Asian Pacific American Studies... Courses
Archived Course Lists
Courses for Spring 2007
Survey Course
(pre-requisite to the minor)
ANTH 261 ASIAN
AMERICA: THE PROMISED LAND?
Prof. Asiya Malik
MWF 1000-1050
This course examines Asian migration to the Americas from
the 19th century to the present--focusing primarily on South Asian migration
but also encompassing the diverse experiences of at least two other Asian
communities in the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean. Topics we will explore
include race and racial policy in the U.S., issues of identity, youth and
popular culture, transnational networks, marriage and kinship. Ethnographic
case studies and films will highlight the myriad kinds of Asian migrants i.e.,
refugees, indentured and agricultural laborers, entrepreneurs, illegal migrants
and those that have migrated for the purposes of marriage.
Electives
ANTH 225 NATIONALISM,
RACISM, MULTICULTURALISM
Prof. Richard Handler
MW 1400-1515
Introductory course in which the concepts of culture,
multiculturalism, race, racism, and nationalism are critically examined in terms
of how they are used and structure social relations in American society and, by
comparison, how they are defined in other cultures throughout the world.
Students may enroll in one of the optional discussion sections in 225D.
AMST 201B:
Chinese-American Language, Identity, and Culture
Prof. Ashley Williams
TR
0930-1045, MIN 130
Historically, the identity of those who are ethnically
Chinese and live in the United States has continuously evolved as they
experienced both discrimination and acceptance. Language has often been an
important part this development – whether a monolingual Chinese immigrant,
bilingual 2nd generation Chinese American, or English-speaking American-born
Chinese, what language an individual speaks in a Chinese American community
often places him or her in a particular category. How exactly do identity and
language influence each other, and how does culture change as a result? What
makes someone identify as Chinese, Chinese American or American?
Pulling material from a variety of sources including films
literature, the media, and recent studies, we will employ linguistic, anthropological,
sociological and historical approaches to investigate this intersection between
identity, language, and culture. While we will focus primarily on the language
and history of ethnically Chinese in the U.S., we will also consider other
Asian/Pacific American groups, and student projects can also vary accordingly
(and as such, this course makes no assumptions about students’ knowledge of
Asian/Pacific American Studies, history, or linguistics). By studying a
combination of the social meanings, perceived expectations, and historical and
contemporary presumptions involved in communities’ and individuals’ levels of
language and identity, we will come to a better understanding of what it means
to be "American" in the context of today’s multilingual/multicultural society
and current global political climate.
ENLT 226 Studies in
Fiction: Global Storytellers
Prof. Rei Magosaki
TR 0930-1045, MCL 2008
"The art of storytelling is coming to an end." Noting the
declining status of storytelling in the modern world, the German literary
critic and historian Walter Benjamin suggests in his essay, "The Storyteller"
(1936) that perhaps the distrust of storytelling is deeply tied to the
conditions of western modernity itself with its "force of destructive torrents and
explosions." At a fluctuating time when new experiences and are privileged over
old experiences, is storytelling--the ability to exchange experiences--a futile
endeavor? Yet many writers have continued to create powerful narratives
throughout the twentieth century which revolve around the figure of the
storyteller, and often, as a means to contest other dominant ways of
representing the world. Particularly strong literary works offer staggering
critiques of their historical moment by reflecting experiences of imperialism,
colonialism, racism, and globalization through the lens of everyday life. In
this introductory course to literature, we'll read novels, short story
sequences, and poems, and explore the possibilities and responsibilities of
narrative in the modern world. In particular, the emphasis will be on literary
works by "global" writers who envision different forms of cultural encounter
and transnational experience in their texts, inviting us to conversations about
what our own unique positions might be in the global world.
