Topics in East Asian Culture: Food and Culture of the Chinese Diaspora

Catalog description

This is a topics course. Course contents vary. Current topic description: By taking part in this course, students will apply tools of cultural analysis to the topic of food in global East Asia. Course readings and screenings are thematically grouped, and are drawn from a wide range of cultural studies disciplines. Our primary sources are literature and film from East Asia and the diaspora, with a primary emphasis on Chinese and diasporic Chinese cultural products. We will observe food practices in the cuisine's home country, and the necessary adaptations that are made by the diaspora community abroad. This is a reading and work intensive course. Students are expected to read approximately 500 pages a week, to participate in discussion leading (posting discussion questions on the weekend prior to class) and to review the past week's activities. You will also participate in a number of individual and collaborative projects throughout the semester, which requires at least one trip into Philadelphia's Chinatown, and one Sunday cooking project. The course also requires enough scheduling flexibility to allow for cooperative work with classmates outside of class time (anticipate an additional 30 hours of praxis and project work this semester, apart from regular homework/reading). No background in East Asian languages and cultures is required. However, a background in writing-intensive coursework and in conducting research (both academic and ethnographic) is essential to your success in the class. Knowledge of a Chinese topolect (Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien/Minnan) and/or Spanish will be helpful, though not required.