CAST 100
Introduction to Comparative American Studies
Spring 2005
Professor Gina M. Pérez
MWF 10–10:50
Office: King 141D, x58982
Office Hours: MWF 11-12
Email: gina.perez@oberlin.edu
This introductory course provides an overview of key questions, concepts and
methodological approaches to the interdisciplinary field of Comparative American
Studies. The principal goal of this course is to develop critical tools for understanding
U.S. racial, social and cultural formations in historical context and to locate them within a
global and transnational perspective. To this end, I have selected readings from
anthropology, history, sociology, cultural studies, and literature in order to demonstrate
how different methodologies further our understanding of social groups, politics, culture
and power. This comparative approach is a guiding principal for both this class as well as
other courses in the Comparative American Studies major
The course is divided into 4 parts, with each section representing principal questions and
concerns guiding this course. Part I is designed to introduce key concepts and themes in
American Studies as well as to locate “America” and “Americanness” in a global and
transnational context. Part II examines issues of poverty, race, and various academic and
political understandings of poverty in the United States from the 1960s to the present.
Transnationalism and shifting notions of home and “homeplace” constitute the main
theoretical and conceptual issues of Part III. And the final section of the course explores
critical issues of the social activism, engagement, and the relationship between
scholarship and social change.
Required Texts
Álvarez, Julia. 1992 (reprint edition). How the Garcia girls lost their accents. New York:
Plume.
Briggs, Laura. 2002. Reproducing empire: Race, sex science and U.S. imperialism in Puerto
Rico. University of California Press.
Hays, Sharon. 2003. Flat broke with children: Women in the age of welfare reform. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Hopper, Kim. 2003. Reckoning with homelessness. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Yen, Espiritu. 2003. Home bound: Filipino American lives across cultures,
communities, and countries. Berkeley: University of California Press.
All textbooks can be purchased at the college bookstore. Additional articles are available on
reserve at Mudd Library and through ERES (Mudd Library’s Electronic Reserve system).
REQUIREMENTS
Participation and attendance
1 Group Project
Four 1-3 page response papers
Three 5 page essays
15%
20%
20%
45%
I. Class Attendance and Participation
Your attendance and informed participation in class are absolutely required and will be
considered in determining your final grade. While there will be some time dedicated to lecture,
class will primarily involve the discussion of reading materials and other relevant issues. I am
aware that the material in this course may easily lend itself to a discussion of one’s opinions
and/or experiences. Certainly those kinds of discussions and debates are encouraged when
appropriate. Your participation in class, however, must be informed primarily by the week’s
readings so that you can discuss, debate, question, and argue respectfully and intelligently about
issues raised in the reading assignments.
If you anticipate missing class, please inform me by email of your absence prior to class. Two
unexcused absences will reduce your grade by 1/3 (from an A to an A-, for example). If you are
arrive to class once discussion has begun, you will be considered absent.
II. Group Project
In Part II of the course, each of you will work in groups of 3 or 4 to prepare and give a 15 minute
presentation on some aspect of social activism related to President Johnson’s War on Poverty
beginning in 1964. You are encouraged to bring in photographs, segments of a film, a news
report, speeches, poetry or legal documents that explore different ways in which activists
organized, defined and approached the problem of U.S. poverty in the 1960s. Each group will be
required to meet with me prior to their presentation. Each project will receive a grade for the oral
presentation (10%) as well as for a written or text-based final report (10%).
III. Written Assignments
This course requires a number of written assignments designed to develop critical reading,
writing and analytical skills. Papers will be evaluated according to the following criteria: critical
analysis and understanding of texts; clarity of thought; the ability to synthesize texts and
materials presented and discussed in class; and theoretical grounding of your arguments. All
papers should be typed and remain within the page limits specified for each assignment.
SUMMARY OF KEY COURSE DEADLINES
Friday February 11th Response Paper #1
Friday February 25th Essay #1
Friday March 4th Response Paper #2
Wednesday April 27th2 critical media reviews due
Wednesday May 11th 1 critical media review due
LATE WORK: All assignments must be completed on time. Papers not turned in at the
beginning of class on the specified date will be considered late and will be penalized 1/3 grade
for each day it is overdue. Late papers will not receive written comments.
CR/NE: If you are taking this class CR/NE, you must fulfill all course obligations to receive
credit.
ACADEMIC INCOMPLETES at the end of the semester will not be given except case of an
emergency.