ENLT 248
Contemporary American Identities in Fiction
Prof. Michael Lundblad
TR 1400-1515
How is your experience of American culture different from
the experience of other Americans? What do race, gender, ethnicity, class,
sexuality, and environment have to do with a sense of identity in America
today? How have novels reflected or contributed to American identities since
the 1960s? This course will explore these questions through the work of
acclaimed contemporary novelists and the cultural contexts in which they are
embedded. We will also focus on how literary works are discussed and debated in
academic contexts, addressing such questions as: Why do we study these texts?
How do we read and write about them? Which texts should be read in a college
course such as this one? Along the way we will pay attention to major
differences in form among contemporary novels and consider how form relates to
the exploration of American identities in each text. Mini-lectures will frame
the texts, but the course will be driven by class discussion and your own
engagement with the ongoing critical debates among literary and cultural
critics. Texts will likely include work by Thomas Pynchon, Ishmael Reed, Leslie
Marmon Silko, Toni Morrison, Maxine Hong Kingston, James Galvin, Ana Castillo,
and Philip Roth. Requirements include active participation, significant reading
and writing assignments, three papers (6-8 pages each), and a final exam.
ENLT 255M The USA Through Other Eyes
Prof. James Cocola
TR 0800-0915, BRN 330
The U.S.A.: it resonates in certain ways to those who have
lived long years within its borders, but how does it look through other eyes?
In this seminar we will attempt to gain a better sense of the U.S.A. by
attending to those who came from elsewhere, and who subsequently articulated
their sense of the place through acts of literary and cultural production.
Their views, whether critical, sympathetic, or somewhere in between, will
necessarily impact our own views, and will lead us to a set of new perspectives
on the "American experiment." Genres of emphasis will include
autobiography, cultural criticism, performance art and travel literature. Our
methodology will be decidedly historical, with close attention to the cultural
geographical, and political forces shaping our chosen authors and our chosen
texts. Requirements include 1-2 presentations, 2-3 essays, and an essay-based
final exam.
ENLT 255M Race in
American Culture: Los Angeles Stories
Prof. Sylvia Chong
MW 1530-1645, CAB 423
As a major American urban center and a nexus for racial and
cultural collisions, Los Angeles typifies many aspects of American race
relations. But its unique suburban and urban geography and history of racial
conflicts also make Los Angeles stand out among American cities. This course,
an introduction to literary and cultural analysis for English majors, will
focus on 20th century film and literature set in Los Angeles as a way of investigating
the dynamics of race in American literature and culture at large. Readings will
draw from a variety of genres such as drama, short fiction, novels,
non-fiction, and poetry, and there will also be screenings from documentaries,
fictional films, and television news. Works may include Anna Devere Smith, Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992; Luis
Valdez, Zoot Suit; Karen Tei
Yamashita, Tropic of Orange; Raymond
Chandler, The Long Goodbye; Wanda
Coleman, Heavy Daughter Blues: Poems
& Stories 1968-1986; Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell: Poems 1974-1977; Mike Davis, City of Quartz; Paul Haggis, Crash.
ENMC 352
Vernaculars, Media, Texts
Prof. David Golumbia
TR 1230-1345, MCL 2007
This class explores the role of so-called nonstandard or
vernacular languages in contemporary worldwide texts and media. Vernaculars
include languages and "dialects" that are widespread in culture but
usually not taught in schools. Examples of vernaculars include African-American
English, Appalachian English, Hawaiian "Creole" English, Haitian
Creole, Taglish, and others. In many cases, these language practices, while
full and complete languages in every diagnostic and linguistic sense, remain
the target of intense cultural prejudice. We will explore commonalities and
differences in the presentation of these linguistic practices across several
genres and places, and students will write two short response papers and
develop a research paper on a topic raised in class or related to it. This
class will have a screening period that meets about five evenings during the
term. No prerequistes, but at least one previous course in English,
Linguistics, or Media Studies is suggested. Restricted to students in 2nd year
and above.
