2002-2003 General Catalog 

Asian American Studies
Department of Asian American Studies,
Division of Social Sciences,
Humanities and Social Sciences 5044;
Telephone (805) 893-2371

E-mail: foxen@asamst.ucsb.edu
Website: www.asamst.ucsb.edu  (will open in a new browser window)

Department Chair: Jon D. Cruz


Index:

Faculty

Jon D. Cruz, Ph.D., UC Berkeley, Associate Professor (theory, culture, race/ethnicity, sociology of knowledge, Filipino American history)

Diane C. Fujino, Ph.D., UC Los Angeles, Assistant Professor (womanist/feminist studies, psychology, interracial relations, Japanese-American experience)

Susan Koshy, Ph.D., UC Los Angeles, Assistant Professor (Asian-American literature, post-Colonial literature, Asian-Indian American experience)

Celine Parreñas Shimizu, Ph.D. Stanford University, MFA, UC Los Angeles, Assistant Professor(film and Performance Theory and Production Asian American Cultural Studies, Sexuality, Feminist Post Colonial Theory, and Social Theories of Power, Difference and Inequality)

Xiaojian Zhao, Ph.D., UC Berkeley, Assistant Professor (history, women's history, Asian-American families, Chinese-American experience)

Affiliated Faculty

Jesus M. Casas, Ph.D. (Education)

Catherine Cole, Ph.D. (Dramatic Art)

G. Reginald Daniel, Ph.D. (Sociology)

Mark Elliott, Ph.D. (History)

Lawrence K. Fulbeck, M.F.A. (Art Studio)

Shirley Lim, Ph.D. (Women's Studies)

Paul Spickard, Ph.D., UC Berkeley (History)

John Wiemann, Ph.D. (Communication)

Mayfair Yang, Ph.D. (Anthropology)


The Asian American Studies Department offers students an opportunity to study and understand the experiences of Asian Americans, particularly their histories, communities, and cultures. Students will also learn to evaluate the existing literature, gather new information, and analyze a variety of data on Asian Americans.

The history courses treat Asian-American history as part of United States history, but they also highlight selected aspects of Asian history in order to show how homeland developments affected and continue to affect the lives of Asian Americans. Asian-American communities are studied as examples of American ethnic communities whose internal structures and relationships to the wider society change from one historical period to another. Asian-American culture is viewed not as a simple blending of East and West, but as artistic expressions that reflect the development of Asian-American voices and the emergence of Asian-American sensibilities.

Students with a bachelor's degree in Asian American Studies who are interested in pursuing a California Teaching Credential should contact the credential advisor in the Graduate School of Education as soon as possible.


Undergraduate Program

Bachelor of Arts-Asian American Studies

Preparation for the major. Asian American Studies 1, 2, 5, and 3 or 8.

Upper-division major. Forty upper-division units from Asian American Studies and related departments are required, with 12 units from Area A and 12 units from Area B.

Area A. Asian American Studies 100AA-ZZ, 111, 113, 116, 117, 118, 119, 131, 132, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 150, 161, 162, 171AA-ZZ, 175, 191AA.

Area B. Asian American Studies 121, 122, 125, 127, 128, 129, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 170AA-ZZ.

Area C. 16 additional Asian American Studies units except 195H, 197, 199, 199RA. In Area C, up to two courses (8 units) may be substituted by petition when course content is relevant. This includes most courses in Black Studies; Chicano Studies; East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies; Women's Studies; and courses pertaining to Native American studies, usually found in Religious Studies special topic courses. Please consult department for additional information.

Minor-Asian American Studies

All courses to be applied to the minor must be completed on a letter-grade basis. This includes both courses offered in Asian American tudies and those offered by other departments and applied to the minor.

Preparation for the minor. Two courses (8 units) from the following: Asian American Studies 1, 2, 3, 5, 8.

Upper-division minor. Five courses (20 units), distributed as follows, with at least two courses from each area:

Area A. Asian American Studies 100AA-ZZ, 111, 113, 116, 117, 118, 119, 131, 132, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 150, 161, 162, 171AA-ZZ, 175, 191AA.

Area B. Asian American Studies 121, 122, 125, 127, 128, 129, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 170AA-ZZ.

Note: Substitutions and waivers are subject to approval by the chair of the department. Please see "Academic Minors" for special conditions governing minors in the College of Letters and Science.

 

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Asian American Studies Courses

Lower Division

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.

