Asian American Text + Image

Asian American Text + Image
Desire, Power, Flight: Intimacies of the Political
Body in Asian American Text + Image

The title of this course borrows from Asian
American filmmaker, writer, and theorist, Trinh T.
Minh-ha, and her text, Woman Native Other: "Touch
me, and let me touch you, for the private is
political." By examining literature, media, and
art, we will explore the extent of Minh-ha's
declaration-what can we learn about history,
politics, and culture from the intimacies and
desires in Asian American art, and conversely,
what can we learn about the self and embodiment by
examining sociopolitical contexts and communal
acts of resistance against power? What metaphors
can we make from definitions of flight, which can
connote movement across borders or oceans,
metamorphosis, transition, escape, freedom,
reclamation, transience, or transference? How does
this all apply to topics from immigration
exclusion acts to the Model Minority Myth,
internment to exoticism, intergenerational
conflict to subaltern subversion?
Asian America and work produced by Asian
Americans-whether in the disciplines of
literature, film, TV, art, political history, or
sociology-offer a unique point of departure to
study critical race theory, postcolonial theory,
gender and queer theory, immigration, class and
labor movements, and intersectional feminism.
Asian American studies-as broad and diverse as the
racial group it describes-provides a framework
through which we may connect history, culture,
private and political life, and structures of
inequality.
How do politicized subjects construct and express
their desires, resist power, and transcend
geographic, ideological, and psychological
borders? We will traverse scholarly and
sociological texts as we bolster our critical
analysis of literature (fiction, nonfiction,
poetry, graphic novel, science fiction) and media
(film, television, Internet art). In this
interdisciplinary course, we will examine the body
as a site of politics, intimacies, desires,
transformation, survival, and resistance.
Students should expect to spend approx. $50 on
required books.