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Department of Asian American Studies
5044 Humanities and Social Science Building (HSSB)
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4090
(805) 893-8039
(805) 893-7766 (fax)


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Asian American Studies Courses

 

Courses for the 2007-2008 Academic Year

Please note that while this page is intended to facilitate academic planning, all course offerings are subject to change. This page will be updated continually to account for any changes in course offerings as they occur. Please check with individual faculty for the status of a specific class.

To see an updated schedule of classes, including days and times, and to enroll for classes, please visit the website for the Office of the Registrar by clicking here.

 

Courses for Fall 2007

2. American Migrations Since 1965
(4) Park
Changes in immigration law and policy and in American communities since 1965. Special emphasis on Asian Americans and Asian immigrants. Substantive topics include economic integration, interracial conflict, community formation, and the politics of immigration reform and their consequences. For students enrolled in this class, please click here.

8. Asian American Gender Relations
(4) Fujino
Examination of relations between Asian American women and men from sociological, psychological and historical perspectives. Topics include: social construction of gender and race, effects of racism and sexism, media representations, gay and lesbian experiences, education, reproductive labor, anti-Asian and sexualized violence.

100CC. Filipino Americans
(4) Zulueta

100HH. Southeast Asians
(4) Jalao

118. Asian Americans in Popular Culture
(4) Wong
A historical survey of how Asians and Asian Americans have been represented in American popular culture and an analysis of alternative models of popular culture. Texts include literature, theater, television, film.

122. Asian American Fiction
(4) Lee
Recommended preparation: Asian American Studies 5.
Examination of the ways in which Asian American writers create fiction in order to reflect on pertinent issues concerning Asian Americans, such as race, class, gender, and sexuality. Texts include short stories and novels.

125. Asian American Plays
(4) Harsha
Recommended preparation: a prior course in Asian American studies.
An examination of plays by first-, second-, and third-generation Asian Americans that demonstrate divergent yet expanding vitality in Asian American theater; works by Ping Chong, David Henry Hwang, Frank Chin, Genny Lim, Wakako Yamauchi, Philip Kan Gotanda, and Velina Hasu Houston.

127. Asian American Film, Television, and Digital Media
(4) Shimizu
Recommended preparation: a prior course in Asian American studies.
Asian American film, video, and new media produced within Asian American framework life, culture, and politics or 'socioaesthetics.' Moving image production, criticism, and theory are reviewed in order to formulate one's analyses of production, authorship, and spectatorship of various forms. Peter Feng, E. Franklin Wong, Eve Oishi, and other readings are required.

137. Multiethnic Asian Americans
(4) Cherot
Not open for credit to students who have completed Asian American Studies 7 or 107.
Recommended preparation: a prior course in Asian American studies.

The history, identities, and social relations of multiethnic Asian Americans. Uses fiction, autobiography, sociological and psychological studies of people of mixed racial or ethnic parentage. Considers cognate issues such as interracial marriage.

138. Asian American Sexualities
(4) Shimizu
Recommended preparation: a prior course in Asian American studies.

Examines the critical lens of sexuality in studying Asian American culture, history, and politics. Survey of interdisciplinary texts on concepts of sexuality in Asia and America, constructions of sexual difference, denaturalizing heterosexuality and queer theory.

149. Screenwriting
(4) Cho
Recommended prepration: a prior course in Asian American studies. Not open for credit to students who have completed Asian American Studies 170RR.
Writing intensive course focuses on the craft of screenwriting in the short film, television, and feature film format. Attention to development of visual language, story, structure, plot, conflict, and other alternate modes of storytelling deployed by various Asian American filmmakers. Students complete scripts in various formats.

171LS. Race and Law: American Colonial Law to the Civil War
(4) Park
This class is offered concurrently as Law and Society 194RL. The course examines the development of American law and race relations from the colonial period through the American Civil War, drawing upon theories of immigration, conquest, and colonization. For students enrolled in this class, please click here.

175. Asian American Theory and Methods
(4) Lee

199. Independent Studies
(4) Faculty

199RA. Independent Research Assistant
(4) Faculty

227. Asian American Film, Television, and Digital Media
(4) Shimizu
Asian American film, video, and new media produced within Asian American framework life, culture, and politics or 'socioaesthetics.' Moving image production, criticism, and theory are reviewed in order to formulate one's analyses of production, authorship, and spectatorship of various forms. Peter Feng, E. Franklin Wong, Eve Oishi, and other readings are required.