400-level Seminars
AMST 401: American
Orientalism and the War Film
Prof. Sylvia Chong
W 1700-1930 CLM 322A
The concept of "American Orientalism" describes how America
social scientists and policy makers defined and racialized Asians in the
20th-century so as to produce an opposition between the "East" and the "West"—a
binary that both complements and disturbs the usual black-white opposition of
American race relations. Although Orientalism in Europe was largely a product
of colonization in Asia and Africa, American Orientalism has a stronger
relationship to Asian immigration to America, as well as to America’s numerous
wars in the Orient. This class will examine the issue of race and American
Orientalism through the war film—films about World War II, the Korean War, the
Vietnam War, and possibly the Gulf War as well. Through films and historical
readings, we will attempt to define the epistemology of American Orientalism.
How is Orientalism different from racism against Asians? What is the
relationship between American Orientalism and other racial ideologist? Is Orientalism
opposed to Americanness, or to whiteness? Some of the historical events we will
examine are the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the invasion of the Philippines, the
forced evacuation and internment of Japanese Americans from the American West
Coast, the conscription of Japanese Americans into the American military, the
dropping of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the American Occupation
of Japan, China as ally in World War II and enemy in the Cold War, and the
political immigration of Vietnamese "boat people." Tentative list of films: The
Mask of Fu Manchu (1932, Charles Brabin), The Battle of Midway (1942, John
Ford), December 7th (1943, John Ford), Know Your Enemy—Japan (1945, Frank
Capra), Bataan (1943, Tay Garnett), History and Memory—For Akiko and Takashige
(1992, Rea Tajiri), Go For Broke (1951, Robert Pirosh), Sayonara (1957, Joshua
Logan), The Manchurian Candidate (1961, John Frankenheimer), The Deer Hunter
(1978, Michael Cimino), Rambo: First Blood (1982, Ted Kotcheff), Black Rain
(1989, Imamura Shohei), From Hollywood to Hanoi (1993, Tiana Alexandra),
Control Room (2004, Jehane Noujaim)
ENCR 482B Violence and Representation
Prof. Mrinalini Chakravorty
TR 1700-1815, BRN 312
This course will interrogate Fanon's assertions that the
colonized find their freedom only through violence, and that decolonization is
always a violent process, by considering the structuring dialectics between
violence, the body, and postcolonial narratives of insurgency. If, for Fanon,
decolonization is both literally and linguistically an adopted violence so that
militancy against colonialism is an answer back in the imported language of
destruction that the colonizer best understands, our goal will be to
investigate the complex and shifting relations to violence/violation that
postcolonial texts elaborate when they represent insurgent anticolonial
practices. By looking closely at how postcolonial narratives represent
insurgencies against power and their attendant violences, we will arrive at an
analytic for addressing the technologies of pain, trauma, brutality, torture,
and repression that conditioned regimes of colonial discipline and control. We
will also consider the extent to which postcolonial texts appropriate an
apparatus of violence in representing bodies in rebellion, while also
articulating alternative visions of resistance and social change that
specifically refuse the ethics of extremism. Our inquiry will draw from a
critical discourse on corporeality (Foucault, Scarry), the nation (Fanon,
Anderson) and gender (Butler, Spivak) to illuminate the peculiar charge in
narratives of insurgency between the embodied politics of militancy and the
body politic. Finally, the texts which we will be reading deal in some way with
the problematic of form (how to represent the urgency of politicized violence
as a condition of modernity), and in so doing reach beyond realist conventions
to reflect aspects of the surreal, the grotesque, the spectacular, and the
magically real. We will assess the efficacy of these forms, and their
overwrought symbolism, in managing the economy between the public and the
private, victims and perpetrators, masculinity and femininity, and whites and
blacks, which structured the play of colonial violence itself. Over the course
of the term, we will be reading writers as diverse as Roy, Coetzee, Ondaatje,
Al-Shaykh, El-Sadaawi, and Rushdie, and viewing films such as The Terrorist, Bandit Queen, Three Kings,
and The Battle of Algiers.
