ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES
(AS) {ASAM}  

001. (SOCI103) Asian Americans in Contemporary Society. (C) Distribution Course in Society. Class of 2009 & prior only. Kao.

This course presents an overview of sociological research on Asian Americans in the U.S., framed around the evaluation of Asian Americans as "model minorities." We begin with a brief overview of popular images of Asian Americans as seen through recent portrayals in mainstream media (movies, television).  We review general sociological frameworks used to understand racial and ethnic groups in the U.S. and move quickly to document the history of Asian immigration to the U.S.  We explore how Asian Americans fare in educational attainment, labor market experiences, political organizations, urban experience, and Asian interracial marriage and biracials.  We examine whether and how "Asian American" is a meaningful label.

002. (ENGL072) Introduction to Asian American Literature. (C) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Park.

This course will explore the varieties of Asian American Experience by considering the literary forms they take.  Our readings will range from poems carved into the walls of a detention center at the beginning of the century to experiments in literary form in the eighties and nineties.  The course will consider literary representations of a broad range of Asian American experience: tales of migratory labor, Chinatown stories, the extraordinary case of Japanese internment, panethnic activist literature, and the different accounts that emerge when Asian America expands beyond East Asia to include South and Southeast Asian American experience.  In each instance, we will read these forms within their historical moments, ultimately asking how these formal expressions map onto the conditions of Asian America.

003. (HIST155) Introduction to Asian American History. (C) History & Tradition Sector. All classes. Azuma.

This course provides an introduction to the history of Asian/Pacific Americans, focusing on the wide diversity of migrant experiences, as well as the continuing legacies of racism on American-born APA's.  Issues of class and gender as well as the impact of international politics on APA lives will also be examined.

L/R 006. (AFRC006, SOCI006, URBS214) Race and Ethnic Relations. (C) May be counted as a General Requirement Course in Society. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff.

This course is cross-listed with SOCI 006 when the subject matter is related to Asian Americans.

SM 012. (SAST052) Indians Overseas: A Global View. (B) Gambhir S. Freshman seminar.

This course is about the history of Indian immigration into different parts of the world.  The course will consist of readings, discussions, observations, data collection and analysis.  The topics will include cultural preservation and cultural change through generations, especially in North America, the Caribbean, the United Kingdom, and the African continent.  The course will encourage organized thinking, observations and analysis of components of culture that immigrant communities are able to preserve in the long run and cultural components that undergo change or get reinterpreted.  In this context, we will look at entities such as religion, food, language, and family.  The course will include immigrants' success stories, their contributions, thier relationship with others groups in the new society and the nature and extent of their links with India.  The course will also address conflict with other sections of the host society, including discrimination against and victimization of immigrants.  Other issues will include new social and cultural concerns of immigrants and the rise of new community organizations such as temples and cultural organizations to address those issues.  The course will benefit from the study of other immigrant communities around the world.

SM 013. (HIST104) Freshman Seminar in Asian American History. (C) Azuma.

This reading seminar will focus on how different groups of Asians interacted with each other in the context of early twentieth-century American society, especially in Hawaii and California.  Such issues as ethnicity, complexity of race relations (as opposed to conventional black-white binarism), and the intricate entanglements of class and race will also be examined.

SM 110. When Student Activism Meets Academia: Asian Americans in Higher Education. (C) May be counted as a General Requirement Course in Society. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff.

From cultural fashion shows to protests; what does it mean to be a student activist in the new millennium?  Are Penn students apathetic or has the definition of activism shifted over time?  Through this course, students will unpack many of the controversies regarding the discourse on "multiculturalism" and "diversity" in higher education.  We will examine a number of problems and questions regarding the status of Asian Americans in higher education. Students will explore the social phenomena that have impacted Asian Americans in higher education.  In examining these phenomena, we will concentrate particularly on student experiences, curricula, campus climates, administrative practices, and educational policies.

SM 202. (CINE272, COML248, ENGL272) Topics in Asian American Literature. (C) Park.

Topics vary.

SM 203. (HIST223) Topics in Asian American History. (C) Distribution Course in Hist & Tradition. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff.

This seminar examines the 100-year history of the Korean experience in the United States from the beginning of the 20th century to the present.  Topics include: immigration patterns, adjustment to the new society, exclusion, racism, relations with other groups, economic activities, the 1.5 and second generation, religion, and social issues, among others.  Equal attention is given to the pre-1965 and post-1965 periods.

