Model Minorities? Race, Rhetoric, & Identity in Asian America

Catalog description

"Asian American" is a self-conscious political identity developed by pan-Asian ethnic groups in solidarity with one another in 1968. What does it mean now, 55 years later, to be Asian American? How do Asian Americans fit into the differentially racialized landscape of the U.S., and how, in turn, are Asian American identities and experiences shaped and expressed in culture? How does the political and activist history of Asian America inform social movements today? And how do rhetorical scholars engage Asian American communities, identifying both varied processes of racialization, and patterns of counterdiscourses in which Asian Americans speak against the mainstream images that have circumscribed their subjectivities? This course brings together Asian American studies and Asian American rhetoric with a focus on the study of culture, examining the currents of global and domestic power that have shaped Asian American experience, the movements and communities that have acted in solidarity among and against those forces, and the communicative practices that both shape and are shaped by Asian Americans. By the end of the course, students will be well versed in significant topics and theories in Asian American studies and Asian American rhetoric, and will produce a final paper analyzing a topic, issue, policy, movement, or historical/cultural artifact that speaks to, or illustrates a new nuance about, Asian America. This course is for juniors and seniors. Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or ( 76-107 and 76-106 ) or ( 76-108 and 76-106 ) or ( 76-107 and 76-108 )