ENMC 482B
Contemporary Women's Texts
Prof. Susan Fraiman
TR 1230-1345, CAB 424
This course takes up recent works by women across a range of
genres and ethnic cultures. Primary texts will be "high" and popular, literary
and visual; secondary materials will help to gloss their generic, thematic, and
ideological characteristics while giving students a taste of the language of
contemporary theory. Possible concerns include the juxtaposition of verbal and
visual elements in a single text; representations of immigrant subjectivity;
narratives that purport to be "true" and how such truth claims affect the
reader; the relation of women today to the agendas of second-wave feminism;
depictions by women of violence, marriage, diverse sexualities, and work; the
meanings of popular forms from standup comedy and movies to detective novels and
zines; the tension within contemporary feminism between celebrating sisterhood
and recognizing differences among women. Two papers and a final exam.
ENMC 484
Transnational Texts and Gender
Prof. Victoria Olwell
TR 1100-1215, CAB 338
This course examines contemporary literature and film from
the combined perspectives of feminist and transnational literary theories.
Focusing on such issues as decolonization, migration, work, violence,
sexuality, romance, education, and social justice movements, we’ll read
literary works and watch films that contribute to recent conceptualizations of
transnational social and cultural formations. Our primary texts will likely
include Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre,
Jean Rhys’s, Wide Sargasso Sea,
Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy, Tsitsi
Dengarembga’s Nervous Conditions,
Tony Kushner’s Homebody/Kabul,
Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, and
Zadie Smith’s White Teeth. We’ll
study films by Ang Lee (The Wedding
Banquet) and Ousmane Sembene (Moolaadé).
We’ll also read works of feminist, post-colonial, and transnational theory.
Coursework includes several short papers, and a final exam. Our format will mix
short lectures and discussion. Your class participation is crucial to this
course. Really.
Theory Courses
ANTH 301
THEORY/HISTORY OF ANTHROPOLOGY (4)
Prof. Edward Abse
TR 1130-1245
This course provides a historical survey and critical
review of major theoretical developments and debates in anthropology, from the
beginnings of the discipline in the late 19th century to the present. We will
explore a diverse range of schools of thought and applied conceptual approaches
to the anthropological understanding of other societies/cultures, including:
19th century evolutionism, Boasian cultural anthropology, the Durkheimian Année
Sociologique, British structural-functionalism, French structuralism, American
cultural materialism and neo-evolutionism and later American interpretive and
symbolic anthropology, dialectical anthropology, structural historical
anthropology. We will also review more recent feminist, postmodern and
postcolonialist critiques and contributions, and the contemporary turn toward
theorizing globalization, "modernity," transnationalism, emergent
ethnic identities, and cultural hybridity. We will trace the genealogy of
certain key ideas and lines of inquiry or contention that undergo variant
transformations as they are honed and reconfigured both in the course of
on-going debates and in application to the changing shape of the world(s) they
are designed to interpret. Throughout, we will be concerned to understand these
approaches not only as theoretical perspectives on other cultures, but also as
historically situated and culturally conditioned productions in themselves. The
course emphasizes the close reading, written analysis, and classroom discussion
of primary texts. This a required course
for anthropology majors. Students must also enroll in a 301D course discussion
section.
ENCR 482A Critical
Race Theory
Prof. Marlon Ross
MW 1530-1645, MCL 2008
What does race mean in the late 20th and early 21st century?
Given the various ways in which race as a biological "fact" has been
discredited, why and how does race continue to have vital significance in
politics, economics, education, culture, arts, and everyday social realities?
How has the notion of race shaped, and been shaped by, changing relations to
other experiences of identity stemming from sexuality, class, disability,
multiculturalism, nationality, and globalism? Using Winston Napier’s text African American Literary Theory: A Reader,
this course surveys major trends in black literary theory from the 1960s to the
present, focusing especially on these movements: the Black Aesthetic, womanism
and feminist critique, post-structuralism, psychoanalysis, gender and queer
theory, and postcolonial and diaspora studies. Although theoretical writings
comprise the heart of the course, discussions will revolve around three
artistic works as applicable case studies: Nella Larsen’s novella Quicksand, Spike Lee’s film Bamboozled, and Suzan Lori-Parks’s play The America Play. While concentrating on
theories deriving from African American studies, we’ll also touch on some key
texts from Native American (Craig S. Womack), East Asian (Rey Chow), Jewish
(Sander Gilman), and Chicano/a studies (Gloria Anzaldúa, Richard Delgado).
