Asian Pacific American Studies... Courses
Archived Course Lists
Spring 2010 Courses
SPECIAL COURSE: 2 credit USEM on Contemporary Asian America
USEM 1580, section 004: Contemporary Asian America
Sylvia Chong
Tu 5:00PM-7:30PM
Bryan Hall 213
Preference given to first-year students, although other students can enroll if space is available.
Although Asians have been in American for as long as America has been in existence, the issues confronting them have changed greatly over time. This seminar focuses on the post-1980 period, after the term "Asian Americans" was coined and then put into use by local activists, and subsequently by the federal government and mainstream society as well. We will examine three broad topics: (1) Identity and Politics: Who counts as Asian American? What political issues unite or divide this community? (2) Higher Education: How have Asian Americans affected debates over multiculturalism? Diversity? Curriculum? Institutional representation? (3) Hate Crimes and Discrimination: How have particular instances of hate crimes or discrimination involving Asian Americans affected the community as a whole? This seminar will provide many opportunities for reflecting on the particular issues for Asian Americans that arise at the University of Virginia. The end of this course will involve a project for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (April), in which small groups from the seminar will each contribute an event towards APAHM.
Survey Courses
None available for Spring 2010. AMST / ENAM 3180, Introduction to Asian American Studies, will be offered again in Fall 2010.
Theory
Note: Because APAS theory courses also serve as requirements for other majors and often have other pre-requisites, it is strongly recommended that you contact the professor before enrolling in the course. If you have already taken an eligible theory course that you need to count towards your major, you may substitute an APAS elective for your theory requirement with the APAS Director's permission.
AAS 1020: Introduction to African-American and African Studies II
Claudrena Harold
TuTh 12:30PM - 1:45PM
Minor Hall 125
This introductory course builds upon the histories of people of African descent in Africa, the Americas, and the Caribbean surveyed in AAS 101. Drawing on disciplines such as Anthropology, History, Religious Studies, Political Science and Sociology, the course focuses on the period from the late 19th century to the present and is comparative in perspective. It examines the links and disjunctions between communities of African descent in the United States and in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa. The course begins with an overview of AAS, its history, assumptions, boundaries, and topics of inquiry, and then proceeds to focus on a number of inter-related themes: patterns of cultural experience; community formation; comparative racial classification; language and society; family and kinship; religion; social and political movements; arts and aesthetics; and archaeology of the African Diaspora.
AMST 2300: Introduction to U.S. Latino Studies
Daniel Chavez
TuTh 12:30PM - 1:45PM
New Cabell Hall 216
ANTH 3010: Theory and History of Anthropology
Andrew Nelson
TuTh 11:00AM - 12:15PM
Maury Hall 104
This course will provide a survey of anthropological theory from the late 19th-century up to the present. We will explore a diverse range of anthropological approaches developed over the course of the century, including: 19th-century evolutionism, Boasian cultural anthropology, British structural-functionalism, French structuralism, British symbolic anthropology, American cultural materialism and neo-evolutionism, later American cultural anthropology, feminism, and post-colonial and post-modern theories. We will be concerned to understand these approaches not only as theoretical frameworks for understanding other cultures, but also as cultural and historical productions, in themselves. The discussion session is obligatory. This is a required course for anthropology majors.
SOC 3410: Race and Ethnic Relations
Milton Vickerman
MoWe 2:00PM - 3:15PM
New Cabell Hall 134
Introduces the study of race and ethnic relations, including the social and economic conditions promoting prejudice, racism, discrimination, and segregation. Examines contemporary American conditions, and historical and international materials. Instructor permission required.
SWAG 3810: Feminist Theory
Karlin Luedtke
TuTh 9:30AM - 10:45AM
Minor Hall 130
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. Instructor permission required.
Electives
This is not an exhaustive list, but is based on the course descriptions posted by the instructors. If you have taken a course that deals with Asian American culture, history, or issues, that is not on this or previous semesters' lists, please contact the APAS Director for permission to list that course as an APAS elective.
