Syllabus
Asian American Studies 118: Asian Americans in Popular Culture
MWF 10:00-10:50 North Hall 1109
Instructor: Susie Keller
E-mail: skeller@ihc.ucsb.edu
Office: HSSB 5048
Office Hours: MWF 11 – 12 noon and by appointment
Overview: What is popular culture? Who makes it, who controls it, and what relationship does it have to mass culture? How are Asian Americans represented in popular culture, and how do they transform popular culture to create a local culture of their own? How do traditions from various Asian homelands blend, or clash, with mainstream American behaviors and the machinery of capitalism? In this course we will look at the ways specific Asian American groups and communities resist, adapt, and negotiate existing structures of society and give them significance. We will focus particularly on how Asian Americans manipulate their local environment and the ways they fashion themselves through clothing, adornment, and body modification. Students will gain a familiarity with some key terms of cultural studies (such as subcultures, the everyday, detournment, consumption, articulation) and explore the relationship of Asian American groups to each other and the mass media. This course will also investigate issues of gendered and sexualized racial representation and the complexities of Asian American transnationalism/diaspora/globalization.
Required Texts:
- Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology, ed. Jeff Yang, Parry Shen, Keith Chow, and Jerry Ma
- Fox Girl, Nora Okja Keller
- Asian American Youth: Culture, Identity and Ethnicity, ed. Jennifer Lee and Min Zhou
- Course Reader available at Grafikart, 6550 Pardall Rd.
Course Requirements:
Attendance: Attendance is mandatory. More than 3 absences during the quarter will result in a substantially lower grade. In the case of an absence, you are responsible for the material. Tardiness is also unacceptable. Repeated tardies will be counted as an absence.
Participation: Participating — that is, talking, asking questions and volunteering opinions about the texts — is an important part of your final grade (10%). I reserve the right to implement reading quizzes if it appears you are not coming to class prepared. You should join in discussions even if you are worried about saying “the right thing” or if you find the reading confusing. Questions are always OK! Everyone’s ideas and opinions are important here. On a related note, please be respectful of fellow students, their opinions, and the instructor during discussion.
In-Class Assignments: There will be a number of in-class writing assignments and group activities in this class, and sometimes students will be asked to bring a short assignment or response to that day’s reading to class. There may also be reading quizzes if necessary. These small assignments are 5% of the course grade.
Papers: In addition to completing two shorter exploratory papers, students will choose one aspect of popular culture and create a research project on it. Instructions for all writing assignments will be covered in more detail later in the quarter when paper prompts are handed out. Your papers must conform to MLA guidelines: typed, double-spaced, one-inch margins, 12-point font (no huge or unreadable font styles), stapled, no cover page, and have a works cited page (also called a bibliography). Be sure to look at the MLA style guide and follow the format closely. There are two 3-page exploratory papers and a 7-8 page research paper in this class. An annotated bibliography and abstract for the research paper will also be assigned as part of the research paper grade. The shorter papers will be due at the end of lecture and the research paper due in my mailbox by 5 p.m. on March 18th. No late assignments will be accepted.
In your papers, what I value most is a clear, well-supported, strong argument. These papers should be examples of your best work. Because writing is a process that goes through many stages, the papers that have been thought out and revised tend to be stronger (and get better grades) than something tossed off the night before. I encourage you to use the writing resources available to you at CLAS. Also if you need any help or have any questions at any stage of the writing process, feel free to see me. (Please note two things: I don’t want to read entire drafts over email, and I don’t want to see papers needing major help moments before they are due.)
The Writing Process: To promote the concept of writing as a thought process that requires development over time, mini-assignments corresponding to the various stages of developing a paper will be assigned. We will go over what these assignments should look like later in the course. These assignments are a percentage of your paper’s final grade. Turn in each of these mini-assignments at the end of lecture on the day they are due.
2/26 — A 1-page proposal explaining your preliminary ideas about what your research topic is and what you will argue about it.
3/5 — An annotated bibliography.
3/18 — Turn in finished research paper.
I understand that research problems or other stumbling blocks might lead you to change the direction of your ongoing project, sometimes drastically. If this should happen, just be sure to contact me about the problem and the new direction or topic your paper will be taking. I may have you resubmit some assignments or send me an email documenting the change.
