Winter 2005 Prof. J. Wu
Tuesdays
Journalism 387 Phone: 292-9331
Office
Hours: Thursday
Description:
This graduate level course will explore the field of Asian American History. The category Asian American refers to people in the United States of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, South Asian, and Southeast Asian ancestry. The readings selected represent new scholarship in the field. The authors frequently incorporate interdisciplinary approaches to enrich their understanding of history or use history to further their analysis of contemporary issues. Through readings and discussion, we will examine central concepts in Asian American History and ask how the experiences of Asian Americans complicate existing understandings of American race relations, gender roles, sexual norms, national identity, and international relations.
The following books are available for purchase at local bookstores. They, along with the additional readings for the class, are on reserve at the Main Library.
Anne
Fadiman, The Spirit
Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the
Collision of Two
Cultures (Farrar, Straus,
and Giroux, 1997)
Dorothy B. Fujita-Rony, American Workers,
Colonial Power: Philippine Seattle and the Transpacific West, 1919-1941
(California 2002)
Lon
Kurashige, Japanese American Celebration
and Conflict: A
History of Ethnic Identity and Festival, 1934-1990 (
Erika
Lee, At
Mae
Ngai, Impossible Subjects
: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern
Nayan Shah, Contagious Divides :
Epidemics and Race in
John
Tchen,
Henry
Yu, Thinking
Orientals : Migration, Contact, and Exoticism in Modern
Ji-
Yeon Yuh, Beyond the Shadow
of Camptown : Korean Military Brides in
Course Assignments:
As a graduate colloquium, the success of this course depends upon your active participation. All reading and writing assignments must be completed by the appointed date and time. Incomplete assignments and lack of participation will not only adversely affect your grade but will also lessen the overall learning experience for everyone else in the course.
1.
Nine weekly
reading responses (45% of overall grade).
These 3-4 page responses represent opportunities for you to
reflect on
the main themes for the weekly reading assignments and to suggest
discussion
questions for the class. For each
response, I recommend writing two to three paragraphs summarizing the
main
argument or arguments from the readings and an additional
2. Leading or co-leading a discussion (10%) and class participation(20%). When you lead discussion, prepare a short overview of the week’s reading(s). The presentations should not last more than 5-10 minutes for each discussion leader. Focus your comments on the main issues raised by the works. Do not just summarize the arguments but reflect on the ways in which the readings converse with one another. In addition, prepare a list of topics or questions that you would like the class to explore. Remember, your job as a facilitator is not to dominate but to facilitate discussion. Feel free to meet with me beforehand if you have questions.
3. Final Project (25%). In previous graduate classes, I requested students to write either a historiographical paper (12-15 pages) on a topic of their choice. Or, to use the final paper as an opportunity to write a portion of an ongoing research project. If these options appeal to you, you are welcome to pursue them. However, I would like to ask students in this class to participate in an oral history/performance art project related to the Month of Remembrance, a series of events that will be held at OSU during the month of February and March to commemorate the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
The oral history/performance art project will provide you with the opportunity to gain training in conducting oral histories, filming your subjects, analyzing and presenting photographs, and incorporating these materials into an edited video, which will either constitute a historical documentary or a performance art piece. This project will encourage you to analyze and present history in a format that transcends the usual written medium.
Late Assignments: Any late assignment will be deducted 1/3 of a grade for every day or fraction of a day that it is late. For example, an otherwise “A” or “+” paper that is turned in after the due time but not more than one day late will be marked as “A-” or “check/+.” The paper will be marked as “B+” or “check“ if it is up to two days late, and so on.
Plagiarism: All work presented in class or turned in must be a student's own. Plagiarism or any other form of academic misconduct will be dealt with in accordance with the guidelines laid down by the University’s Committee on Academic Misconduct and will seriously affect a student’s grade.
Absences: If you will be unable to attend class, please inform me beforehand. If an emergency arises and you are unable to reach me before the class, contact me as soon as possible to explain your absence. If you miss more than two classes, you will not be able to pass the course.
Enrollment: All students must be officially enrolled in the course by the end of the second full week of the quarter. No requests to add the course will be approved by the department chair after that time. Enrolling officially and on time is solely the responsibility of each student.
Schedule:
4 January Introduction
View: My
Immigration
11 January Sylvia
Yanagisako, “Transforming Orientalism: Gender,
Nationality and Class in Asian
American Studies,” in Naturalizing Power,
ed. by Sylvia Yanagisako and Carol Delaney
(New York:
Routledge,
1995), pp. 275-298.
Erika Lee, At
18 January Mae
Ngai, Impossible
Subjects : Illegal Aliens and the Making of
Modern
Lucy E. Salyer, “Baptism by Fire:
Race, Military Service, and
Colonialism and Diaspora
25
January Dorothy B.
Fujita-Rony, American Workers,
Colonial Power: Philippine Seattle and the Transpacific West, 1919-1941
(California 2002)
Catherine Ceniza Choy, Empire of Care: Nursing and Migration in Filipino American History (Duke, 2003), pp. 1-57.
1
February
Uma Narayan,
Dislocating
Cultures: Identities, Traditions, and
Complete
and Submit Human Subjects Review Proposal for the Oral
History/Performance Art
Project
Family, Community, and Identity
8
February Lon
Kurashige, Japanese
American Celebration and Conflict: A History of Ethnic Identity and
Festival,
1934-1990 (
Shirley Jennifer Lim,
“Contested
Beauty: Asian American Women’s Cultural
Citizenship during the Early Cold War Era,” in Asian/Pacific
Islander American Women:
A Historical Anthology, edited by Shirley Hune
and Gail Nomura (New York University Press, 2003), pp. 188-204.
10 February
Professor Art Hansen, Lecture on Japanese
American Internment,
11
February Workshop
on Oral History,
15
February Ji- Yeon Yuh, Beyond
the Shadow of Camptown :
Korean Military Brides in
Lily Kim, “Redefining
the Boundaries
of Traditional Gender Roles: Korean
Pictures Brides, Pioneer Korean Immigrant Women, and Their Benevolent
Nationalism in
Christina
Klein, “Family Ties and Political Obligation: The Discourse of Adoption
and the
Cold War Commitment to
17 February
Denise Uyehara,
Performance of “Big Head,” Mount Hall Studio Theatre
18 February
Workshop on Creating Performance Art,
Orientalism
22 February John
Tchen,
Mary Ting Yi Lui, The
24 February Masumi
Hayashi, Lecture and Workshop on Photography and Internment,
1
March
Henry Yu, Thinking Orientals : Migration, Contact, and Exoticism in
Modern
Mary Yoshihara, Embracing the East: White Women
and American Orientalism
(
Medicine and Race
8
March
Nayan Shah,
Contagious
Divides : Epidemics and Race in
Judy Tzu-Chun Wu,.
“’The
Ministering Angel of
10 March Presentation
of oral history/performance art projects,
15
March Anne
Fadiman, The Spirit Catches
You and You Fall
Down: A Hmong
Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1997)
Sucheng
Chan, “Scarred, Yet Undefeated: Hmong and Cambodian
Women and Girls in the
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