238. Asian American Sexualities
(4) Shimizu
Examines the critical lens of sexuality in studying Asian American culture, history, and politics. Survey of interdisciplinary texts on concepts of sexuality in Asia and America, constructions of sexual difference, denaturalizing heterosexuality and queer theory.

500. Laboratory for Teaching Assistants
(4) Faculty
Prerequisite: departmental approval; appointment as a teaching assistant in a lower-division Asian American studies course.
No unit credit allowed toward advanced degree.

Supervised teaching of Asian American studies lower-division courses.

596. Directed Reading and Research
(1-4) Faculty
Prerequisites: graduate standing and consent of instructor.
Reading and research in special topics in Asian American studies.

To visit the Office of the Registrar, please click here.

 

Courses for Winter 2008

1. Comparative Asian American History, 1850-1965
(4) Zhao
A comparative analysis of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Asian Indian, and Filipino immigration into Hawaii and the continental United States; settlement and employment patterns; community organizations; anti-Asian movements; women and families; World War II internment of Japanese Americans; and postwar developments.

5. Introduction to Asian American Literature
(4) J. Lee
Selected major themes in literary texts from Asian American communities, including Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Filipino, and Southeast Asian Americans: dislocation/relocation; finding/inventing a usable past; poetics/politics in language; identities/ethnicities.

100BB. Japanese Americans
(4) Fujino

119. Asian Americans and Race Relations
(4) Fujino
Recommended preparation: a prior course in Asian American studies.
Examination of the development of racial ideology and racism, theories of race relations, effects of racism and discrimination against Asian Americans, and contemporary race issues.

120. Asian American Documentary
(4) Cho

121. Asian American Autobiographies and Biographies
(4) Lee
Asian American autobiographies and biographies, their socio-political reflections and expressions inscribing the subject in and against culture, relations between intention and form. Readings may include Pardee Lowe, Jade Snow Wong, Monica Sone, Jeanne Houston, Carlos Bulosan, and Maxine Hong Kingston.

128. Writings by Asian American Women
(4) Ninh
Asian American women's writings covering a variety of genres and cultural communities; emphasis on literary analysis of works in relation to central themes of race, family and gender.

129. Representations of Asia in Asian American Narratives; Buddhism
(4) Khuc
Course traces the emergence of an American discourse about Asia by examining literary and non-literary texts. Post 1960's Asian American narratives will also be analyzed in terms of their relationship to the earlier discursive frameworks.

130. Colonialism and Migration
(4) Park
Examines Asian migration to the United States by looking at the influence of Western nation-states on Asian nations and peoples. The course reviews theories and practices of colonialism and imperialism, and offers detailed analyses of migration patterns and trends from Asia since the late 19th century. For students enrolled in this class, please click here.

131. Asian American Women's History
(4) Cherot
Prerequisite: a prior course in Asian American studies or history or women's studies.
The lives and changing status of Asian immigrant women, past and present; Japanese and Korean "picture brides;" American-born girls of Asian ancestry; Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Filipino war brides; adopted Asian girls; and diverse life-styles of Asian American women today.

135. Asian Pacific American Queer Issues
(4) Sheng
Recommended preparation: a prior course in Asian American studies.
An interdisciplinary survey of the histories, experiences, and identities of Asian Pacific American gays, lesbians, and bisexuals; coming out issues, family and community pressures, and socio-political representation in Asian Pacific American communities and in the mainstream gay movement.

140. Theory and Production of Social Experience
(4) Shimizu
Open to non-majors.
Theory and video production of social experience course focused on performance studies and ethnography in the context of Asian American Studies. Central texts in these fields as well as production of performances and ethnographies in video are covered.

147. Asian American Play Writing
(4) Harsha
Recommended prepration: a prior course in Asian American studies.
Examination of various dramatic techniques, dialogue construction and character development used in writing for the theater. Students will create an original short play or performance piece. Some pieces may be developed for staged presentation.

195H. Senior Honors Project
(4) Staff
Prerequisites: Open only to Asian American studies majors who have completed at least six upper-division courses in Asian American studies.
Must have a 3.0 overall grade-point average and 3.5 grade-point average in courses in the major.

Offers an opportunity to students who meet the prerequisites to do independent research and to write an honors thesis or produce an honors film/video or performance.

240. Theory and Production of Social Experience
(4) Shimizu
Twentieth-century western film and video representations of Asian/American women through ethnic, film and feminist studies. Examines why the legibility of Asian/American women on screen has consistently depended on hypersexuality, or the production of perverse and non-normative sexuality.

500. Laboratory for Teaching Assistants
(4) Faculty
Prerequisite: departmental approval; appointment as a teaching assistant in a lower-division Asian American studies course.
No unit credit allowed toward advanced degree.

