Courses / Undergraduate

Spring 2020

  • Reading and Composition

    Instructor: Sonia Cristina Suárez

    Through the study of the literary, political, social and psychological dimensions of representative works of Asian American literature, this course introduces students to close textual analysis, fosters critical judgment, and reinforces academic writing skills. Satisfies the first...

  • Chinese American History

    Instructor: Harvey Dong

    Chinese American history, 1848 to present. Topics include influence of traditional values, Eastern and Western; patterns of immigration and settlement; labor history; the influence of public policy, foreign and domestic, on the Chinese individual and community.   ...

  • Japanese American History

    Instructor: Lisa Hirai Tsuchitani

    This course will be presented as a proseminar with selected topics in order to give students an opportunity to participate in the dynamics of the study of Japanese American history. Topics include immigration, anti-Japanese racism, labor, concentration...

  • Islamophobia and Constructing Otherness

    Instructor: Hatem Bazian

    This course will examine and attempt to understand Islamophobia, as the most recently articulated principle of otherness and its implications domestically and globally. The course will also closely examine the ideological and epistemological frameworks employed in discourses...

  • Topics in Asian Popular Culture – “Understanding Hallyu, Korean Pop Culture and Its’ Consumption”

    Instructor: Hannah Michell

    This course will examine the transnational popularity of Korean pop culture through the lens of globalization and capitalism. Using examples from Korean dramas, K-pop music videos and film, we will examine portrayals of Korean life and discuss...

  • Law in the Asian American Community

    Instructor:

    Course will examine the nature, structure, and operation of selected legal institutions as they affect Asian American communities and will attempt to analyze the roles and effects of law, class, and race in American society. May be...

  • Genre in Asian American Literature

    Instructor: Fae Myenne Ng

    Investigates specific genres in Asian American literature (e.g., autobiography, biography, drama, etc.) in terms of formal characteristics, innovations, comparisons of works from various subgroups in relation to counterparts in dominant Anglo-American tradition.   ...

  • Seminar on Advanced Topics in Asian American Studies – “Public Culture”

    Instructor: Lok Siu

    Public culture is all around us. When we read books or magazines, watch a movie or dance performance, visit a museum or post pictures on fb or Instagram, vote or attend a teach-in on Sproul plaza, or...

  • Seminar on Advanced Topics in Asian American Studies – “Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Community Health: Foundational Theories & Contemporary Issues”

    Instructor: Joe Lee

    This course examines foundational community health theories, contemporary challenges, and culturally responsive approaches in serving Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AA and NHPI) communities. The various themes explored in this course include history’s impact on AA...

  • Introduction to the History of Asians in the United States

    Instructor: Michael Omi

    Introductory comparative analysis of the Asian American experience from 1848 to present. Topics include an analysis of the Asian American perspective; cultural roots; immigration and settlement patterns; labor, legal, political, and social history. ...

  • Contemporary Issues in Asian American Communities

    Instructor: Carolyn Chen

    Asian Americans are the fastest-growing racial group in the United States. Popular American culture likes to portray them as “model minorities” who’ve achieved the American dream. Few think of Asian Americans as having “issues.” But the reality...

  • Freshman/Sophomore Seminar – “Asian American History in American Musicals”

    Instructor: Catherine Ceniza Choy

    This seminar will introduce students to Asian American history through the lens of American movie, theater, and television musicals including but not limited to South Pacific, Allegiance, Flower Drum Song, Miss Saigon, and Glee. Students will learn...

  • Latina/o Philosophy and Religious Thought

    Instructor: Abraham Ramirez

    For the last 30 years, the themes of identity and liberation have dominated the social ethic and religious thought of subaltern subjectivities in the Americas. The centrality of these ideas respond to the increasing awareness of and...

  • Chicana Feminist Writers and Discourse

    Instructor: Laura E. Pérez

    A critical and theoretical analysis of contemporary Chicana Writers and Chicana Feminist Discourse.   ...

  • Chicanos and the Educational System

    Instructor: Dr. Carmen Martinez-Calderon

    An examination of the historical and contemporary relationship between the educational system and the Mexican community in the United States; the history of schooling practices within the Mexican population as a backdrop to an examination of the...