Note: Classes marked SEMINAR, mostly at the 4000 and 5000 level, will fulfill the seminar requirement for APAS electives.
AAS 5528 / ENCR 5528: Queer Race Theory (SEMINAR)
Marlon Ross
Tu 6:30PM - 9:00PM
New Cabell Hall 335
How have subjects identified as queer been constituted and understood in relation to racial formations and ideologies? Focusing especially on African American same-gender loving men and women and others viewed as outside of gender or sexual norms, this course investigates the emerging theories developed to address the intersection of race and sexual orientation in structures of cultural identity, psychic subjectivity, artistic production, political economy, and social history. The course is divided into four topics: 1) We begin with the queer body politic, examining political coverage of the Proposition 8 controversy as a way of seeing how different racial groups (blacks, Latinos, whites) are currently positioned in dominant discourses related to sexual orientation. 2) We move backward to examine the historical representation of minoritized sexuality through the concept of the queer token, focusing on the writings by and about three celebrated figures: James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, and Cherr’e Moraga. 3) The next section takes up the emergence of black queer theory in concert with related minoritized sexual orientations, particularly Asian-American and Chicano/a, focusing on readings from the following volumes: E. Patrick Johnson's Black Queer Studies, Dwight McBride and Jennifer deVere Brody's Plum Nelly, Syliva Molloy and R. M. Irwin's Hispanisms and Homosexualities, Phil Harper's Private Affairs, Jose Munoz's Disidentifications, and David Eng's Racial Castration. 4) Finally, we examine mass media representations (especially film and t.v.) of minoritized queerness, focusing on Cheryl Dunye's The Watermelon Woman, Marlon Riggs' Tongues Untied, Jennie Livingston's Paris Is Burning, David Henry Hwang and David Cronenberg's M. Butterfly, and Partik-Ian Polk's Logo tv series Noah's Arc. Requirements include several brief commentary papers, an annotated bibliography, and a 20-page term research paper. Note: Restricted to 4th years and Graduate Students.
AMST 4500: Social Science Theory of Race (SEMINAR)
Sylvia Chong
TuTh 2:00PM - 3:15PM
Bryan Hall 330
This course traces the genealogy of theories on race and ethnicity that originated in the social sciences (anthropology, sociology, psychology) but have spread into interdisciplinary American Studies: biological essentialism, phrenology, eugenics, race as social construct vs. culture, ethnicity and ethnic communities, assimilation and integration, national/ethnic traits, primordial attachments, primitivism vs. modernity, discrimination, race prejudice, racial performativity, etc. While many of these concepts have been disavowed and function mainly as objects of critical inquiry in contemporary scholarship, a residue of these ideas continues to animate and structure scholarly work on ethnic literatures and social history. Our readings will be a mixture of primary texts from the social sciences (anthropologists Franz Boas, Margaret Mead, and Ruth Benedict, sociologists Robert Park and Erving Goffman, W.E.B. DuBois's sociological work The Philadelphia Negro, Zora Neale Hurston's anthropological collection of African American folklore, Mules and Men, social psychologist Kenneth Clark), contemporary scholarship (Henry Yu's Thinking Orientals, Matthew Frye Jacobson's Whiteness of a Different Color, Werner Sollors' Beyond Ethnicity, Hortense Spiller's Black, White and in Color, Philip Deloria's Playing Indian, Anne Cheng's The Melancholy of Race, Antonio Viego's Dead Subjects), and films, documentaries, and performance pieces that play with these social scientific, ethnographic constructs (Nanook of the North, Bontoc Eulogy, Cannibal Tours, The Couple in the Cage).
EDLF 5000: Multicultural Education
Robert Covert
We 4:00PM - 6:45PM
Th 4:00PM - 6:45PM
Th 9:30AM - 12:15PM
Ruffner Hall G004A
Prepares students to deal with the increasingly multicultural educational milieu. Emphasizes the process of understanding one's own bias and prejudices and how they effect the school and classroom learning environment. Included are readings, class discussions, field projects, journal writing, and other methods of directed self explorations.
