HIST-LIT 90CM: Asian American Cultural Studies

Thursday, 9:45-11:45 am

Instructor: Andi Remoquillo

This course examines Asian American cultural production and the political histories of various Asian American communities. We will place a wide range of primary texts, including fiction, poetry, film, television, and visual art, in conversation with larger political and cultural questions about race, gender, citizenship, imperialism and belonging in the U.S. The course will be organized around four major events in Asian American history: the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the subsequent exclusion of Asian immigrants in the decades that followed; the incarceration of Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans during World War II; Cold War Orientalism after WWII; the racial politics of imperial war and Islamophobia in the post-9/11 United States; and the sharp increase in anti-Asian racial violence during the Covid-19 pandemic. We will also consider the historical movements and migrations of people of Asian descent to North America; U.S. wars in Asia; the conflicts of identity, community, and citizenship; the gender and sexual dynamics of Asian American racialization; and the relationship of Asian Americans to other communities of color. In doing so, this course grapples with what it means for Asian America to have been characterized and circumscribed by a multitude of cultural discourses—legal, geopolitical, and textual—throughout dominant as well as subversive narratives of U.S. history.

Course Goals:

• Students will develop analytical skills through the close reading and interpretation of cultural and historical sources.
• Students will learn how to place historical and cultural primary sources in conversation with academic scholarship.

•  Students will develop skills in academic writing, focused on articulation of analytical arguments supported by source-based evidence.

Course format:

This is a discussion-based seminar that emphasizes close textual analysis. Brief lectures will contextualize the assigned sources and weekly themes.

Typical enrollees:

This course will prioritize enrollment for first-year and sophomore students considering concentrating in History & Literature, but all years and concentrations are welcome. There are no prerequisites. This course counts for Ethnic Studies (introduction) and American Studies (Category B).

Assignments and grading:

Grading will be based on both written work (e.g. weekly response papers, essays) and class participation.

Absence and late work policies:

Everyone will start with 3 "grace days" to be used at your discretion.  You need not ask for an extension, but rather use these days as necessary. Your 3 days may be used in any permutation (e.g. 1 day on the first, 1 day for the second, or all 3 at once), but once you have used all three, no more will be granted, so please plan accordingly. After all days are used, papers will be deducted a step for each late day (an A becomes an A–, etc.). No grace days on the final paper.