  • Chicanos, Law, and Criminal Justice

    Instructor: Dr. Pablo Gonzalez

    An examination of the development and function of law, the organization and administration of criminal justice, and their effects in the Chicano community; response to these institutions by Chicanos.   ...

  • Chicanos and Health Care

    Instructor:

    Relationship of the health care delivery system in the U.S. to the Chicano community. To include an examination and understanding of the concept of mental health as defined by Chicanos. Analysis of program alternatives and the Chicano...

  • Topics in Chicano Studies – “Chicanos and the Environment”

    Instructor: Dr. Pablo Gonzalez

    The relationship between Chicanos and Latinx communities and the environment is a sacred one.  It means locating not only the ways that these communities have been severed from the land through structures of power like colonialism, racial...

  • Topics in Chicano Studies – “Contemporary Xicanx/Latinx Art Production”

    Instructor: Jesus Barraza, MA / MFA

    This course examines contemporary Xicanx/Latinx artistic production, from early-1980s to the 2010s, through an examination of the historical, aesthetic and philosophical foundations of these artistic movements. Tracing the inspirations of contemporary Xicanx and Latinx art from the...

  • Topics in Chicano Studies – “Art and Social Justice: Politics, Methods, and Practice for Community Based Work”

    Instructor: Jesus Barraza, MA / MFA

    This course will introduce students to specific Chicana/Latina, Native, Asian, and African American art history and cultural practices developed as an essential aesthetic of art made by Artists of Color in the Bay Area. Focus is placed...

  • Introduction to Chicano Culture

    Instructor: Dr. Pablo Gonzalez

    An introduction to the cultural life of Chicanos with its regional differences. Key themes are the symbols and cultural norms created by the historical interaction between Chicanos and American society as expressed in literature, art, music, and...

  • Reading and Composition

    Instructor: Angela R. Aguilar

    This course examines literary works by Chicano/a writers in their political and social contexts. Emphasis is on literary interpretation and sustained analytical writing. The course aims to develop students’ fluency in writing longer and more complex papers...

  • Humanities Methods in Ethnic Studies

    Instructor: Keith P. Feldman

    The course provides an introduction to basic theoretical approaches to the literary and other cultural productions of ethnic or “minority” communities in the United States. It also involves the study of important writings by Latina/o, Native American...

  • Proseminar: Issues in the Fields of Ethnic Studies: Racialization and Contemporary Communities – “Latina/o/x and Community”

    Instructor: Melanie Z. Plasencia

    This course will provide an in-depth examination of geographical, social, cultural, economic, and political developments that have shaped the experiences of Latina/o/x communities in the United States. The course is broken into a series of sections that...

  • Theories and Concepts in Comparative Ethnic Studies An Introduction

    Instructor: Greg Choy

    This explores the work of key theorists of race, ethnicity, and de-colonization whose work and ideas have formed the basis of scholarly work in the broad, interdisciplinary field of comparative ethnic studies. It is intended both to...

  • Ethnicity and Race in Contemporary American Films

    Instructor: Ray Telles

    The depiction of race and ethnic relations in American films from the 1960s to the present. The course covers independent features as well as mainstream Hollywood studio films.   ...

  • Existential Panic in American Ethnic Literature

    Instructor: Greg Choy

    This course comprises extensive analyses of the ways in which American ethnic writers engage ontologies of self in characters who attempt to move beyond and out of the existential panic of being seen before they are seen....

  • Against the Grain: Ethnic American Art and Artists

    Instructor: Greg Choy

    Comparative survey of art and other cultural production from a cross-section of selected American ethnic groups (in general, Asian American, Chicano, African American, and Native American). We approach works from various critical/theoretical perspectives, often constructing them as...

  • Selected Topics in Comparative Ethnic Studies – “Indigenous Issues Across the Americas”

    Instructor: Enrique Lima

    This course addresses how Indigenous communities throughout the Americas deal with their contemporary political dilemmas. It explores the ways in which internal colonialism, projects of assimilation, political and economic marginalization, land loss, and resistance have affected how...

