and political expressions; (3) to investigate the role of political and economic structures in shaping immigrant experiences; and (4) to analyze the links between immigration and American national identity.

Enrollment limited to 17.

Instructor: Derek Chang
3.0 credit hours
TR 11:40-12:55 PM

Through a variety of case studies, this course will examine the forms and practices of Asian American popular culture (including film, video, music and visual, decorative, and performance arts), within the historical, social, and economic contexts that have shaped their production. In this course, we will ask: What is the relationship of these popular forms to the histories of Asian American community arts? How have Asian Americans' engagements with "the popular" altered "traditional" modes of visual representation, artistic production, and cultural exchange? In this course we will also consider how the circulation of Asian popular culture in the U.S. (from anime to Bollywood and beyond) has informed the styles, fashions, and visual vocabularies of contemporary Asian American culture.

Instructor: Thuy Linh Tu
4.0 credit hours
TR 10:10-11:25 AM

Credits and topic will be determined by faculty and student together. Permission of instructor.

Instructor:
Variable credit hours

This seminar examines America during the overlapping eras of segregation and immigration exclusion. We will begin with an exploration of the racial politics at the heart of Jim Crow systems and the push toward exclusionary legislation. Themes include the links between racial and economic oppression, legal and de facto restriction, difference within black and Asian American populations, everyday resistance, and struggles for equality. The course concludes with a discussion of new framings of comparative, intertwined, and transnational histories. In addition to examining the specific and discrete contexts and experiences that marked the Jim Crow South and Exclusion Era Asian America, throughout the semester we will consider the degree to which these histories that are usually treated separately might be comparable or connected. We will pay close attention to white supremacy and responses to its various manifestations.

Instructor: Derek Chang
4.0 credit hours
W 1:25-4:30 PM

This course examines American national life in the twentieth century and asks questions about the changing meaning of national identity. What does it mean to be American in the twentieth century? What does it mean to assimilate: can one assimilate structurally and yet maintain a distinct cultural identity? In what ways do racial and ethnic perceptions structure political, economic, and cultural life? This is an interdisciplinary course in which students analyze historical, literary, and cultural evidence in exploring these and other issues. Sections: F 8:00-8:50 AM (517-539) F 9:05-9:55 AM (517-588) F 10:10-11:00 AM (517-637) F 11:15-12:05 PM (517-693)

Instructor: Derek Chang, Maria Cristina Garcia
4.0 credit hours
TR 1:25-2:40 PM

The purpose of this seminar is four-fold: 1) to introduce the major themes in Asian American history; 2) to provide a critical perspective on the conventional narrative of American history - a narrative that largely excludes Asian Americans; 3) to analyze past Asian American experiences within the context of complicity with and challenges to hierarchies of race, gender, and class; and 4) to examine the continuities and discontinuities between past experiences of Asian Americans and those of Asian Americans today.

Instructor: Derek Chang
4.0 credit hours
TR 11:40-12:55 PM

This course will examine the dynamics behind group identity, namely ethnicity, by comparing and contrasting the multicultural experience of Asian populations in the Caribbean and the United States. Ethnographic case studies will focus on the East Indian and Chinese experiences in the Caribbean, and the Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian and Filipino experiences in the United States. The comparative method will be used to deconstruct the popular notion that ethnicity is a uniform phenomenon by emphasizing not only the diversity in expressions of ethnic identity between "Asians" in the North American and Caribbean contexts, but also among the different ethnic groups in each region.

Instructor: Viranjini Munasinghe
4.0 credit hours
TR 1:25-2:40 PM

Examines how new information and communication technologies have altered the ways we visualize and perform racial identities. In this course we question the popular assumption that the "information revolution" has made it possible and even desirable to transcend racial differences by exploring the following: how racial hierarchies have informed debates around techno-literacy, creativity, ownership, and agency; how race is embodied (through visual and linguistic cues) in the ostensibly disembodied domains of virtual media; and how the emergence of interactive, online, electronic entertainment, and mobile technologies have allowed artists to generate new images of and ideas about racial and ethnic identities.

Instructor: Thuy Linh Tu
4.0 credit hours
M 10:10-12:05

Credits and topic will be determined by faculty and student together. Permission of instructor.

Instructor:
Variable credit hours