Undergraduate reading and research seminar on island societies, including Hawai`i, Puerto Rico, Guam, Okinawa, and the Philippines, and their relations with the continental U.S. Topics include the social geographies of islands and continents, empire and trade, militarism, tourism, and indigenous decolonization movements.

This seminar focuses on the critical analysis of Asian representation and participation in Hollywood by taking a look at how mainstream American cinema continues to essentialize the Asian and how Asian American filmmakers have responded to Hollywood Orientalist stereotypes. We will analyze various issues confronting the Asian American, including yellowface, white patriarchy, male and female stereotypes, the "model minority" myth, depictions of "Chinatowns," panethnicity, the changing political interpretations of the term Asian American throughout American history, gender and sexuality, and cultural hegemonies and privileging within the Asian community.

Interdisciplinary, intercultural introduction to the field of Asian American Studies. Major themes include methodological and theoretical formulations central to the field (e.g. racial, gender, and sexual formations, modes and relations of production and class, nation and transnation, oral history, and communities research), history and comtemporary issues of identitites, family, immigration, labor, education and anti-Asianisms.

Interdisciplinary, intercultural introduction to the field of Asian American Studies. Major themes include methodological and theoretical formulations central to the field (e.g. racial, gender, and sexual formations, modes and relations of production and class, nation and transnation, oral history, and communities research), history and contemporary issues of identity, family, community, immigration, labor, education, and anti-Asianisms.

This course examines the racialization of Asians in the United States from the late nineteenth century to the present. We begin with the premise that racialization is a process by which a population is constructed-and constructs itself-as a group with specific attributes and characteristics. As such, what it means to identify or be identified as a member of a racial group is historically contingent and constantly changing.

The ways in which Asians in the U.S. have been racialized have stemmed from a number of mechanisms, and have had social and political consequences, as well. We will look at several historical moments to investigate how immigration laws, public health regulations, social movements, and popular culture have shaped the ways in which Asian Americans have understood themselves and been seen by others. At the same time, race has interacted with other categories of difference, including gender, sexuality, class, immigrant status, and nation, to influence this process. While the topics we focus on during this class will be necessarily selective, our goal will be to understand the racialization of Asian Americans within the larger context of both U.S. history and, at some points, global political events. We will read a variety of primary and secondary sources this semester, including novels, memoirs, and historical monographs. Several films will be assigned for screening outside of class.