ENMC 4500 / ENMC 4500: Ethnic American Fiction (SEMINAR)
Caroline Rody
TuTh 2:00PM - 3:15PM
New Cabell Hall 335
This course in ethnic American literature will focus on the interethnic nature of the contemporary literary imagination. In the wake of the globalizing changes that have made the U.S. a multi-diasporic society, contemporary fiction is increasingly animated by an urge toward encounter across multiple ethnic differences. Many texts evoke a complex, ironic sense of participation in a hybridized culture despite persistent failures of social justice and an ongoing need for reparative cross-ethnic dialogue. This course will consider how an interethnic impulse shapes contemporary fiction, from its deepest psychic structures and literary ambitions; to its social vision and conceptions of history and identity; to its patterns of literary borrowing and influence; to its competing tonalities of wariness and hope, ambivalence and desire; to aspects of its aesthetic form--including narrative structures, plots, characterizations, and uses of language(s).
Writers may include Leslie Marmon Silko, Gus Lee, Maxine Hong Kingston, Grace Paley, Lore Segal, Galina Vromen, Jiro Adachi, Louise Erdrich, Philip Roth, Jonathan Safran Foer, Bharati Mukherjee, Bapsi Sidwha, and Chang-Rae Lee. We will also read theorists of race, ethnicity, globalization, and cultural hybridity. Students are expected to be very active class participants; to write several brief compositions, a short paper, and a long paper; and with a partner or group, to lead a class discussion.
ENMC 4559 / MDST 4559: Vernaculars (SEMINAR)
David Golumbia
MoWe 5:00PM-6:15PM
Cabell 132
This class explores the role of so-called nonstandard or vernacular languages in contemporary worldwide texts and media, largely from the US and locations outside the US where English is one of the spoken languages. Vernaculars include languages and "dialects" that are widespread in culture but usually not taught in schools. Examples of vernaculars that we will touch on include African-American English, Appalachian English, Hawaiian "Creole" English, Haitian Creole, Taglish, and others. In many cases, these 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, using the fault lines between languages as a way to see in to the stakes of other cultural and political divisions. Short theoretical readings by Bakhtin, Labov, Ngugi, Lott and others; novelist such as Lois-Ann Yamanaka, R. Zamora Linmark, Toni Morrison, Alan Warner, Irvine Welsh, Patricia Powell, and Ken Saro-wiwa; and television and film such as The Wire, Havoc, Chan Is Missing, Clockers, and Boyz n the Hood. This class is conducted primarily through vigorous student discussion that reflects thorough preparation before class sessions. Two short response/review papers and a final research paper. Intended for advanced English, Media Studies, or Linguistics majors, though others with appropriate background will be admitted.
MUSI 4510: Music in Asian-America (SEMINAR)
Wendy Hsu
TuTh 12:30PM - 1:45PM
Old Cabell Hall 107
This interdisciplinary course explores the musical lives of Asian Pacific Americans (APA's) as well as the music by APA musicians in 20th and 21st century U.S. We will read ethnographic and historical studies of musical practices of APA's in jazz, hip hop, Taiko drumming, karaoke and Christian churches; also we will read criticism of Asian American musical representations such as Yoko Ono, Cibo Matto, Jin, Black Eyed Peas, and William Hung while analytically engaging with their music and image.
SOC 3060: Sociological Perspectives on Whiteness
Pavel Shlossberg
TuTh 3:30PM-4:45PM
New Cabell Hall 134
This course examines the social construction of race through an exploration of white identity, both theoretically and empirically. Topics include the historical genesis of white identity; its intersection with political movements and organizations; the relation of whiteness to race, ethnicity, class, gender and nation; representations of whiteness in popular culture; the sociological mechanisms by which it is reproduced, negotiated, and contested.
SOC 4870: Immigration (SEMINAR)
Milton Vickerman
MoWe 4:00PM - 5:15PM
New Cabell Hall 316
Prerequisites: Six credits of sociology or permission of instructor.
