MA Transnational Asian American Studies
跨國亞美研究
Time: Thursday 1:40pm-4:30pm
Location: LA102
Dr. Donna Tong
Email: 080695@mail.fju.edu.tw
Office: SF225
Office Hours: Wednesday 1-5pm
Course Description
From its inception, Asian American Studies has sought to differentiate itself from Asian
Studies. However, in recent years, the debates in Asian American Studies have slowly begun
to cultivate a transnational perspective. In what ways does this focus on transnationalism
itself transform the founding premises and concepts of Asian American Studies, or does it? Is
there a way to think of Asian American Studies as transnational? Or does this perspective
contradict the inherent boundedness of the discipline to a specific, geographical region and
thus a specific, particular culture and history? This course will explore potential answers to
this ambiguity between the historical impetus to differentiate Asian American Studies from
Asian Studies and the recent return to consideration of how globalization and
transnationalism may in/form Asian American Studies.
Required Texts
Goto, Hiromi. Hopeful Monsters.
Keller, Nora Okja. Comfort Woman.
Lahiri, Jhumpa. The Interpreter of Maladies.
Loh, Vyvyane. Breaking the Tongue.
Returning a Borrowed Tongue: An Anthology of Filipino and Filipino American Poetry. Ed.
Nick Carbó. Minneapolis: Coffee House Press, 1995.
Asian Diasporas: New Formations, New Conceptions. Ed. Rhacel Parrenas and Lok Siu.
Chuh, Kandice. Imagine Otherwise: On Asian Americanist Critique.
Dorow, Sara K. Transnational Adoption: A Cultural Economy of Race, Gender, and Kinship.
Course Requirements
Attendance and Participation 40%
Response Papers
10%
Presentations
Research Paper
30%
20%
Deadlines & Late Paper Policy
Unless deadlines are changed verbally in class or over email, the due dates for homework and
writing assignments are as indicated in the Schedule below.
Late papers will be deducted 5 POINTS FOR EACH DAY past the due date. Papers
submitted after class on the due date are also deducted 5 POINTS for lateness.
Conduct, Plagiarism, Cheating
Attendance is MANDATORY. Excused absences are accepted for medical or family
emergency with appropriate documentation. Three tardies equal one absence. Tardiness past
20 minutes after class has begun is counted as one absence. Three absences will lead to zero
percentage points for attendance and participation.
Please notify the instructor if you are unable to attend a class meeting for extenuating
circumstances; arrangements may be made to make up a missed class meeting prior to an
absence with notification and appropriate justification.
Any act of plagiarism or cheating will lead to failing the course.
Schedule
Date
2/17
Topic
Introduction
2/24
Singapore: Sook Ching, Language
Policy, & Other Matters of Ethnicity
Reading Assignment
Loh’s Breaking the Tongue (21247)
Loh’s Breaking the Tongue (251489)
3/3
The Body in Pain
Asian Diasporas (1-28, 105-140)
3/10
Theorizing Diaspora
Goto’s Hopeful Monsters
3/17
Talk with Author Hiromi Goto
3/24
Transnationalism & CommunityFormation
Lahiri’s Interpreter (“When Mr.
Pirzada Came to Dine”,
“Interpreter of Maladies”, “A
Real Durwan”, “Mrs. Sen’s”)
Asian Diasporas (141-160, 161176)
3/31
More on Theorizing Diaspora
4/7
CLASS CANCELLED
4/14
-E x t e n d e d C l a s s Transnationalism, Diaspora, &
Ethnicity
Asian Diasporas (85-104, 177-200,
253-278)
4/21
Transnational Asian American Studies?
Keller’s Comfort Woman (1-97)
4/28
-S e m i n a r P a p e r T o p i c s Government-Sponsored, Gendered
Violence
Keller’s Comfort Woman (99-213)
5/5
Sexualized Violence, Violent Sexuality
Chuh’s Imagine Otherwise (1-57)
5/12
Imagining Otherwise
5/19
Asian American Studies Beyond the
U.S.?
Chuh’s Imagine Otherwise (58111)
Chuh’s Imagine Otherwise (112151)
Lahiri’s Interpreter (“A Temporary
Matter”, “This Blessed House”,
“The Treatment of Bibi Haldar”,
“The Third and Final
Continent”)
5/26
Dis/Owning America?
Due: Proposals for Research Papers
Dorow’s Adoption (1-64)
6/2
Transnational Adoption
6/9
Economies of Bodies
Dorow’s Adoption (113-151, 163262)
Dorow’s Adoption (263-282)
Asian Diasporas (279-290)
6/16
Final Comments
-R e s e a r c h P a p e r s P r e s e n t a t i o n Due: Research Papers