  • Selected Topics in Comparative Ethnic Studies – “Before Trump, There was California’s Prop 13: On the Origins & Effects of the 1994 Anti-Immigration Measure”

    Instructor: Christian Paiz

    This two-unit seminar will introduce students to California’s Proposition 13, which mandated in 1994 the deportation of undocumented immigrants, prohibited social services (e.g. health care and education) to undocumented communities and required public workers to report people...

  • Prison

    Instructor: Keith P. Feldman, Tina Sacks, Jonathan Simon, Nikki Jones

    Taking a broad interdisciplinary approach, this course embraces the longue duree of critical prison studies, questioning the shadows of normality that cloak mass incarceration both across the globe and, more particularly, in the contemporary United States. This...

  • Advanced Seminar in Comparative Ethnic Studies—“Displaying Race, Displaying Culture: Exhibitions, Film, Photography”

    Instructor: Shari Huhndorf

    What is race, and what is culture?  How and why have these ideas been represented visually? What roles have such visual images played in colonialism, slavery, patriarchy, and other social hierarchies, and how have people of color...

  • Advanced Seminar in Comparative Ethnic Studies—“The New Second Generation”

    Instructor: Carolyn Chen

    Since the liberalization of immigration policy in 1965, immigrants and their children have become a significant part of American society. In some major American cities, they comprise over 50% of the population. This course offers a social...

  • A Comparative Survey of Racial and Ethnic Groups in the U.S.

    Instructor: Victoria Robinson

    This survey course will examine the historical experiences of European immigrants, African Americans, and Latinos, emphasizing the themes of migration and economic change since the late 19th century. Though the class will focus on the three groups...

  • Indigenous Peoples in Global Inequality

    Instructor: Thomas Biolsi

    This course examines the history of indigenous, aboriginal, native, or “tribal” peoples over the last five centuries. Particular attention is paid to how these groups were brought into relations with an expanding Europe, capitalist development, and modern...

  • Indigenous Issues Across the Americas

    Instructor: Enrique Lima

    This course addresses how Indigenous communities throughout the Americas deal with their contemporary political dilemmas. It explores the ways in which internal colonialism, projects of assimilation, political and economic marginalization, land loss, and resistance have affected how...

  • Theories and Methods in Native American Studies

    Instructor:

    Overview of literary theory and criticism, historiography, and social sciences theories and methods useful in the study of Native American literature, history and contemporary tribal groups. Course will develop skills of information gathering and development of theories...

  • Gender in Native American Society

    Instructor:

    This course examines gender roles from the period before the invasion to the present. An emphasis will be placed on the ways in which contact with European gender practices transformed those prevalent in Native North American before...

  • Native American Philosophy

    Instructor:

    A study of the philosophical and metaphysical aspects of Native American world views, with emphasis on systems of knowledge, explanations of natural phenomena, and relations of human beings to nature through ritual and ceremonial observances. ...

  • Native Americans and the Cinema

    Instructor: Enrique Lima

    This course will analyze the sociological, psychological, and literary aspects of Hollywood moviemakers’ stereotyping of the American Indian through the history of film. The format will include representative Indian films, lectures, and guest speakers from the movie...

  • Introduction to Native American Studies II: Cultural Practice, Art, and Identity

    Instructor: Shari Huhndorf

    This course explores Native American identify practices in written and oral traditions in literature, art, dance, theatre, ceremony, and song. The place of these traditions in the contemporary day will be emphasized as creative struggles for maintaining...

  • Native Americans in North America 1900-Present

    Instructor: Enrique Lima

    A survey and analysis of issues affecting Native Americans in the 20th and 21st centuries. Course will explore political, economic, and social/cultural developments as they shape federal-Indian relations and tribal sovereignty. ...

  • Indigenous Peoples in Global Inequality

    Instructor: Thomas Biolsi

    This course examines the history of indigenous, aboriginal, native, or “tribal” peoples over the last five centuries. Particular attention is paid to how these groups were brought into relations with an expanding Europe, capitalist development, and modern...

  • Native American Studies Reading and Composition

    Instructor: Maximilien Zahnd

    Course examines Native American written and oral traditions in historical and cultural contexts. Emphasis on literary interpretation and creative and analytical writing, so that students increasingly write from positions of strength. Satisfies the second half of the...