A merge glance at any newspaper today will show that immigration is a "hot button" issue. Increasingly, one sees people of influence calling for restrictions on the entrance of illegal immigrants, restrictions on benefits to legal immigrants, and even the curtailment of legal immigration. While these sentiments reflect the social and political climate of the times, they are not new. Over a century ago, Americans expressed very similar sentiments--only, then, they were directed against Eastern Europeans, instead of blacks, Hispanics and Orientals. Thus, this course seeks to understand immigration in America by examining the racial and historical underpinnings on which it has been built. We will show that some basic sentiments have expressed themselves in several ways in different historical periods. Along the way we will also examine relevant data showing the impact which immigration has had on American society.
SWAG 4100: Readings in Sexuality Studies (SEMINAR)
Geeta Patel
Th 5:00PM-7:30PM
New Cabell Hall 325
This course explores key topics that have shaped the field of sexuality studies, with a focus on those that fall under the rubric of "queer studies." Such topics have included the history of sexuality, scientific racism and critical race theory, cyborgs, biopower, nationalism, colonialism, sexuality and the law, the relationship of sexuality to race and class, and bodily aesthetics. Students engage a series of rotating interdisciplinary readings that draw upon fiction, poetry, theory, ethnographies, law, philosophy, criticism, film and media studies, music, science and/or economic history.
Transnational
ANTH 2559: Gender, Family and Nation in Contemporary South Korea
Caren Freeman
TuTh 12:30PM - 1:45PM
New Cabell Hall 424
This course looks at the way South Korean men and women have refashioned their everyday lives amidst the radical and turbulent changes of the past four decades. Since the late 1960s, South Koreans have lived through rapid urbanization, industrialization, military authoritarian rule, democratic reform, rising consumerism, and integration into the global capitalist economy. We will explore what it means to live through these changes, and what the consequences are for the diverse ways Koreans think about themselves, their family relations and their ethnic/national identity. Keeping in the mind the tensions and interrelationship between ideological constructs and lived experiences of gender, family and nation, we will consider a wide range of social contexts and structures which frame the lives of South Koreans today, including transformations in work and education; marriage and dating; consumerism and youth culture; historical legacies of colonialism, military rule and national division; and political and economic policies of globalization. We will also look at Korea's relationship with diasporic communities as a site for the construction of new meanings and practices of gender, family and national belonging.
ANTH 3559: Changing Hindu Culture and Politics
Ravindra Khare
Mo 2:00PM - 4:30PM
Minor Hall 130
An anthropological study of selected aspects and issues in the changing Hindu, society and politics, especially as extant under the diverse forces of and worldviews in contemporary India. After a general review of the Hindu worldview, the course will explicate and evaluate ongoing changes in (a) the Hindu family-caste-community structures across the "traditional-modern" changes; (b) the middle-class consumerism and religious life-style; (c) Hindu nationalism and the religious-political "tolerance-intolerance" issues; and (d) the Hindu Diaspora from India in the U. S.
ANTH 3670: Tibet and the Himalayas
Nicolas Sihle
TuTh 2:00PM - 3:15PM
New Cabell Hall 430
This course aims at providing a balanced, anthropological outlook on a complex and culturally diverse area, on which the West and others have massively projected their own fantasies: Tibet and the Himalayas. We will learn to mistrust these myths and will develop an understanding of these societies both in their own terms and by relating Tibetan and Himalayan ethnography to larger anthropological issues and debates. The main topics investigated shall include ethnicity, social and political organization, and religious forms; we will also engage in a thorough discussion of recent political developments. The course materials will center on academic articles and books, but will include also biography, news articles, fiction, poetry, and films.
