Fall 2010
English 581: Special Topics In U.S. Ethnic Literature and Culture
MW 1:30 - 3:18 p.m.
Denney Hall 214
Class # 25475
Prof. Ponce
"Asian American Literature: Diaspora, Empire, Sexuality." This course exposes students to a wide array of Asian American literary texts by focusing on the connections among three main themes:diaspora, empire, and sexuality. To what extent have imperialist incursions in Asia spurred migration to the U.S.? In what ways is the process of Asian racialization simultaneously a process of sexualization? How have gender and sexuality been mobilized in anti-racist and anti-imperialist projects? How have feminist and queer perspectives sought to rearticulate those projects? Broadly speaking, we will consider the interactions among literary form, cultural representation, and historical context as a way to reflect critically on the value of ethnic studies in general and Asian American studies in particular.
This course has also been approved as an elective for the Sexuality Studies minor.
English 758: Introduction to Graduate Study in U.S. Ethnic Literatures and Cultures (graduate course)
MW 9:30 - 11:18
Scott Lab N0044
Class # 25486
Prof. Ponce
"Asian American Literature: Diaspora, Empire, Sexuality." This course examines Asian American literature through three overlapping frameworks that have become indispensable to studying the field: diaspora, empire, and sexuality. Although each of these key terms enters Asian American studies at a certain historical juncture to generate a specific intervention, we will consider how their inter-articulations in a range of Asian American texts illuminate the theoretical uses and political stakes of these concepts. What happens to notions of immigration, ethnicity, and literary representation when we view Asian American expressive practices in a diasporic frame, shaped by competing nationalist and imperialist interests, and engaged with exploring manifold modes and practices of desire, gender, and sexuality? How can we historicize Asian American literary production in order to account for these social and political layers of experience, without losing sight of the formal and aesthetic elements of the work? In what ways does paying close attention to these complex convergences complicate binaries of east/west, Asia/America, tradition/modernity, normative/queer?
This course has been approved as an elective for the Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization in Sexuality Studies.
Women's Studies 215: Reading Women Writers (elective)
TR 11:30 - 1:18
Arps Hall 0387
Class # 20460
Prof. Itagaki
Study of women writers' strategies for articulating experiences and using literature as a lens for social reality and catalyst for social and political change. GEC Arts and Hums lit course.
Women's Studies 540: Studies in Women of Color Writing Culture (elective)
TR 3:30 - 5:18
Derby Hall 0048
Class # 26357
Prof. Itagaki
Interdisciplinary feminist study of selected historical and cultural movements through writing by women of color; topics vary by genre and by era. Prereq: 5 cr hrs in wom stds or Honors or permission of instructor. Repeatable to a maximum of 10 cr hrs.
Winter 2011
Comparative Studies 241: Introduction to Asian American Studies
TR 9:30 - 11:18
Arps Hall 387
Class # 26507
Prof. Ponce
This course introduces students to Asian American Studies by examining some of the main themes, issues, and problems that the field has grappled with since its emergence as an academic interdiscipline in the late 1960s. Topics include the relation between activism and academia in the formation of Asian American Studies; Chinese exclusion and immigration; Japanese American internment; U.S. colonialism and imperialism in Asia and its effects on Filipino Americans, Korean Americans, and Vietnamese Americans; the model minority myth; the experiences of post-1965 second-generation Asian Americans; and the complex relations between South Asian Americans and Arab Americans since the "war on terror."
English 580: Special Topics in Gay and Lesbian Language and Literature (elective)
TR 1:30 - 3:18
Denney Hall 214
Class # 14840
Prof. Ponce
"Sexuality in Global Perspective." This course explores "gay and lesbian" literature and culture through a comparative, global framework. By putting the terms in quotation marks, I am pointing to a question that scholars in queer studies have been asking and debating for at least a couple of decades: to what extent are "our" contemporary, western categories of same-sex sexuality relevant and applicable to understanding non-normative genders and homoerotic practices in the past and in "other" cultures? Since it would obviously be impossible to consider the multitudinous iterations and incarnations of "queer" sexualities worldwide in a single course, we will take a selective look at some prominent areas of inquiry that have emerged in the study of globalization and sexuality: same-sex encounters in colonial contexts; postcolonial/diasporic rearticulations of queerness; gay and lesbian tourism; and queer migration, sexual asylum, and human rights. Examining these issues as they appear in such geographical and racialized contexts as South, Southeast, and East Asia, Arab cultures in the Middle East and North Africa, the Caribbean, and Chicana/o culture, the course will begin and end with historical and contemporary reflections on the local, that is, on queer sexualities in Ohio.