        We will pay particular attention to major economic, social and political events in American history, such as the immigration reform laws, the Great Depression, World War II, the civil rights movement, and the Vietnam War,which shaped the demographic changes as well as socio-economic conditions.

SM 205. (URBS207) Asian American Community Fieldwork. (C) Distribution Course in Society. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff.

Through classroom discussions, writing assignments, and a semester-long group project aimed at creating change in the community, students will build skills and competencies in preparation for outreach to the Asian American community. Students will participate in service-learning projects that promote community leadership development and community education.

SM 209. (SAST290) South Asians in the United States. (B) Distribution Course in Society. Class of 2009 & prior only. Khan.

This course investigates the everyday practices and customs of South Asians in America.  Every immigrant group has its own history, customs, beliefs and values, making each unique while simultaneously a part of the "melting pot" or salad bowl" of American society.  Yet how do people define themselves and their ethnicities living in a diasporic context?  By taking into account the burgeoning South Asian American population as our model, this course will explore the basic themes surrounding the lives that immigrants are living in America, and more specifically the identity which the second generation, born and/or raised in American, is developing.  South Asians in the U.S. will be divided thematically covering the topics of ethnicity, marriage, gender, religion, and pop culture.  Reading and assignments will discuss a variety of issues and viewpoints that are a part of the fabric of South Asia, but will focus on the interpretation of such expressive culture in the United States.

212. (SAST212) Race and Ethnicity in American Film and Literature. (C) Staff.

This class explores representations of race and ethnic identity in American literature and film from the 1920's to the present.  Examining the relations between fiction and cinema, we will attempt to trace common strands of theme and imagery across the cultural productions of African Americans, Latina/os, and Asian Americans, and discuss questions of identity politics and minority cultural nationalism, class, gender, and sexuality, the status of the documentary, cultural appropriation, and the relationship of art to history and tradition.

227. (HIST374) Japanese American History. (C) Distribution Course in Hist & Tradition. Class of 2009 & prior only. Azuma.

An overview of Japanese American experiences in Hawaii and the continental Unite States from the mid-1880s to the present.  This lecture/discussion coursewill examine not only the issues of racism, economic oppression, Orientalism, and sexism, but it will also attempt to understand the history of an American minority in a transnational context.

SM 262. Topics in Modernism. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Park.

This course is crosslisted with ENGL 210 and when the topic is "Modernism and the Orient," the following description applies.

        Ezra Pound insisted that "a few hours' work" on the Chinese ideogram "goes further to jog a man out of fixations than a month's work on a great Greek author." In this course, we will consider modernism's drive both to unfix and to fix by looking closely at the place of the Orient in this literature.  We will see how and when this reference elsewhere steps in: in a call to artistic renewal, during a crisis of authority, or, most importantly, in order to elaborate the artist's position vis-a-vis home.  The readings are divided between those artists who use the east in a nativist vein and those who espouse internationalism.  We will read, among others: Williams and Sandburg in America, Pound and Stein abroad, and the curious case of Amy Lowell.

SM 270. Asian Americans in the U.S.  Economy. (A) Distribution Course in Society. Class of 2009 & prior only. Gangulee.

This course examines the growing presence and participation of Asian Americans in the U.S. economy, emphasizing the sectors of high technology, health and medical services, education, law, literature and the arts, inner city communities, and social welfare.  Technology transfer and patterns of capital movement will also receive consideration.

354. (HIST354) American Expansion in the Pacific: Race, Immigration, and Citizenship in the 'Frontier.'. (C) Distribution Course in Hist & Tradition. Class of 2009 & prior only. Azuma.

This course will delve into the continuing process of westward American expansion into the Pacific after the 1890s.  Such questions as immigration, race relations, and diplomacy will be discussed in the class.  Students who are interested in U.S.-Asia relations, Asian immigration, and histories of Hawaii and the Philippines as part of the American Empire are especially encouraged to take this course.

499. Independent Study. (C)

Topics selected by student-teacher conferences.

SM 590. (SOCI596) Sociology of Education. (M) Kao.

This graduate seminar will introduce students to key theoretical and empirical work in the sociology of education.  We will focus specifically on the question of stratification and how systems of schooling maintain or alleviate inequality.  We will also examine classical approaches to schooling, schools as organizations, schools and their effects on social mobility, (class, race, and gender) stratification in achievement and attainment, tracking/ability grouping, theories and empirical work on social and cultural capital, school choice, and cross-national expansion of education.