2. Contemporary Asian American History
(4) Staff

Changes in Asian American communities since 1965, as a result of expanded immigration, rise of Asian American panethnicity, and other factors; refugee migration from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos; current Asian American social, economic, and political trends; and interethnic relations.

3. Asian American Personality and Identity
(4) Staff

Cultural values and behavioral norms; ethnic identity development; process of acculturation; family patterns of communication; stressors and social support systems; tokenism; symbolic racism; academic achievement; interpersonal effectiveness; and culturally-responsive mental health treatment and service delivery.

4. Introduction to Asian American Cultural Studies
(4) Shimizu

Explores interdisciplinary approaches to the study of contemporary Asian American subjectivities and cultures. Readings and lectures examine questions, methods, and interpretations within recent Asian American studies scholarship, particularly engaging critical debates on difference, politics, and aesthetics.

5. Introduction to Asian American Literature
(4) Koshy

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.

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.

Upper Division

100AA-ZZ. Specific Asian Ethnic Groups
(4) Staff

May be repeated for credit to a maximum of 12 units provided letter designations are different.
The historical and contemporary experiences of specific Asian ethnic groups.

100AA. Chinese Americans
(4) Staff

Not open for credit to students who have completed Asian American Studies 51 or 101.

100BB. Japanese Americans
(4) Staff

Not open for credit to students who have completed Asian American Studies 52 or 102.

100CC. Filipino Americans
(4) Staff

Not open for credit to students who have completed Asian American Studies 53 or 103.

100DD. Korean Americans
(4) Staff

Not open for credit to students who have completed Asian American Studies 54 or 104.

100FF. South Asian Americans
(4) Staff

Not open for credit to students who have completed Asian American Studies 56 or 106.

100HH. Southeast Asian Refugees and Immigrants in the United States
(4) Staff

Not open for credit to students who have completed Asian American Studies 55, 100EE, 100GG, or 105.

111. Asian American Communities and Contemporary Issues
(4) Staff

Recommended preparation: a prior course in Asian American studies.
Historical formation of Asian immigrant communities and their social structures and functions; impact of post-1965 Asian immigration on existing communities; issues facing Asian Americans today, including education, employment, discrimination, civil rights, political participation, media stereotypes, and anti-Asian violence.

113. The Asian American Movement
(4) Fujino

Recommended preparation: a prior course in Asian American studies.
The history of Asian American social movements during the twentieth century. Examination of early immigrant resistance; Japanese American World War II protest; rise of Asian American Movementstudent, labor, feminist, anti-war, and yellow power movementsduring the 1960s-70s; contemporary social issues.

116. Asian Americans in the Law
(4) Zhao

Prerequisite: a prior course in Asian American studies or history or law & society.
Laws impacted the lives of Asian Americans and Asian Americans' contributions of the legal system in the United States. Review of landmark court cases with opportunities for students to analyze legal documents.

117. Developing Multicultural Competence
(4) Staff

Prerequisite: Asian American Studies 1 or 2 or 3 or 8.
Examination of the provision of culturally-sensitive services to ethnic minority communities: African American, American Indian, Asian American, and Hispanic American. Issues studied include human service needs, help-seeking patterns, cultural coping styles, and models of effective service delivery.

118. Asian Americans in Popular Culture
(4) Staff

Recommended preparation: a prior course in Asian American studies.
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.

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.

121. Asian American Autobiographies and Biographies
(4) Koshy

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.

122. Asian American Fiction
(4) Staff

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) Staff

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, Television, and Digital Media
(4) Staff

Recommended preparation: a prior course in Asian American studies.
Formal, historical, and cultural issues in the study of Asian American film, television, and digital media practices in independent, Hollywood, and transnational contexts. The role of cinema and visual technology in the understanding of Asian Americans in modern and contemporary culture.

128. Writings by Asian American Women
(4) Koshy

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
(4) Koshy

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.

131. Asian American Women's History
(4) Zhao

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.

132. Asian/Asian American Women in the Global Economy
(4) Fujino

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) Staff

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, comic books, and essays.

135. Asian Pacific American Queer Issues
(4) Staff

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.

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.

137. Multiethnic Asian Americans
(4) Staff

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.

141. Asian American Creative Writing
(4) Staff

Prerequisite: Writing 2 or 2E or 2LK; ad, English 10 or Writing 50 or 50E or 50LK or 109AA-ZZ.
A creative writing workshop focusing on Asian American themes. Different genres are emphasized depending on the instructor's preference and expertise.