HONOR CODE: The policies described in the Oberlin College Honor Code apply to this class.
Written work must include proper citations and must be the product of your own work. You are
also required to include the following statement on all written assignments: "I affirm that I have
adhered to the Honor Code in this assignment." If you have any questions about how to properly
cite sources or about the Honor Code, please feel free to approach me. For more information on
the Honor Code, see http://www.oberlin.edu/students/student_pages/honor_code.html
STUDENTS NEEDING EXTRA ASSISTANCE: Please speak with me if you need disabilityrelated accommodations in this course. Student Academic Services is also an important resource
for students needing academic assistance. Please contact Jane Boomer, Coordinator of Services
for Students with Disabilities, Peters G27, extension 58467.
CLASS SCHEDULE
Part I: Locating America and Rethinking “Americanness”
Week 1: Introduction to key themes, ideas, and concepts in American Studies
February 7: Introduction to class and to week’s readings
February 9:
Lipsitz, “In the midnight hour” (BB); Takaki, “Multiculturalism: Battleground or
meeting ground?” (BB).
February 11: López, “Agency and constraint” (BB)
Response Paper #1 Due. Use the concepts agency and constraint to frame and describe an issue
other than sterilization. Define the concepts in your own words and then choose a
medical procedure, college requirement, work situation, political or cultural practice, or
something else that the two concepts help you understand. 1-2 pages.
Weeks 2 and 3: Race, Sexuality, and American Imperial Power
February 14 Mitchell, “The black man’s burden” (BB)
February 16
Briggs, Reproducing empire,
February 18
Briggs, Reproducing empire
February 21
Briggs, Reproducing empire
February 23
Briggs, Reproducing empire
February 25
Film: Couple in the cage
Essay #1 DUE: 5 pages Topic to be announced
Part II: The “Other” America
Week 4: From Culture of Poverty to Underclass
March 28
Katz, “The urban ‘underclass’ as a metaphor of social transformation:
(BB)
March 2
President Johnson’s War on Poverty speech
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1964johnson-warpoverty.html
http://128.83.78.10/johnson/archives.hom/speeches.hom/640108.asp
March 4
Mullings, “Households headed by women” (BB); Kwong, “Poverty
despite family ties” (BB)
Response Paper #2 Due: Public discourse about poverty often links family and
household structure to economic success or failure. Briefly discuss how
underclass theory and culture of poverty approaches explain the relationship
between family and poverty. Then choose either the study by Mullings or Kwong:
How does the author analyze the role of families and households in their
ethnographic study of poverty? 2-3 pages
Week 5, 6 and 7: Ending welfare as we know it: Structure, agency, and poverty
March 7
Hays, Flat broke with children, pp. 1–61
March 9
Flat broke with children, pp. 62–120
March 11
Flat broke with children, 121–177
March 14
Flat broke with children, pp. 178–240. One Group Presentation
March 16
Williams, “What’s debt got to do with it?” (BB) One Group Presentation
March 18
Group Presentations
March 21
Group Presentations
March 23
Film: Fight in the Fields
March 25
Film Continued. Group Project Due.
March 26-April 3 Spring Break
III. Homeplace and Transnational Belonging
Week 9: Politics of home
April 4
Allison, “A question of class” (BB); Grinde, “Place and kinship” (BB)
April 6
Sánchez, “Where is home?” (BB); Brooks, “In the twilight zone between
black and white” (BB)
Response Paper #3: Allison, Grinde, Sánchez and Brooks all discuss some aspect of
how identity—sexuality, race, class, ethnicity—shape understandings and
experiences of home and place. Choose at least 2 readings to reflect on how
identity shapes experiences of home, including your own experiences and
understandings of home and place. 2-3 pages.
April 8
No Class
Weeks 10 and 11: Transnational perspectives on Home
April 11
Home bound, chapters 1–3
April 13
Home bound, chapters 4––6
April 15
Home bound, chapters 7–9
April 18
Álvarez, How the García Girls lost their accents, Part I, pp. 3–103
April 20
How the García Girls, Part II, pp. 107–191
April 22
How the García Girls, Part II, pp. 195–290.
Essay #2 Due: Both Espiritu and Álvarez are concerned with how ideas of home, family,
as well as cultural, racial, and national identities are forged and transformed in a
transnational context. Choose one of the texts and analyze the author’s
understanding of transnationalism, and how she represents the ways in which
individuals construct, deploy and reproduce racial, gendered, and sexual identities
in a transnational cultural space. Be sure to include an analysis of the political
economic contexts in which these identities are produced. 5 pages.
