ASAM2110 - Yellow Peril, Red Scare: Cold War Asia in America

Status
A
Activity
SEM
Section number integer
401
Title (text only)
Yellow Peril, Red Scare: Cold War Asia in America
Term
2025A
Subject area
ASAM
Section number only
401
Section ID
ASAM2110401
Course number integer
2110
Meeting times
W 1:45 PM-4:44 PM
Meeting location
MCNB 395
Level
undergraduate
Instructors
Mark Tseng-Putterman
Description
This course explores how the Cold War in Asia has shaped dominant ideas about race, militarism, and citizenship, with particular consequences for both Asians and Asian Americans. As decolonization movements in Asia confronted a growing US empire, Cold War paranoia became linked to longstanding tropes of Asian invasion—merging the so-called “Yellow Peril” and “Red Scare” in the American imagination. Taking a cultural history approach, students will draw on both archival sources and popular media to examine the Cold War emergence of lingering tropes such as the communist spy, the war bride, the peasant insurgent, and the model minority. Topics covered include the Korean and Vietnam Wars, McCarthyism, the Third World movement, Asian/American military service, Cold War refugee policy, anti-imperialist activism, and the legacy of Cold War geopolitics in Asia today.
Course number only
2110
Cross listings
HIST1120401
Use local description
No