Fall 2022 Courses

AMST 130 SC. Cold War Taiwanese/America.
W. Cheng, SC, T 2:45-5:30 p.m.
This course examines Taiwanese/American history, identity, politics, and culture with a particular focus on global Cold War politics and the historical relationship between Taiwan and the United States. Through film, literature, popular culture, primary historical texts, and interdisciplinary scholarship, students will use the focus on Taiwan and the United States to develop a broad understanding of issues including student migration, cultural identity, diasporic activism, imperialism and colonialism, and people and places caught in the crosshairs of global hegemony.

ASAM 056 PZ. Intro to Comparative Ethnic Studies.
S. Patel, PZ, WF 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
This course is a study in locating the differential and intersectional formations of power in society and the world. We will explore how race, gender, sexuality, class, religion, and nationality organize our political, economic, and social structures. In doing so, we will trace how these structures have subjected Black, Brown, Latinx, Indigenous, and Asian American communities to varying scales of violence, from enslavement to labor exploitation, land dispossession, and imperial war. While the course focuses on the ways in which power has historically and contemporarily manifested in communities of color, we will also study how these communities resist, if not imagine, alternative ways of being and knowing.

ASAM 082. Racial Politics of Teaching.
K. Yep & C. Fought, PZ, W 2:45-5:30 p.m.
This class examines how race and ethnicity are constructed in schooling from sociological, linguistic, and ethnic studies standpoints. Specifically, we will discuss how race and ethnicity are constructed in schooling and ways teachers/educators may refine their pedagogies in relation to race and ethnicity. Students will do a research project.

ASAM 088. Thich Nhat Hanh: Interdependence, Ecology, and Healing.
K. Yep, PZ, T 2:45-5:30 p.m.
This course is an introduction to the relationship among Thich Nhat Hanh’s Engaged Buddhism, ecology, and society. In doing so, it provides Thich Nhat Hanh’s perspective on ecological and social thought and an ecological and social perspective on healing from environmental factors in Asian and Asian diasporic communities. We will explore how Asian and Asian diasporic Buddhists view nature and the environment to address healing in the context of historical trauma such as the war. Through critical pedagogies and community engagement project with a partner in Vietnam and in California, we will explore the meaning and value of this way of viewing and interacting with the natural world to create healing from ecological social determinants of health. This class counts toward the Intercultural Studies, Social Responsibility Praxis, and Asian American Studies – Communities requirements. This course is a discussion class and your preparation for class discussion is critical to its success.

ASAM 125. Introduction to Asian American History, 1850-Present.
A. Flores, HM, TR 9:35-10:50 a.m.
This survey course examines the history of Asian immigrant groups and their American-born descendants as they have settled and adjusted to life in the United States since 1850.  We will explore issues such as the experience of immigration, daily life in urban ethnic enclaves, and racist campaigns against Asian immigrants.  In addition, this course utilizes an ethnic studies framework that requires students to critically explore other themes such as class, community, empire, gender, labor, race, sexuality, settler colonialism, and war from the perspective of Asian Americans.

ASAM 126. Introduction to Pacific Islander History.
A. Flores, HM, TR 1:15-2:30 p.m.
Survey course introduces students to the native/indigenous histories of Oceania with an emphasis on Aotearoa (New Zealand), Guåhan (Guam), Hawai‘i, the Marshall Islands, S?moa, and Tonga. These places will expose students to the global and local histories of colonialism, climate change, diaspora, empire, indigenous land and ocean stewardship, migration, militarization, nuclear testing, and tourism. In addition, this course critically explores other related themes other related themes such as class, environmentalism, gender, labor, race, sexuality, and war from the perspectives of Native Pacific Islanders. Class discussions, lectures, film screenings, and readings constitute the interpretative lens for this course.

ASAM 155. U.S. Imperial Culture.
S. Patel, PZ, T 2:45-5:30 p.m.
In this course, we will explore the multiple ways U.S. imperialism and culture intersect with and inform each other, and how they are part of larger transnational and global genealogies of racial capitalism, white supremacist patriarchies, and heteronormativities. Over the course of the semester, we will critically examine how these systems have historically and contemporarily shaped U.S. empire.

ASAM 190A. Asian American Studies Senior Seminar: Applications, Analysis, and Future Directions.
S. Goto, PO, TR 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
This is the capstone seminar for senior Asian American Studies majors (minors optional). The seminar is designed to bring seniors together to discuss and assess their understanding of Asian American Studies practice and theory at the Claremont Colleges and beyond. We will engage in minor research activities, read & analyze provocative books and articles, and revisit key issues & controversies.

FGSS 188E. The Queer Transpacific: Sinophone Cultures and Race/Ethnicity in Asian America.
J. Cheng, SC, T 2:45-5:30 p.m.
This course draws together emergent scholarship in transpacific studies and sinophone studies with Asian American studies and queer studies. It attends to how the hemispheric Americas and Asia Pacific regions have been shaped by the United States and China, respectively and concomitantly. We trace overlapping histories of U.S.-European interventions into Asia Pacific, Pacific militarizations, Chinese empire, and modern Chinese nation-state building led by Han ethnonationalisms. Focusing on transpacific crossings and the production of “sinophone cultures” in history, popular culture, science, and tourism, this course applies queer analyses to investigate how the U.S. and China produce one another as analogous “others.”

PSYC 155. Seminar in Ethnic Minority Psychology and Mental Health.
W. Hwang, CMC, MW 2:45-4:00 p.m.
This course examines the roles and influences of ethnicity, race, and culture on psychology and mental health.  Students will learn about intergroup dynamics, racism and White privilege, ethnic identity development, acculturation and immigration, ethnic differences in the expression of distress, differential patterns and barriers to help-seeking, mental health disparities, and ethnocultural issues that influence treatment processes.

SOC 073. Asians in America: Model Minority and Perpetual Foreigner.
A. Junisbai, PZ, M 2:45-5:30 p.m.
What is the contemporary Asian American experience? How does Asian America look when we take into account differences in ethnicity, class, gender, and generation? This course offers a sociological examination of what it means to be Asian American today. Topics include immigration, assimilation, demographic trends, ethnic identity, discrimination, socioeconomic mobility, gender, and relationships with other groups. By exploring the structures that shape Asian American experiences and Asian American challenges to those forces, the course encourages students to consider their own role in transforming US society.

SOC 150AA. Contemporary Asian American Issues.
H. Thai, PO, M 1:15-4:00 p.m.
Survey of contemporary empirical studies focusing on Asian American experiences in the U.S. and globally; major themes include race, class, gender, sexuality, marriage/family, education, consumption, childhoods, aging, demography, and the rise of transmigration. Readings and other course materials will primarily focus on the period since 1965.