Supervised teaching of Asian American studies lower-division courses.

596. Directed Reading and Research
(1-4) Faculty
Prerequisites: graduate standing and consent of instructor.
Reading and research in special topics in Asian American studies.

To visit the Office of the Registrar, please click here.

 

Courses for Spring 2008

4. Introduction to Popular Culture
(4) Shimizu
From the turn of the century to the present, Asian Americans have wrestled with popular culture representations of their roles, subjectivities, histories and communities. Using popular culture forms, Asian Americans redefine their representations and assert their own visions through an approach that synthesizes art, politics and entertainment. The course is divided into three parts: Histories of Asian American Popular Culture, Gendered and Sexualized Issues of Racial Representation and Transnationalism/ Diaspora/Globalization.

5. Introduction to Asian American Literature
(4) Ninh
Selected major themes in literary texts from Asian American communities, including Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Filipino, and Southeast Asian Americans: dislocation/relocation; finding/inventing a usable past; poetics/politics in language; identities/ethnicities.

115. Contemporary Legal Issues in Asian American Communities
(4) Park
Prerequisite: a prior course in Asian American studies or history or law & society.
Asian Americans in law and society since 1965. The course will focus on the development of immigration law, reparations, race and law in a multiracial society, law and culture, and class inequality. For students enrolled in Spring 2008, please click here.

124. Asian American Literature in Contemporary Frameworks
(4) Ninh
Recommended preparation: Asian American Studies 5.
Reads literature by Asian American writers alongside texts from one or more of the other ethnic American literary traditions. Generic and thematic coverage will vary. Emphasis on literary analysis in comparative racial contexts.

132. Asian/Asian American Women in the Global Economy
(4) Cherot
Recommended preparation: a prior course in Asian American studies.
Examination of economic and political systems that affect Asian women's labor in the United States and internationally. Topics include: the intersection of race, class, gender, and sexuality; the garment industry; sex industry; and Asian and Asian American women's resistance.

134. Asian American Men and Contemporary Men's Issues
(4) Sheng
Recommended preparation: Asian American Studies 8.
An interdisciplinary study of Asian American male identities, masculinities, and bodies; emphasis on literary, sociocultural, cinematic, and popular culture representations; Asian American masculinist discourses as complements to Asian American feminist discourses. Texts include literatures, films, photos, and essays.

136. Asian American Families
(4) Zhao
Prerequisite: a prior course in Asian American studies or history or women's studies.
The importance of the family in the East and Southeast Asian cultural heritage; family formation in the United States; contemporary Asian American family dynamics; interracial families; changing gender roles and relationships; the family and the life cycle.

142. Introductory Asian American Performance Workshop
(4) Harsha
Recommended preparation: a prior course in Asian American studies.
An introductory performance workshop focusing on Asian American themes. Students write original pieces, learn the basic techniques of stage performance, and participate in presenting a public performance at the end of the quarter.

148. Introduction to Video Production
(4) Cho
Recommended prepration: a prior course in Asian American studies. Not open for credit to students who have completed Asian American Studies 170QQ.
Introduction to video pre-production, production, post-production, and distribution of Asian American independent video. Covers fundamentals of production planning, budget, lighting, sound recording, and design, editing, and the film festival and distribution requirements for race and independent media projects. Examples of various practices by Asian American independents are explored.

161. Asian and Pacific Americans and Religion
(4) Busto (Religious Studies)
Recommended prepration: a prior course in Asian American studies.
Examination of the religious experiences of Asian and Pacific Islander Americans. Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Confucianism, Shinto, and Christianity in their Asian/Pacific and Asian/Pacific American forms. Emphasis on social and historical context as well as theology, experience, and expression.

170. Special Topics; Arts and Humanities
(4) J. Lee

171. Special Topics; Social Science and History
(4) Kwon

200. Critical Issues in Asian American Studies
(4) Lee
Graduate Seminar exploring critical themes and major debate in Asian American Studies. Readings cover perspectives that may include history, literature, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, political science, gender and sexuality studies, psychology, and religious studies.

500. Laboratory for Teaching Assistants
(4) Faculty
Prerequisite: departmental approval; appointment as a teaching assistant in a lower-division Asian American studies course.
No unit credit allowed toward advanced degree.

Supervised teaching of Asian American studies lower-division courses.

596. Directed Reading and Research
(1-4) Faculty
Prerequisites: graduate standing and consent of instructor.
Reading and research in special topics in Asian American studies.

 

To visit the Office of the Registrar, please click here.

 

 

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