The Research Process: It is not physically possible to do a research paper the night before. In fact, a large quantity of the research has to be done before you can formulate an argument and begin writing about it. This means you need to start thinking about a topic right away and get into the library as soon as possible (look ahead in the syllabus to see if there is anything near the end of the course you are interested in researching). Start looking through your books, notes and reader for topics that may interest you, that you want to know more about, or that you disagree with. Remember that the process of finding anything in our library is often more time-consuming and frustrating than you expect it to be, so budget plenty of time.
Plagiarism: Under no circumstances should you pass off the writing or ideas of another as your own. Plagiarism may lead to a failing grade for the paper and the course, as well as probation and even expulsion from the university. Students who are later found to have plagiarized can be prosecuted after the quarter ends, including after graduation, with serious consequences. An act of plagiarism ranges anywhere from the passing off of an entire essay as your own work to the use of a single idea or phrase of another without giving proper credit. The recycling of your own essays written for another course will similarly not be tolerated. If you are unclear about what constitutes plagiarism, see me during office hours.
Grade Breakdown: Your final grade will be calculated as follows: paper 1, 20%; paper 2, 20%; research paper (including proposal and annotated bibliography) 45%; class participation, 10%, in-class assignments 5%. You must complete all the assignments to pass the course.
Reading Schedule
Week 1: What is popular culture?
1/4 Introduction
1/6 “Introduction: Subculture and Style,” “Ch 1 From Culture to Hegemony”
“The Critic: Cultural Studies and Adorno’s Ghost,” “The End of Mass Culture”
1/8 from Asian American Youth, (AAY) Introduction, Ch. 2
from Yell-Oh Girls! “Introduction”
Week 2: Spaces and Places, I: Tactics and Resistance
1/11 from The Practice of Everyday Life: “General Introduction,” “Making Do: Uses and Tactics,” “Walking in the City,” “Preface to First Edition/Second Edition”
1/13 “Filipinotown and the DJ Scene” in AAY
1/15 “Game of Death and Hip-Hop Aesthetics,” “Desis in the Hood”
Week 3: Spaces and Places, II: Mobile Subcultures
1/18 HOLIDAY
1/20 “No Lattés Here” in AAY
1/22 “Reinventing the Wheel” in AAY
Week 4: Cyberspace
1/25 Before class take the time to explore the following web sites, including their explanations of why they write: http://www.angryasianman.com/angry.html; http://www.giantrobot.com/; http://chasingchan.blogspot.com/
1/27 “Cyberrace,” “Fame or Shame in Asian America 2.0”, “Gwenihana”
1/29 “Big Bad Chinese Mama: Asian Cyber-Feminism and Subversive Textual Strategies,” PAPER # 1 DUE
Week 5: Representation and Invisibility
2/1 selections from Secret Identities
2/3 Secret Identities continued
2/5 Secret Identities continued
Week 6: Fashion and Beauty Queens
2/8 “Flava in Ya Gear” ; “Introduction” “Fashion-Nation”
2/10 “Rizal Day Queen Contests” in AAY
all selections from Crowning the Nice Girl: Gender, Ethnicity, and Culture in Hawai’i’s Cherry Blossom Festival
2/12 “Making a Better Me? Pure. White. Flawless.”
Week 7: Body Modification and Fashion
2/15 HOLIDAY
2/17 all selections from A Cultural History of the Modern Tattoo Community
2/19 all selections from Permanence: Tattoo Portraits, on electronic reserve
PAPER # 2 DUE
Week 8: Masculinity
2/22 “Chinese American Masculinities: From Fu Manchu to Bruce Lee”
2/24 film, Ping Pong Playa
2/26 Ping Pong Playa continued
PROPOSAL DUE
Week 9: Consumption
3/1 “Hell’s a Poppin’ ” in AAY
3/3 “Instant Karma” in AAY, “Indo-Chic: Late Capitalist Orientalism and Imperial Culture,” on electronic reserve
3/5 “Metaconsumptive Practices and the Circulation of Objectifications”
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY DUE
Week 10: Bringing it all Together
3/8 Fox Girl
3/10 Fox Girl continued
3/12 Fox Girl continued
3/18 Thursday, FINAL PROJECT DUE in my mailbox by 5 p.m.