Beyond literary theory, the class will take up readings in Birmingham cultural
studies, legal theory, media and film studies, incarceration studies, critical
space theory, and hip hop studies. In addition to selections from the Napier reader,
we’ll sample work by other theorists of race, including Frantz Fanon, Stuart
Hall, Angela Davis, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Patricia Williams, Paul Gilroy, and
Dorothy Roberts. Requirements include several short critical response essays,
one class discussion presentation, and a 15-page term paper. Heavy, intense
reading schedule.
SWAG 381: Feminist Theory
Prof. Karlin Luedtke
TR 15:30-16:45
Feminist theory is a heterogeneous field with many
theoretical frameworks and methodologies, emerging from various academic and
political traditions. In this course, we
will cover a range of available theories on gender, including liberalism,
Marxism, psychoanalysis, and postmodernism.
We will explicate the central tenets of each theory and explore how it
applies to contemporary issues under debate, particularly those relating to the
body, sexuality, and gender difference.
In addition, we will analyze the importance and implications of race,
class, and national differences among women.
While this class provides an overview of historical foundations and
contemporary trends in Western feminism, we also examine a variety of
cross-cultural critiques of these theories. CONTACT kl5k@Virginia.EDU for permission to take
this course for APAS.
PLPT 303
- 701KA - Contemporary Political Thought
Prof. John Baltes
TR 1400-1515, CAB 119
Studies the course of political theory from the late 19th
century through the present. Includes the major critical perspectives on modern
politics and culture (existentialism, feminism, post-modernism, "critical
theory") and explores the problems that have preoccupied political theory in
this period (alienation, language, individualism and discrimination).
Suggested
Transnational Courses
SWAG 405: Gender and Transnationalism
Prof. Ellen Fuller
TR 14:00-15:15
"Globalization," as
both a focus of academic theory and an experiential reality, has increased
dramatically. Scholars and others engage
in analyses of the global capitalist system, democracy as a global political
model, the emergence of a world society with a shared culture, and
transnational identity. Depending on the
scholar, transnationalism can be viewed as either one manifestation of
globalization or a better term for globalization itself, one that emphasizes
the relational aspects of various global processes (Ong). It includes the "Transnational Capitalist
Class" (Sklair) as well as the people who move about the globe in search of
work, political asylum, escape from war and environmental devastation, or even
self-fulfillment. It also includes
people who create virtual connections with others across national boundaries in
order to raise awareness of a local problem.
This course addresses the varied forces that put people in transnational
motion, whether physically moving away from their native place or simply
logging on to the internet, and the ways in which fluid identities of self and
other, both individual and collective, are part of transnational
processes. Course requirements include
participation in discussion and a research paper.
SWAG 405A: Beyond the
Third Wave: Gender and Identity in International Perspective
Prof. Rina Williams
R 15:30-18:00
As the second wave women’s movement in the US splintered
internally along lines of class, race, ethnicity, and sexuality, external
critiques were leveled at western feminists for disregarding the varied
experiences and voices of non-western women. From this emerged the contemporary
debate in feminist theory between identity politics and intersectionality,
which grapples with the central question of whether a cohesive women’s movement
can be built on the recognition, and embracing, of difference—both within the
west and globally. The course engages this debate, applying it to real cases in
international contexts. We begin by examining the theoretical underpinnings of
third wave feminist theory, and then turn to consider how gender intersects with
other forms of collective identity: racial and ethnic identities; national
identity; and religious identity. We examine these issues both at a theoretical
level, and also through a series of case studies of current political issues.
These will include cases from France, India, Nigeria, Latin America, the United
States, and the Middle East, among others.
The course satisfies
the second writing requirement.
