Fall 2018 Courses

ASAM 022. Healing Justice (1/2 credit).
K. Yep, PZ, W 5:30-7:00 p.m.
Using an integrative and socio-centric approach to learning, this student-centered course draws from student projects to examine healing justice through feminist, anti-racist pedagogies and contemplative practices. In addition to identifying community resilience, research shows the impact of adverse childhood experiences, historical trauma, and chronic stress on the body and executive functions. Through community engagement, students will explore the potential of destressing, somatic, and compassionate pedagogies in interrogating the relationship among individual, interpersonal, and interorganizational anger with viable generative sustainable systemic change.

ASAM 077B. Tattoos: Aesthetics, Cultures, and Pasts in the United States.
T. Honma, PZ, MW 9:35-10:50 a.m.
Survey course examines cultural interpretations of tattooing in the United States from the 19th century to the present. Addresses issues such as US racial formation, settler colonialism, nation-building, war, and American empire. Particular focus on the intersections of aesthetics and ideology as they pertain to cultural identity, group membership, abjection, and deviance within racialized, classed, and gendered social environments.

ASAM 102. Social Responsibility Praxis (1/2 credit, meets bi-weekly).
K. Yep, PZ, M 7:00-9:50 p.m.
Using feminist pedagogies, this course explores social responsibility praxis through a community engagement project at an adult literacy program in Monterey Park. We will examine the ethical and political implications of language ideologies in the naturalization process and adult literacy for immigrant and refugee emergent English speakers. Transportation provided. Repeatable for credit. Class meets biweekly.

ASAM 105B. Zines in the Asian Diaspora.
T. Honma, PZ, M 2:45-5:30 p.m.
This course explores self-published zines as a way to understand Asian diasporic experiences in various regions of the “Pacific World.” We will examine factors involved in transpacific movement and migration and how Asian diasporic communities choose to represent themselves through the medium of zines. By engaging in comparative analysis between creative narration and scholarly texts, we will investigate competing definitions of what it means to be “Asian.”

ASAM 115. Theory and Methods.
G. Nubla, PZ, TR 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
As an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary field of study and knowledge production, Asian/American and Pacific Islander Studies uses a variety of research methods to address the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and class in the realms of politics, representation, identity, and community formation, among others. The course will provide a critical examination of important themes in Asian American history; contemporary issues facing Asian American communities in a time of accelerated economic, social, and political changes; and the relation of textual and cultural production to epistemology and states of being and feeling that respond to structures of power.

ASAM 125 HM. Introduction to Asian American History: 1850-Present
A. Flores, HM, MW 9:35-10:50 a.m.
Survey course examines journeys of Asian immigrant groups (and subsequent American-born generations) as they have settled and adjusted to life in the United States since 1850.  Address issues such as the formation of ethnic communities, labor, role of the state, race relations, and American culture and identity.

ASAM 160 PZ. Asian American Women’s Experiences.
G. Nubla, PZ, R 1:15-4:00 p.m.
This course is an interdisciplinary examination of Asian and Pacific Islander American women.  It will examine the history and experiences of Asian American women in the United States.  The class will include both lecture and discussion and will cover various issues, such as gender roles, mass media stereotypes, Asian women’s feminism, and the impact of sexism and racism on the lives of Asian American women through education, work, and home life.

ASAM 179C HM. Beaches, Bikinis, and Bombs: Race & U.S. Empire in the Pacific Islands.
A. Flores, HM, T 1:15-4:00 p.m.
Images such as beaches, luaus, and surfing are some of the most common representations of the Pacific Islands (also known as Oceania).  However, there are other realities and narratives that exist, which complicate how we understand this region.  Using an interdisciplinary historical approach, this course will examine the histories and cultures of the U.S. Pacific.  Specifically, this course will focus on the themes of empire, gender, indigeneity, labor, militarization, race, and settler colonialism.  By the end of the class, students will be able to challenge common representations of the Pacific Islands through their nuanced understanding of Oceania.

ASAM 179E PZ. Asian/Americans and Popular Culture.
G. Nubla, PZ, T 2:45-5:30 p.m.
This course will examine representations of Asians, Asian Americans, and U.S.-Asia relations in American popular culture (e.g., film, television, fiction, comics and graphic novels, political cartoons, the internet). We will take a historical approach and attend to the tensions between representations of Asians and Asian Americans on the one hand, and Asian American self-representations on the other.

ASAM 190a/190PO. Asian American Studies Senior Seminar: Applications, Analysis, and Future Directions.
S. Goto, PO, TR 9:35-10:50 a.m.
This is the capstone seminar for senior Asian American Studies majors (minors optional). The seminar is designed to bring seniors together to discuss and assess their understanding of Asian American Studies practice and theory at the Claremont Colleges and beyond. We will engage in minor research activities, read & analyze provocative books and articles, and revisit key issues & controversies.

ENGL 161. The Futures of Asian/America.
W. Liu, SC, TR 2:45-4:00 p.m.
This course explores speculative imaginations of Asian/American futures, covering works of classic science fiction, contemporary popular culture (including films), and newer work in “slipstream” or “mainstream” literary science fiction. Central to our exploration will be the question of how Asian/America is imagined as a multiply-contested site of future (hyper)modernity, even as Asia is imagined as place mired in a timeless past. Covering works by authors such as Chang-Rae Lee, Ted Chiang, Karen Yamashita, Charles Yu, Linda Nagata, Larissa Lai, and others, we’ll explore texts that speculate on transnational futures in relation to imperial pasts, on ecological disasters both global and local, on artificial intelligence and the “post-racial” future, and more. The course will pay particular attention to questions of racial formation, gender, sexuality, and the specific material histories of Asian/Americans.

SOC 126AA. Immigration and the Second Generation.
H. Thai, PO, W 1:15-4:00 p.m.
Analysis of post-1965 children of immigrants, and/or immigrant children in Asia America. Emphasis on variations on coming of age patterns, the course examines diverse childhood experiences, including ‘transnational’ children, ‘refugee’ children, and ‘left-behind’ children. Emphasis on gender, class, ethnicity, intergenerational relations, education, sexuality, popular culture, and globalization, and specifically how young adults negotiate major American institutions such as the labor market and educational systems.