CHTR 5220: Chinese Literature in Translation
TuTh 3:30PM - 4:45PM
New Cabell Hall 132
ENMC 3600L World Literature in English
Christopher Krentz
TuTh 5:00PM-6:15PM
Cabell 319
This course will explore anglophone fiction and drama from Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean over the last half century. In what ways do these authors use English like their British and American counterparts, and in what ways do they appropriate it to represent their unique cultural positions? Drawing on postcolonial theory, we will consider how the continuing legacy of colonization shapes meaning in these works; the impact of language, culture, race, gender, class, sexual orientation, and disability on identity formation; what these narratives have to teach us about globalization, hybridity, and cultural exchange; and the brilliantly inventive ways in which these authors represent particular experience to readers who are often far beyond their nation's borders. I am still putting the syllabus together, but probable works include Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart; Wole Soyinka, Collected Plays 2; Nadine Gordimer, Six Feet of the Country; J. M. Coetzee, Disgrace; R. K. Narayan, The Painter of Signs; Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children; Anita Desai, In Custody; V. S. Naipaul, In a Free State; Jamaica Kincaid, Annie John; and Edwidge Danticat, Breath, Eyes, Memory.
HIEA 2072: Modern Japanese Culture and Politics
Robert Stolz
MoWe 10:00AM - 10:50AM
Maury Hall 115
This course is an introduction to the politics, culture, and ideologies of Modern Japan from roughly 1800 to the 1990s. It investigates the processes of Japan's experience as a modern nation-state and its historical consequences. We will pay special attention to the complex interplay between Japan's aggressive participation in global modernity and its simultaneous assertion of cultural particularityŃ the tension between a modernity based on constant change and the lure of a timeless cultural essence, especially in relation to Asia and "the West".
HISA 1501: Fact, Film, and Fiction in India's History
Ezra Rashkow
Mo 3:30PM - 6:00PM
New Cabell Hall 134
In this first year seminar we will examine the ways in which India's past has been imagined and constructed not only in works of fiction and in film, but also in the writings of historians. For those looking for a cultural introduction to India, we will begin by examining some recent representations of sanskrit epics and ancient history. Later, focusing on the 19th and 20th centuries in the contemporary imagination, we will explore the relationship between histories and stories. In trying to tease apart fact and fiction, this will lead us to question the nature and possibility of 'historical truth'. One goal of this course is to give you a sense of the major outlines of India's modern history. But beyond simply reading literature and watching films in this course, in a self-referential turn of analysis we will also study the history of India's film industry and the emergence of a literary tradition in modern and postcolonial India. Course requirements include regular attendance and participation, watching the occasional long Bollywood film as extra homework, a class presentation, and several short essays. There will be no mid-term or final exam.
HISA 3003: Twentieth-Century South Asia
Ezra Rashkow
MoWe 9:00AM - 9:50AM
New Cabell Hall 311
This course explores the making of modern South Asia in twentieth century global context. The twentieth century massively transformed South Asia - much as it transformed rest of the world. Lectures and discussions are organized around weekly themes, primary and secondary readings, films, visuals, and other resources designed to track the major changes in political, social, and economic life that have gone into shaping present day South Asia. The bulk of this course will thus take the form of a survey of South Asian history in the twentieth century. Initial attention will be paid to anti-colonial and nationalist movements, and the rise of independent India and Pakistan. We will also focus on early twentieth century orientalism, and the genealogy of the '60s in South Asia. In the postcolonial period, not only will we cover the elite politics of the Nehru-Gandhi family dynasty in India, and the period struggles for succession to power in Pakistan and Afghanistan, we will also look at people's history - highlighting the stories of peasants, forest communities, and the urban poor. We will survey issues in international relations including South Asia's peculiar situation in the cold war, the four Indo-Pak wars since independence, and the emergence of Bangladesh from East Pakistan. But we will also spend time discussing environmental issues such as deforestation, international wildlife conservation, and the green revolution which transformed modern agriculture; urban issues such as the rise of mega-cities and mega-slums; and social issues such as the crisis of poverty, the push for education and health care, and the battle with corruption. Extensive memorization of names, dates and places will not be mandatory, but history is incomprehensible without knowledge of basic geography, key events, and major historical figures. More important to success in this course will be understanding how factors such as cultural and religious diversity, colonialism, nationalism, social change and continuity, have interplayed to inform India's rich and contentious past and present.
