Courses for Spring 2023

Title Instructors Location Time Description Cross listings Fulfills Registration notes Syllabus Syllabus URL
ASAM 0115-401 American Race: A Philadelphia Story (SNF Paideia Program Course) Fernando Chang-Muy
Fariha Khan 		FAGN 216 M 12:00 PM-2:59 PM This course proposes an examination of race with a two-pronged approach: one that broadly links the study of race in the United States with a multi-disciplinary approach and also simultaneously situates specific conversations within the immediate location of Philadelphia, home to the University. The broad historical examination advances key concepts of race and racialization, explores key theoretical methodologies, and highlights major scholarly works. For example, students will engage with the study of race through Africana Studies, Asian American Studies, Urban Studies and through Latin American & Latinx Studies. Readings and methodologies will introduce students to critical issues in education, in literature, in sociology, and with methods in oral history, archival work, and ethnography. Most importantly, this extensive approach highlights the impact of race across multiple communities including Black Americans, immigrant populations, and communities that are marginalized to emphasize connections, relationships, and shared solidarity. Students are intellectually pushed to see the linkages and the impacts of racism across and among all Americans historically and presently. As each theme is introduced a direct example from Philadelphia will be discussed. The combination of the national discourse on race, with an intimate perspective from the City of Philadelphia, engages students both intellectually and civically. The course will be led by Fariha Khan but guest instructors with varied disciplinary backgrounds and guest speakers from local community organizations. Each instructor not only brings specific disciplinary expertise, but also varied community engagement experience. AFRC1115401, LALS0115401, SAST1115401, URBS1150401 Cultural Diviserity in the U.S. https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=ASAM0115401
ASAM 1211-401 Narrating Survival (SNF Paideia Program Course) Sarah Ropp CANCELED This course critically examines the way in which "survival" has been/continues to be defined as individual triumph in the 20th and 21st century. The intent here is to dig deeper into current buzzwords like "resilience," "wellness," "grit," and "care" to ask how such concepts have been constructed in different socio-historical moments, by and for whom, and towards what (social, cultural, political, economic) ends. We will pay special attention to the central role that the child plays in these discourses as an icon of both ultimate vulnerability and idealized resilience, and we'll consider the burdens and privileges that such centering might confer upon real-life children. We engage with a generically diverse body of contemporary multiethnic and transnational literature featuring children and young people in crisis, including texts from Black, Latine, Native, Asian and White U.S. writers as well as Dutch, Argentine, Iranian, Malaysian, and Afghan authors. All non-English texts will be read in English translation, with the option for students to read in the original language if they wish and are able. Learning to dialogue across cultures and learning from such interactions with these texts and one other will be an essential part of our approach to exploring these complex questions. COML2192401, ENGL2192401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=ASAM1211401
ASAM 1400-401 Asian American Gender and Sexualities Rupa Pillai PSYL A30 TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM This course explores the intersection of gender, sexuality, and race in Asian America. Through interdisciplinary and cultural texts, students will consider how Asian American gender and sexualities are constructed in relation to racism while learning theories on and methods to study gender, sex, and race. We will discuss masculinities, femininities, race-conscious feminisms, LGBTQ+ identities, interracial and intraracial relationships, and kinship structures. GSWS1400401, SAST1400401 Cultural Diviserity in the U.S.
ASAM 1520-001 Asian American Activism Robert V Buscher WILL 29 M 5:15 PM-8:14 PM Providing a broad introduction to the history of activism in the United States, this course Cultural Diviserity in the U.S. https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=ASAM1520001
ASAM 1610-301 Sonic Reverberations of Asia America Stephanie George BENN 201 W 12:00 PM-2:59 PM This is a course about music as sonic cultural practices of intercultural communication and as lived experience in which racial, ethnic, diasporic, religious, gendered, sexual, national identities are formed and transformed. This course specifically examines how various ideas and meanings of Asia America are enacted and embodied through music performances and other sonic practices. The course also considers how the production and consumption of Asian American as cultural difference through music and sound impacts the making and unmaking of multiculturalism and the American self. Topics will include questions about how music and sound is mobilized within the history and stories of Asian immigration and migration to the U.S.; the impact of the transnational circulation of Asian and Asian American music; representations of AAPs in popular culture; the potentials and limits of music to mitigate social and political problems encountered by Asian American communities; and community building through sonic encounters of Afro-Asian, Asian-Latinx and Caribbean, East Asian/South Asian American solidarities. Critical and reflexive theoretical approaches from ethnomusicology, anthropology, and performance studies, among other related disciplines, will be used to examine a range of styles and genres through close listening to assigned sound recordings and music ethnographies. No previous musical training is required for this course.
