Courses

Asian American Literature and Culture

This course examines narratives of migration to, from, and between the Americas by groups from East, South, and Southeast Asia. We will analyze novels, short fiction, poetry, and films by twentieth-century artists (Joy Kogawa, Theresa Cha, Shani Mootoo, Jhumpa Lahiri, Bienvenido Santos, Wayne Wang) against the historical backdrop of imperialism in Asia and the Americas; periods of exclusion and internment; and social movements that coalesce around intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, and citizenship.

Gender and Sexuality in Asian American Literature

Focusing on contemporary Asian American literature, film, and popular culture, this course emphasizes a diverse range of engagements with gender and sexuality that disrupts binary thinking on the topic. Through close analysis of cultural texts, students will examine the formation of Asian American genders and sexualities alongside histories of racialization, migration, and labor. Texts may include: Monique Truong's The Book of Salt, David Henry Hwang's M Butterfly, R. Zamora Linmark's Rolling the R's, Justin Lin's Better Luck Tomorrow, as well as episodes of Battlestar Galactica and 24. We will also read critical essays by Gayatri Gopinath, David Eng, Yen Le Espiritu, Karen Tongson, Lisa Nakamura, and Martin Manalansan.

Asian American Women’s Writing (Chin)​

10 Weeks, 10 Professors: #BlackLivesMatter

This collaboratively taught course seeks to answer the call of activists around the country to examine racialization, state violence, and inequality in the context of the #BlackLivesMatter movement. To begin, it offers a context for the events in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014. Then, it situates those events in a broader history of race and racism in the United States. Finally, the course highlights black feminist and queer approaches to questions of trauma, community, politics, and survival.

Race and Ethnicity: Social Constructions and Social Realities (Walton)

In this course we start from the premise that racial and ethnic distinctions are a social construction. Students will explore how race matters by interpreting their own identity and experiences through the lens of a social scientist, examining interpersonal and institutional forms of racism and their consequences, and discover prospects for change in the future. Students are required to interpret class readings, perform short critical writing responses, evaluate others' work, facilitate and participate in class discussion, and write one 5-7 page essay, and one 8-10 page research paper.

A Sociological Introduction to the Asian American Experience

Within the last decade, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) have become the nation’s fastest-growing racial group. But, AAPIs come from nearly 50 countries and ethnic groups, so the AAPI experience is immensely dynamic and heterogeneous. This course examines key issues in AAPI communities, including global-historical context of migration; ethnic and racial consciousness; economic, social, and political status; cultural production; and family and gender relations. Sociological contributions about inequality, assimilation, and identity will be highlighted.

Race and Ethnicity in the U.S. (Walton)

To many eyes, racial distinctions are self-evident, natural, and objectively-defined. In this course, we problematize this practice of defining racial categories based on phenotypic differences, instead taking a sociological approach to understanding the ways in which racial differences are socially constructed. Throughout this course, we will explore how race matters by studying racial identity and experience, immigration and assimilation, diversity, and inequality.