Part IV: Social Justice, Engagement and Activist Research
Week 12: Challenges in Activism and Coalition Building
April 25
Salokar, “Beyond gay rights litigation” (BB)
April 27
J. M. Rodríguez, “Activism and identity in the ruins of representation” (BB)
Response Paper #4 Due: Salokar and Rodríguez both explore the role of identity politics
in advancing social change. Critically assess their arguments about the
effectiveness of the particular kind of social activism they discuss in their work
and identify some of the challenges of coalition building in activist work.
April 29
Hopper, Reckoning with homelessness, pp. 1–53
May 2
Reckoning with homelessness, pp. 57–116
May 4
Reckoning with homelessness, pp. 117–171
May 6
Reckoning with homelessness, pp. 175–218
May 9
Yoon Louie, “Listening to the women” (BB); “Holding up the sky” (BB);
“La mujer luchando” (BB).
May 11
Film: Who Owns the Past?
May 13
Final Thoughts
Essay #3. Final Project Due During Finals Week. Topic and Date to be announced.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Allison, Dorothy. A question of class. In Talking about sex, class and literature. Ithaca,
NY: Firebrand Books, 13–36.
Brooks, Charlotte. 2000. In the Twilight Zone between black and white: Japanese
American resettlement and community in Chicago, 1942–1945. Journal of
American History 86(4):1655-1687.
Goode, Judith. 2001. Let’s get our act together: How racial discourses disrupt
neighborhood activism. In The new poverty studies: The ethnography of power,
politics, and impoverished people in the United States, Judith Goode and Jeff
Maskovsky, eds. New York: New York University Press, 364–398.
Grinde, Daniel Andrew. 1994. Place and kinship: A Native American’s identity before
and after words. In Names we call home: Autobiography on racial identity,
Becky Thompson and Sangeeta Tyagi, eds. New York: Routledge, 63–72.
Katz, Michael. 1993. The urban “underclass” as a metaphor of social transformation. In
The “underclass” debates: Views from history. Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 3–23.
Kwong, Peter. 2001. Poverty despite family ties. In The new poverty studies: The
ethnography of power, politics, and impoverished people in the United States,
Judith Goode and Jeff Maskovsky, eds. New York: New York University Press,
57–78.
Lipsitz, George. 2001. In the midnight hour. In American Studies in time of danger.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 3–30.
López, Iris. 1997. Agency and constraint: Sterilization and reproductive freedom
among Puerto Rican women in New York City. In Situated lives: Gender and
culture in everyday life, Louise Lamphere, Helena Ragoné, and Patricia Zavella,
eds. New York: Routledge, 157–191.
Louie, Miriam Ching Yoon. 2002. Sweatshop warriors: Immigrant women workers take
on the global factory. Cambridge: South End Press.
Mitchell, Michele. 1999. "The Black Man's Burden": African Americans, Imperialism,
and Notions of Racial Manhood 1890-1910. In Complicating Categories:
Gender, class, race and ethnicity. Eileen Boris and Angelique Janssens, eds.
New York: Cambridge University Press, 77-99.
Mullings, Leith. 2001. Households headed by women: The politics of class, race and
gender. In The new poverty studies: The ethnography of power, politics, and
impoverished people in the United States, Judith Goode and Jeff Maskovsky, eds.
New York: New York University Press, 37–56.
Rodríguez, Juana Maria. 2003. Queer Latinidad: Identity practices , discursive spaces. New
York: New York University Press.
Salokar, Rebecca Mae. 2001. Beyond gay rights litigation: Using a systemic strategy to
effect social change in the United States. In Sexual identities, queer politics,
Mark Blasius, ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 256–285.
Sánchez, George. 1993. Where is home? The dilemma of repatriation. In Becoming
Mexican American: Ethnicity, culture and identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900–
1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 209–226.
Takaki, Ronald. 1993. Multiculturalism: Battleground or Meeting Ground? The annals
of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 530: 109–121.
Williams, Brett. 2001. What’s debt got to do with it? In The new poverty studies: The
ethnography of power, politics, and impoverished people in the United States,
Judith Goode and Jeff Maskovsky, eds. New York: New York University Press,
79–102.