Courses

This interdisciplinary course (with an emphasis in anthropology) will introduce students to the multiple routes/roots, lived experiences, and imagined worlds of South Asians who have traveled to various lands at different historical moments spanning Fiji, South Africa, Mauritius, Britain, Malaysia, United States, Trinidad, and even within South Asia itself such as the Tamil-speaking population of Sri Lanka. The course will begin with the labor migrations of the 1830s and continue up to the present period. The primary exercise will be to compare and contrast the varied expressions of the South Asian Diaspora globally in order to critically evaluate this transnational identity. Thus, we will ask what, if any, are the ties that bind a fifth-generation Indo-Trinidadian whose ancestor came to the New World as an indentured laborer or "coolie" in the mid-19th century to labor in the cane fields, to a Pakistani medical doctor who migrated to the United States in the late 1980s. If Diaspora violates a sense of identity based on territorial integrity, then could "culture" serve as the basis for a shared identity?

Full details for AAS 2100 - South Asian Diaspora

An introductory history of Chinese, Japanese, Asian Indians, Filipinos, and Koreans in the United States from the mid-nineteenth century to the 1990s. Major themes include racism and resistance, labor migration, community formation, imperialism, and struggles for equality.

Full details for AAS 2130 - Introduction to Asian American History

This course introduces Korean popular culture in global context. Beginning with cultural forms of the late Chosŏn period, the course will also examine popular culture during the Japanese colonial period, the post-war period, the democratization period, and contemporary Korea. Through analysis of numerous forms of media, including films, television, music, literature, and music videos, the course will trace the emergence of the "Korean Wave" in East Asia and its subsequent global impact. In our examination of North and South Korean cultural products, we will discuss theories of transnationalism, globalization, and cultural politics. The course will consider the increasing global circulation of Korean popular culture through new media and K-Pop's transculturation of forms of American music such as rap and hip-hop. Readings for the course will be in English or in English translation and no prior knowledge of Korean culture is required.

Full details for AAS 2269 - Korean Popular Culture

Across twentieth-century history, race and war have been dynamic forces in shaping economic organization and everyday livelihoods. This course will approach labor and working-class history, through a focus on global war as well as 'wars at home.' Racial and warfare events often intersect—in the histories of presidents and activists, business leaders and industrial workers, CIA agents and police, soldiers and prisoners, American laborers abroad and non-Americans migrating stateside. In this course, we'll consider how race and war have been linked—from the rise of Jim Crow and U.S. empire in the 1890s, to the WWII 'Greatest Generation' and its diverse workplaces, to Vietnam and the civil rights movement, to the Iraq wars and immigrant workers, to debates about what has been called a 'military-industrial complex' and a 'prison-industrial complex'.

Full details for AAS 3885 - Race and War in History: Workers, Soldiers, Prisoners, Activists

Fictions of dictatorship, as termed by scholar Lucy Burns, denote both the narratives and spectacles produced by authoritarian governments and the performances, events, and cultural objects that work against these states of exception. This course will critically examine histories of dictatorships, through both documentary & creative forms (i.e. novels, memoirs, and performance) and with a geographic focus on Asia and Latin America, in order to understand authoritarian returns in our present historical moment.

Full details for AAS 4040 - Fictions of Dictatorship

Collaborations among and between Asian and Asian American artists in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have sought to redefine kinship by exploring the politics of belonging, generational dis/connections, and the legacy of the Cold War. Through examining collaborative, multi-media artworks and performances by artists who engage with such questions, this course delves into, and expands on, the discourses of transnational and trans-Pacific Asia. With the history of anti-Asian racism and lingering Cold War geopolitics increasingly visible due to Covid-19, students will also critically explore the praxis of reparative kinship, in which settler colonialism and anti-Black racism continue to fracture our work on ecological decolonialization and make alliances against white supremacy fragile. For longer description and instructor bio visit the Society for the Humanities website.

Full details for AAS 4673 - The Kinship of Repair: Asian and Asian American Artists in Collaboration

Independent reading course in topics not covered in regularly scheduled courses. Students select a topic in consultation with the faculty member who has agreed to supervise the course work.

Full details for AAS 4950 - Independent Study

Who counts as a full member of the U.S. polity? And how has law structured the benefits of such membership as well as the conditions for exclusion? Moreover, how have these terms changed and remained consistent throughout American history? This course will use a variety of landmark cases as a jumping off point for assessing the linkages in the U.S. between full inclusion and judgments about race, gender, Indigeneity, class, religion, and immigration. In the process, the course will explore decisive periods of conflict over the meaning of membership—from the founding and the Civil War to the Great Depression, the Civil Rights Movement, and more recent struggles regarding equality and freedom.

Full details for AAS 6457 - Inclusion and Exclusion in American Law

What are minoritarian aesthetics? How do these inform the production and reception of performance, broadly defined? How does attending to the aesthetics involved in the production of artistic and cultural productions open up new ways of critically understanding the world around us? In seeking to answer these questions, and others, this seminar will introduce graduate students to theories and critiques that attend to the aesthetic dimensions of visual culture, scripted staged performances, performance art, and contemporary media created by Black, queer, Asian, Caribbean, and Latinx/Latin people. Drawing on the work of theorists Fred Moten, José Esteban Muñoz, Leticia Alvarado, and Sandra Ruiz amongst others, students will interrogate the dialectical relationship between the artist's subject position and their resultant creative and critical work.

Full details for AAS 6611 - Minoritarian Aesthetics In-And Performance

Collaborations among and between Asian and Asian American artists in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have sought to redefine kinship by exploring the politics of belonging, generational dis/connections, and the legacy of the Cold War. Through examining collaborative, multi-media artworks and performances by artists who engage with such questions, this seminar delves into, and expands on, the discourses of transnational and trans-Pacific Asia. With the history of anti-Asian racism and lingering Cold War geopolitics increasingly visible due to Covid-19, students will also critically explore the praxis of reparative kinship, in which settler colonialism and anti-Black racism continue to fracture our work on ecological decolonialization and make alliances against white supremacy fragile. For longer description and instructor bio visit the Society for the Humanities website.

Full details for AAS 6673 - The Kinship of Repair: Asian and Asian American Artists in Collaboration

Full details for AAS 7200 - Directed Graduate Individual Study

Full details for AAS 7300 - Directed Graduate Group Study