JPTR 382: Modern Japanese Women Writers: Gender, Power
& Sexuality
Prof. Michiko Wilson
W 14:00-16:30
This course is an introduction to the Japanese female
literary tradition from the early 1920s to the present. Through lectures and
open discussions, we will explore: (1) the themes and techniques of each
literary text; 2) how each individual woman artist challenges and is challenged
and shaped by Japanese culture and society; (3) surprising portrayals of
Japanese women and men; 4) the institutions of marriage and the family; 5)
their voices as cultural critics. This course also addresses several questions
centered around the changing roles of and self-identity of Japanese women
through an examination of their creative writings between 1920s-present: Are
Japanese women as meek and voiceless as Hollywood movies and American media
have traditionally portrayed them? Are Japanese women content simply being a
mother and wife? How do they respond to the confinement imposed upon them by
the family institution or to the political and emotional freedom given to them
after World War II? How conscious are they of their gender? How do they balance
gender and literary and other aspirations?
ANTH 370:
Anthropology of Contemporary India
Prof. R.S. Khare
M 1400-1630
The course discuses selected major socio-cultural,
religious, political aspects of and issues in India since independence, with a
focus on the changing position and reach of Indian modernity and its
conflicting social values and forces. An examination of the sizeable Indian
middle class will be juxtaposed to the rising caste-class-religious conflicts
on one side, and to a globalizing, "rising India" on the other, with
an expanding role for the Indian mass media, television and films.
HIEA 100B
INTRODUCTORY SEMINAR: Colonial Encounters in Asia: The Making of 'East' and
'West'
Prof. Sarah Womack
W 1530-1800, PV8 108
This course is an introduction both to colonialism—possibly
the most important historical force of the past 200 years—and to the modern
history of Asia. In it, we will consider not just broad, abstract
theories of imperialism, but the ways in which the everyday encounters between
people have shaped how people from Charlottesville to Chengdu think about
themselves and their place in the world. We will study several different types
of encounters and use several different types of sources to do so—throughout
the semester, we may read 19th-century diaries to learn about the encounter
between different ideas of nature or Vietnamese short stories to learn about
the encounter between different ideas of justice; we may watch Dutch movies to
see the physical encounter of economic systems or look at Japanese prints and
Impressionist paintings to observe the results of an encounter between visual
cultures. We will also consider the role of violence in these encounters,
and contemplate the legacy of relationships marked by oppression and conflict.
Written assignments will include weekly responses to readings, four short (3-5
page) papers on a choice of topics related to course themes, and one final
essay (5-7 pages). Readings for this course may include, among others,
"Shooting an Elephant," by George Orwell; This Earth of Mankind, by Pramoedya
Ananta Toer; Before the Revolution, by Ngo Vinh Long; Lost Names, by Richard
Kim; and Harp of Burma, by Michio Takeyama.
HIEA 203 MODERN CHINA
Prof. Bradly Reed
MW 1000-1050, GIL 190
This course is about the revolutionary transformation of the
world's oldest empire into the world's largest socialist state. It is about the
people, personalities, and events that have given Modern Chinese history its
dramatic, and often tragic tone. It is also about the social, political, and
cultural currents that lay beneath these more visible manifestations of change
and the profound effect these forces have had on the Chinese people. Following
a brief consideration of the political and social institutions of the last
imperial dynasty (the Qing, 1644-1911), we will examine the interaction of
foreign aggression and domestic upheaval that led first to the fall of the
imperial order and the establishment of a Republic in 1911 and then to the founding
of the People's Republic of China in 1949. The final month of the semester will
then be devoted to the post-'49 era under the leadership of the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP), a period that has been described as the most
thoroughgoing attempt at revolutionary social transformation in world history.
We will close with a look at the post-Mao reform era and the issues facing
China today after nearly a century of revolution. Weekly reading assignments,
drawn from a survey textbook as well as other secondary and primary sources,
will average about 150 pages. Grades for the course will be based on a mid-term
exam (30%), a final exam (30%), a ten-page essay (30%) and attendance and
participation in discussion sections (10%).