PLIR 4260: War and Peace in South Asia
Michael Krepon
Mo 3:30PM - 6:00PM
Nau 142
PLIR 4500: US Foreign Policy in East Asia
In Han Kim
Th 3:30PM - 6:00PM
Nau 142
PLCP 2700 / SAST 2700: Indian Society and Politics
Rina Williams
TuTh 11:00AM - 12:15PM
New Cabell Hall 242
The course will provide an overview and introduction to the social and cultural mosaic of India through the lens of politics. Particular attention will be paid to India's "democratic exceptionalism": defying the post-colonial experience of most of the developing world, India has remained a democracy virtually throughout its independent history. The course examines both the historical factors that have allowed India to sustain this remarkable record; some of the modern divisions that have, at times, threatened to tear the country apart, including religion, language, gender, and caste; and the evolution of India's economic and foreign policies in the context of democracy. In order to convey a broad view of Indian society and politics, material will be drawn from a wide range of sources, including academic works; works of novelists, journalists and political leaders; and films and videos. No prior knowledge of India is required or assumed.
SAST 4559: Popular Culture in South Asia: Visual Aesthetics
Geeta Patel
We 3:00PM - 5:30PM
TBA
SATR 1100: Under the Colonized-Gaze: British Empire and its Indian Subjects
Aminur Rahman
TuTh 12:30PM - 1:45PM
New Cabell Hall 320
SATR 3000: South Asian Literature Across Borders
Mehr Farooqi
We 3:30PM - 6:00PM
New Cabell Hall 430
Womanhood may be perceived as a kinship and understood through shared experience. However, perception is often skewed by the limitations of our cultural and epistemic stance. Gender is a social construct; women's identities and subjectivities are shaped within the socio-cultural constraints of their own society. One of our chief concerns in understanding women in the non-Western world is the handicap of our own perspective, that is, the western feminist perspective. Our claims of kinship with non-Western women are often tenuous. For us in this course, it is important to ask how women's experiences have touched upon women's writing on the whole. Does this writing address itself to certain questions? How do the women themselves see such writing? Was it/is it marginal or central to their lives? Can we detect any regionality in them? Is there any relationship between women writing and women's movements, and/or other political activism?
The diversity and pluralism of the Indian subcontinent provides an excellent ground for contextualizing the discourse between literature and gender. Each region has its own culture and language. We will read and critique the fiction and poetry of culturally specific regions while reflecting on the assumption that experiences and identities are fundamentally gendered. We will explore issues associated with women writing in regional languages to writing in mainstream languages like Hindi, Urdu and English. We will also examine how the publication and dissemination of women's texts are related to the women movements in India and Pakistan and to South Asian Literature as a whole. Requirements: Class Journal, Two presentations, Two short essays and a Final Project. NOTES: Class Meets Non-Western Perspectives and Second Writing Requirement. All readings will be in English.
SATR 3559: Literature and Society in South Asia: Breaking Cast(e)
Mehr Farooqi
TuTh 11:00AM - 12:15PM
New Cabell Hall 130
Dalit literature, is the most important literary movement to emerge in post-independence India. It is the voice of the most marginalized segment of India's population, those formerly known as untouchables. Deemed untouchable through religious diktat, members of this lowest stratum of the Hindu caste system now call themselves "Dalit" (the term literally means "ground down") to express their resistance to a three thousand year old socio-religious practice that denies them their basic human rights. Though 'untouchability' was abolished in 1950 when India adopted a new Constitution after independence from British rule, it still lingers on, especially among the rural population. Until the advent of Dalit literature, the lives of Dalits had seldom been recorded in Indian literatures, which were traditionally the domain of the privileged high-castes.
We will read fictional as well as non-fictional narratives of prominent writers such as Ambedkar, Omprakash Valmiki, Joseph Macwan, and Bama. We will also watch films that portray Dalit lives with a view to comprehend and contextualize their work.
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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