142. Introductory Asian American Performance Workshop
(4) Staff

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.

143. Life Drama: Television Production Course
(4) Shimizu

Recommended preparation: a prior course in Asian American studies.
Introduce students to television production and critical studies focused on the melodrama and comedy of race and the racialized experience. Completion of two short video works visualizing and dramatizing Asian American life in a professional three-camera studio.

144. Asian American Visual Media Workshop
(4) Staff

Recommended preparation: a prior course in Asian American studies.
A laboratory workshop in which students can use a variety of visual media, such as photography, film, painting, and drawing to express the Asian American experience.

145. Intermediate Asian American Performance Workshop
(4) Staff

Prerequisite: Asian American Studies 142.
An intermediate performance workshop focusing on Asian American themes. Course provides in-depth exercises in writing, rehearsing, and producing a public performance.

146. Racialized Sexuality on Screen and Scene
(4) Shimizu

Recommended preparation: a prior course in Asian American studies.
Explores race and sexuality in Asian American moving image visual cultures, with particular attention to the production of the hypersexual "Asian Woman" in film and performance. Theories of visuality and perception in the contexts of racial, gendered, and queer representation and visibility.

147. Asian American Play Writing
(4) Staff

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.

150. Pacific Islander Americans
(4) Staff

Recommended preparation: a prior course in Asian American studies.
Examination of the histories, migration patterns, ethnic identities, family dynamics, community organizations, cultures, religions, health and mental health, social service needs, political concerns, and intergroup relations of people from Hawaii, Samoa, Tonga, Guam, Fiji, and other Pacific Islands.

161. Asian and Pacific Americans and Religion
(4) Staff

Recommended preparation: 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.

162. Psychological Issues of Asian Americans
(4) Staff

Prerequisite: Asian American Studies 3.
Examination of the current theory and research on the specific psychological issues that affect Asian Americans. Special emphasis on how immigration experiences, acculturation, cultural values, ethnic identity, and racism influence various aspects of psychological functioning.

170AA-ZZ. Special Topics in Asian American Studies - Arts & Humanities
(4) Staff

May be repeated for credit to a maximum of 8 units provided letter designations are different.
Recommended prepataration: a prior course in Asian American studies.

Courses focusing on various arts and humanities topics not offered in other Asian American studies courses.

171AA-ZZ. Special Topics in Asian American Studies - Social Science & History
(4) Staff

May be repeated for credit to a maximum of 8 units provided letter designations are different.
Recommended prepataration: a prior course in Asian American studies.

Courses focusing on various social sciences and history topics not offered in other Asian American studies courses.

175. Theory and Method in Asian American Studies
(4) Staff

Prerequisites: junior or senior standing; open to Asian American studies majors only.
Exploration of the main theoretical orientations that have shaped Asian American studies: race and ethnicity, diasporas, international labor migration, etc. Introduction to several methodologies, including historiography, quantitative social science, literary criticism, and ethnography.

191AA. Research Seminar in Asian American History
(4) Zhao

Prerequisites: Asian American Studies 1 or 2, or one lower-division course in history; upper-division standing.
A research seminar exploring historical approaches to studying Asian American experiences. Students have the opportunity to collect, analyze, and evaluate historical documents and manuscripts. Students carry out a research project and produce a research paper.

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.

199. Independent Studies
(1-4) Staff

Prerequisites: upper-division standing; one lower-division course and two upper-division courses in Asian American studies.
Must have a minimum 3.0 grade-point average for the preceding three quarters. Maximum of 4 units per quarter or a total of 12 units in Asian American studies. Students are limited to 5 units per quarter, and 30 units total in all 98/99/198/199/199DC/199RA courses combined.

Independent study of topics not covered in the regular curriculum under the guidance of an approved faculty member.

199RA. Independent Research Assistance in Asian American Studies
(1-4) Staff

Prerequisites: upper-division standing; two upper-division courses in Asian American studies; consent of instructor and department.
Must have a minimum 3.0 grade-point average for the preceding three quarters. Students are limited to 5 units per quarter and 30 units total in all 98/99/198/199/199DC/199RA courses.

Students will assist faculty in the latter's research under the personal supervision of the faculty.

Graduate Courses

500. Laboratory for Teaching Assistants
(4) Staff

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) Staff

Prerequisites: graduate standing and consent of instructor.
Reading and research in special topics in Asian American studies.


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