HIEA 318 THE
CONFLICTS OVER VIETNAM: 1776 TO 1986
Prof. Sarah Womack
TR 1230-1345, MRY 113
From the 1950s to the 1970s, Americans fought for the power
to decide the future of a smallish country half a world away. The
conflict, which we call the Vietnam War, was the longest in our country’s
history, but only another one in a long series for the people of Vietnam
itself. In this course, we will study the past 230 years of Vietnam’s
past in terms of the visions people have had for its future; in terms of the
issues, values, and dreams they have used to guide themselves through a present
often fogged by war. We will begin with the Tay Son Rebellion, which ended in
the establishment of Vietnam’s last dynasty, and finish with the implementation
of Doi Moi or Renovation, which began a series of market-oriented reforms that
has transformed Vietnam’s economy. Along the way, we will consider both
armed struggles, like conquest by the French or ‘the’ Vietnam War, and less
well known conflicts that formed the impetus for wars and revolutions.
Conflicts over the nature of government, the place of women, the future of
culture, the meaning of independence, the responsibilities of the state—all of
these were contested as hotly, and often as violently, as any concerns of
geopolitics could be. We will also study the legacies and costs of
Vietnam’s conflicts, from Ho Chi Minh’s beard to the rise of the Khmer Rouge.
Written assignments will include short responses to readings, a literature
review, and an oral history project on the Vietnam War. Readings for this
course may include sections of Nayan Chanda, Brother Enemy; Alexander Woodside,
Vietnam and the Chinese Model; Nguyen Du, The Tale of Kieu; Vu Trong Phung,
Dumb Luck; Graham Greene, The Quiet American; Jeffrey Race, War Comes to Long
An. Students will also have the opportunity to view a series of films
relating to our Vietnam War, among them Winter Soldier, Platoon, and The Fog of
War.
HISA 303 TWENTIETH
CENTURY SOUTH ASIA
Prof. Neeti Nair
TR 1400-1515, CAB 311
This course considers some key issues and debates that have
animated twentieth century South Asia. These include considerable achievements
in expanding access to democratic processes and widening development agendas,
as well as limitations thereof. The course begins by engaging with the hopes and
promises of anti-colonial nationalists and tracks their journey to our present
predicament of unequal citizenship. Rather than hold onto unhelpful theories
about modernization and modernity that have emanated out of the experience of
the west, this course will encourage new understandings of these processes
through a close reading of empirical studies produced from various vantage
points and disciplines. Some of the key issues we will examine include: the
valence of discrimination along lines of religion, caste, class and gender; the
politics of religious extremism; growing disparities between rural and urban
areas; the changing character of violence and war; and the problems of coping
with memory and loss in the wake of violence. Films [such as ‘Amu’ by Shonali
Bose, ‘Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi’ (a thousand such hopes) by Sudhir Mishra and
short documentaries], fiction and a very wide range of primary and secondary
sources will be used. The following books will be read in their entirety
(except for Hay, from which we will read selections) and will be available at
the UVA bookstore: Partha Chatterjee, A Possible India: Essays in Political
Criticism, Oxford U Press, 1997; Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss, Penguin,
2006; Thomas Blom Hansen, Wages of violence: naming and identity in
post-colonial Bombay, Princeton U Press, 2001; Stephen Hay ed., Sources of
Indian Tradition, Vol 2, Columbia U Press, 2nd ed., 1988; Rabindranath Tagore,
The Home and the World, Penguin, 2005. All other chapters from books and journal
articles will be available on toolkit. The reading will approximate 200 pages a
week. Prior coursework in South Asian history is not a prerequisite. Course
requirements include active participation in class; a book review; a midterm
exam; and a final exam.
Archive of past semesters' APAS courses
Because APAS is still developing as a program, its course offerings are constantly in flux. Please look at these listings of past courses to get a sense of what classes typically count towards the APAS minor.
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