ASAM 2100-401 Wartime Internment of Japanese-Americans Eiichiro Azuma WILL 202 T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM This research seminar will consist of a review of representative studies on the Japanese American internment, and a discussion of how social scientists and historians have attempted to explain its complex backgrounds and causes. Through the careful reading of academic works, primary source materials, and visualized narratives (film productions), students will learn the basic historiography of internment studies, research methodologies, and the politics of interpretation pertaining to this particular historical subject. Students will also examine how Japanese Americans and others have attempted to reclaim a history of the wartime internment from the realm of “detached” academia in the interest of their lives in the “real” world, and for a goal of “social justice” in general. The class will critically probe the political use of history and memories of selected pasts in both Asian American community and contemporary American society through the controversial issue of the Japanese American internment. HIST3150401 Cultural Diviserity in the U.S.
ASAM 2200-401 Race and Asian American Literature Josephine N Park BENN 222 MW 10:15 AM-11:44 AM This course is an advanced-level seminar on Asian American culture and politics. See the English Department's website at www.english.upenn.edu for a description of the current offerings. ENGL2270401 Cultural Diviserity in the U.S.
ASAM 2610-401 The Asian Caribbean Rupa Pillai FAGN 214 TR 3:30 PM-4:59 PM Although Asians have lived in the Americas for centuries, the Asian American community and experience tends to be defined by the post-1965 wave of immigration to the United States. In an effort to correct this narrative this course will explore the histories, experiences, and contributions of some of the forgotten Asians of the Americas. In particular, we will focus on the earlier labor migrations of Chinese and South Asian individuals to the Caribbean and the United States. The experiences of these individuals, who built railroads, cut sugarcane, and replaced African slave labor, complicate our understandings of race today. By examining the legal and social debates surrounding their labor in the 19th century and exploring how their experiences are forgotten and their descendants are rendered invisible today, we will complicate what is Asian America and consider how this history shapes immigration policies today. GSWS2610401, LALS2601401, SAST2610401 Cultural Diviserity in the U.S.
ASAM 3100-401 American Expansion in the Pacific Eiichiro Azuma TOWN 315 MW 3:30 PM-4:59 PM This course examines America's expansion into the Pacific with a focus on the colonization of Hawai'i and the Philippines. The class deals with various issues, including the meaning of "frontier," imperialism, development of capitalist economies and trade relations in the region, diplomacy and militarism, migration and racism, and colonial histories of the US West, the Pacific Islands, and East Asia. HIST1785401
ASAM 3211-401 Modern Chinese Poetry in a Global Context Chloe Estep DRLB 2C8 M 12:00 PM-2:59 PM The The tumultuous political and economic history of modern China has been mirrored in and shaped by equally fundamental revolutions in language and poetic expression. In this course, we will take Chinese poetry as a crucible in which we can observe the interacting forces of literary history and social change. From diplomats who saw poetry as a medium for cultural translation between China and the world, to revolutionaries who enlisted poetry in the project of social transformation, we will examine the lives and works of some of China’s most prominent poets and ask, what can we learn about modern China from reading their poetry? In asking this question, we will also reckon with the strengths and limitations of using poetry as an historical source. In addition to poems, the course will include fiction, essays, photographs, and films by both Chinese and non-Chinese artists that place our poets in a broader context. We will pay close attention to how these poets represent China’s place in the world, as well as the role of language in social change. Topics of discussion include: national identity, revolution, translation, gender, the body, ethnicity, and technology. Familiarity with Chinese or related cultural context is beneficial, but not required. This course introduces students to Chinese poetry in English translation. Students will leave the course with an in-depth understanding of the main figures, themes, and techniques of Chinese poetry, and will be introduced to some of the major developments in the history of China. Through a focus on primary texts, students will develop the vocabulary and analytical skills to appreciate and analyze poetry in translation and will gain confidence as writers thinking about literary texts. COML3211401, COML7211401, EALC3211401, EALC7211401 Cross Cultural Analysis https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=ASAM3211401