NEW AASP COURSES FOR SPRING 2010!

All AASP courses meet the Pluralism & Diversity Group B Graduation Requirement!

For additional AASP courses, please refer to the Online Schedule of Classes

ASIAN 330.52 Oral History, Cultural Identity & the Arts / cross-listed with MEDIA 399.21) Meets P&D Group B & GER 3/A

Oral History is a complex process in the creation of artistic projects across the disciplines: documentary film, theatre, book arts, exhibitions, web art, public radio, etc. This course offers training in interviewing and editing techniques, and looks at the impact of "truth-telling" on the people we interview, their families and friends, ourselves and the culture at large. Research explores the balance in accurately reflecting the realities and integrity of the people represented while staying true to the vision of the artist/creator and addresses some of the following questions: Who has a right to a story? How do we represent people with different experiences than our own? What are the nuances in understanding needed for representing people in our own culture and identity or those from a different cultural or class background? Readings include (but are not limited to): Greg Halpern's Harvard Works Because We Do; Art Spiegelman's Maus I & II; Ira Berlin, et.al (eds) Remembering Slavery; Warren Lehrer and Judith Sloan's Crossing the BLVD; Jim Fricke and Charlie Ahearn's Oral History of Hip-Hop's First Decade Yes Yes Y'all; as well as works by Studs Terkel, Anna Deveare-Smith, and articles and theory on oral history as a field of study. Guest lectures by filmmakers, book artists, theatre artists as well as viewing of films and listening to public radio projects will be included in the weekly class sessions. For final projects students create collaborative or solo work in the discipline of their own training; theatre, artist books, photography, poetry, music, radio, audio art, film or video. Instructor: Judith Sloan

ASIAN 390.18: Asian American Poetics / cross-listed with ENGL 399.92

This course examines and participates in the practice and project of Asian American poetics, with particular emphasis on the following questions: How can we better understand what it means to read poetry, and then Asian American poetry in particular? What is the history of Asian American poetics, and how have those two labels, Asian American and poetics, been challenged by Asian American cultural producers and critics? How might topics embedded in Asian American Studies migration, exclusion, diasporic identity, transnationalism, acculturation, resistance, linguistic isolation, influence and potentially problematize our readings of work by Asian American poets? Students will become familiar with historical and conceptual trajectories of Asian American poetics; in addition, they will study and apply a selection of relevant literary theories and practices which are specific to the analysis of poetry and poetics. Assignments will include journal responses, one critical essay, as well as a creative final project to be developed by the student. No prior experience reading or writing poetry is necessary for this course. Readings will include texts by Sui Sin Far, Staceyann Chin, Lawson Inada, Marilyn Chin, Linh Dinh, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, R. Zamora Linmark, John Yau, Amitava Kumar, Myung Mi Kim, Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, Kimiko Hahn, Li-Young Lee, Prageeta Sharma, and many others. Required textbook: Premonitions: The Kaya Anthology of New Asian North American Poetry. Instructor: Jennifer Hayashida

ASIAN 390.06: Gender & Sexuality in Asian American Literature & Film / cross-listed with WGS 300.36

This interdisciplinary course investigates how gender and sexuality operate within Asian/Pacific/American representational practices. In particular, we will be focusing on literature and film as a key site to explore the representation of Asian bodies as gendered and sexual formations, and in turn, consider how these cultural forms portray Asian American racial formations as intertextual productions that rely on popular culture, theory, history, memory, art and a host of other references and ideas to register meaning.

Key question that we will be examining in the class are: How are constructions of masculinity and femininity inherent to Asian/Pacific American narratives? How are Asian femininity, masculinity, and sexuality at odds with normality constructions of gender and sexuality? How do Asian American sexual and gender formations critique and challenge nation-based formations of identity and politics? What kinds of political alternatives do they propose?

In addition, the course goals are to teach students to: ask questions, bolster their skills in textual analysis, practice reading theory, and engage in "Asian Americanist critique" as a critical framework that challenges regimes of power and inequality that attempt to discipline and regulate "how we should be." This class will be styled as a graduate school seminar, and the bulk of the grade will focus on student participation in discussing and engaging course materials. Assignments include: presentations on readings and six short papers. Required books include (but are not limited to): Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior, Jessica Hagedorn's Dream Jungle, Frank Chin's The Chickencoop Chinaman. Instructor: Sonjia Hyon

ASIAN 330.08: Muslim Diasporas / cross-listed with ENGL 317.55

Muslim Disaporas is an interdisciplinary course moving through the history of Islam and its expressions in many areas of the world (including Sufism), to the cultural identity, art, and literature of the Muslim Diaspora in the United States, their mis-portrayal in the media, and fetishization by popular culture.
Curriculum includes studying works of literature, comedy, theater, film/TV, music and art. Requirements include a class project (group presentation) outlining the timeline of world areas with Muslim populations throughout history, short reports on field trips, midterm paper and final revision. First book for class: Excerpts from the Koran. Instructor: Niloufar Talebi

ASIAN 390.02: Asian American Civil Rights & the Law / cross-listed with POLSC 317.01

This course will explore civil rights jurisprudence through an analysis of the historical and contemporary experiences of Asian Americans. Major topics include:

the differential treatment of Asian Americans as “perpetual foreigners” and as a “model minority” group; the interplay of race, national origin, and immigration law; discrimination based on citizenship and immigration status' the Japanese American internment and contemporary issues of national security; legal responses to questions of language and cultural difference; problems of racial identity and intraracial diversity and interracial dy­namics; inter­sectional discrimination involving race and sexuality; Asian American political participation and access to democracy.

The course focuses on Asian Americans, but several themes in the course are applicable to other racial and ethnic groups, such as Latinos and Arab Americans, as well as to emerging problems of racial dis­crimination involving immigration, citizenship, national security, and language. The readings will draw on case law, historical materials, legal scholarship, social science re­search, and advocacy documents. Instructor: Glenn Magpantay

ABOUT THE ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES PROGRAM

The Asian American Studies Program (AASP) at Hunter College of the City University of New York provides students with a multidisciplinary education in Asian diasporas with a focus on the United States and New York City. Our faculty and students are particularly interested in Asian American community organizing; urban affairs and Asian American immigrant communities in NYC; Asian American performance; Asian American labor and gender; Asian American sociolinguistics; and Asian American poetics and memoir.

The program offers a range of courses to the entire Hunter community, a minor in Asian American Studies, and extra-curricular programs and events. The program contributes to the growing scholarship in the vital field of Asian American Studies and serves as a resource for New York City’s Asian American communities and community-based organizations.