English 581: Special Topics in U.S. Ethnic Literature and Culture
TR 3:30 - 5:18
Denney Hall 206
Class # 24882
Prof. Itagaki
"The Ethics of Comparative Racializations." Is Yellow Black or White? Are all minorities Black? Why are Asians considered the "new Jews," the latest model minority? What is the racial hierarchy from the past to the present that now determines our future? How is that racial hierarchy gendered in the hypermasculinization and hyperfeminization of groups? The inclusiveness of the term "Asian American," a political category, has itself been contested by Pacific Islanders, South Asians, and those of the multiple Asian diasporas. This identity fundamentally depends on the complex histories of US and European imperialisms, international politics, and other racial identities in the US. Given that the category of race is an interracial formation, we will examine how writers of color merge forms and genres in order to advance an interracial ethics. Texts: Hisaye Yamamoto, "A Fire in Fontana"; Paul Beatty, The White Boy Shuffle; Gish Jen, Mona in the Promised Land;Chang-rae Lee, Native Speaker; R. Zamora Linmark, Rolling the R's; Karen Tei Yamashita, The Tropic of Orange; Nina Revoyr, Necessary Hunger; Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony. Requirements: 2 shorter papers or 1 longer paper, weekly online discussion board responses, class presentation.
English 892: Feminist Approaches to Literature and Culture (graduate course)
TR 11:30 - 1:18
Journalism Building 0291
Class # 24932
Prof. Itagaki
"Multiracial Feminist Theory." This graduate course will consider developments in third wave feminism in which feminist studies has both spearheaded the critique of and been entangled in its own US-/Euro-centric, racial, class, and heteronormative biases. Intersecting with queer theory and women of color, Third World, and transnational feminisms, multiracial feminist theory continues to grapple with difference and the social and cultural construction of gender but emphasizes a larger matrix of subordination in terms of postcolonial, neoimperial, racialized, sexualized, and abled subjects. We will examine the foundational methodologies to multiracial feminist theory such as intersectionality and relationality and more recent ones such as assemblage. The readings will include the writings of critics and theorists such as GloriaAnzaldúa, Kum Kum Bhavnani, Kimberle Crenshaw, Ange-Marie Hancock, bell hooks, Lisa Lowe, Mari Matsuda, Jasbir Puar, Chela Sandoval, and Andrea Smith. Assignments: Weekly response papers, a class presentation, and a 15-page paper will be required.
Spring 2011
History/Women's Studies Honors 322: Natives and Newcomers
Prof. Wu
Immigration and migration have been a permanent feature of American history. From the first indigenous peoples who migrated throughout the continent, to Spanish, French, and British explorers in search of wealth, Irish farmers fleeing famine, Asian immigrants recruited as laborers to Hawaii and the Mainland, or Mexican peasants contracted as temporary agricultural workers, people have for centuries been in motion throughout what is today the United States. This course, co-taught by Prof. Fernandez and Murphy, will critically examine the dynamics of immigration and migration throughout the history of the United States, beginning with precolonialsocieties through contemporary dynamics in the 20th century. We will examine four broad themes—cultural contact, economic relations, citizenship and politics, and family and sexuality. Through readings, lectures, discussions, and films, we hope to challenge some of our most fundamental ideas about im/migration. We also will explore the gendered nature of mobility by asking how women and men experienced im/migration differently and were positioned differentially in relation to both the "host" and the "home" culture. Ultimately, we hope to have students understandim/migration not only from the perspective of natives or "the nation" but from the view of newcomers as well. To that end we will be drawing on sources and materials that illuminate multiple voices beyond just the typical, mainstream or "official" view of im/migration.