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Lisa Lowe USA401H1S / COL2100H1 9-‐24 October, 2012 IN209 4:00-‐6:30 PM
Asian diasporas: migration, memory, imagination "Diaspora" provides a suggestive concept for the study of modern world histories of displacement and connection of peoples originating from a single region or location, like Asia, permitting analyses that highlight global processes usually left out of nation-‐based histories. “Diaspora” contains the contradictions of the impulse toward cultural unity, on the one hand, and the ruptures of separation and dislocation, on the other hand. From the Greek word meaning the sowing of seeds, diaspora had been primarily used to convey the integrity and homogeneity of the Jewish Diaspora, dispersed yet unified by religion, text, and culture; more recently, it has been expanded to refer the projects of remaking the sociality of various peoples who were at one time unified, and then forcibly displaced. The study of “African diaspora” powerfully conceptualizes the global history of people of African descent living outside of the continent of Africa; it is both a unifying term enabling scholars to discuss centuries of African-‐descendant communities dispersed across national boundaries, as well as a way to discuss the recuperation of histories of captivity, enslavement, and forced labor in the aftermath of the Atlantic slave trade. Scholars employ “Asian diaspora” to refer to the global migrations of peoples from various East, South, and Southeast Asian national origins. In this seminar, we will test the critical capacity of the concept of “Asian diaspora,” employing it to study both the displacements and connections of Asian peoples within a range of modern processes of dislocation, i.e., through colonialism, imperial trade, war, or labor immigration. In the first week, we will consider the concept of “Asian diaspora” for the study of the nineteenth-‐century emigrations of Chinese and Indian workers that were so central to the emergence of the world system and expansion of the modern global economy; trades brought Asian workers to French and Dutch colonies in the Indian Ocean, Spanish Cuba and Peru, the British West Indies, Hawaii, and the United States and Canada. In these contexts, Asian workers were often part of multi-‐group workforces that included African slaves and other forms of coerced or unfree labor. We will also explore “Asian diaspora,” in the second week, to examine the explosion of migration and immigration from Asia to North America in the second half of the twentieth century, in relation to U.S. wars in Asia and the Pacific, particularly, in Korea and Vietnam. “Asian diaspora” may be a means to articulate the collective memory and retrieval of histories occluded by official nationalisms, whether of origin, or of the new nation in which the diaspora settles. Following captivity, war, colonialism, or persecution, “diaspora” may be a medium of collective unity through which the “trauma” of dispersal can be made legible, in which a collective reckoning, mourning, or reconstruction may be attempted. Yet if the concept stresses only collective cultural identifications, “diaspora” may itself obscure some of the political economic logics of colonial or imperial states that led to displacement or exploitation.
To counter this, in the third week, we will consider the possibility of rearticulating diaspora as a critique of national essentialism, or as means of forging new political imaginations of collaborative struggle across differences. This cultural studies seminar emphasizes interdisciplinary approaches – drawing from history, literature and anthropology – to assess the concept of Asian diaspora in a global framework.
Course Requirements The seminar will be concentrated in eleven class meetings over three weeks, October 9-‐24, and will include the following course requirements: Reading Responses: Students are asked to post short responses to the reading on the Blackboard website discussion board. These responses should be around 200 words each and should reflect critically on the assigned readings. The course requires that you post on the assigned readings for six of the eleven classes; e.g., one possible schedule would be that you write two posts each week during the three week course. Please observe the following suggested posting schedule, designed to keep you on top of the reading and enable timely feedback: post two responses for the first week of assigned readings before October 8th; post additional responses for week 2 assigned readings before Tuesday, October 16th; and post responses for week 3 assigned readings no later than Tuesday, October 23rd. You are encouraged to engage with one another in your responses. Weight: 30%
Collaborative presentations: Students will take part in paired or small group collaborations, one for each week’s unit, ultimately sharing their perspectives with the class in a 20-‐minute presentation. Students will work outside class to discuss and identify the stakes, methods, and objectives of the assigned materials, and each week, student groups will lead and involve the class in a discussion of the interventions the works are making; e.g., What concept of “diaspora” does the reading uphold? Into what debates are the pieces intervening, how and why, and for what ends? Which disciplinary or theoretical concepts are being criticized, and which employed? Groups are welcome to bring in additional materials, if relevant. Weight: 30%
Final Paper: The final paper is to be 12-‐15 pages, and engaged with the course material. Further instructions will be available in class. Due Wednesday December 5th. Weight: 40%
Articles and documents will be posted and available on course website: Walton Look Lai, “Asian Contract and Free Migrations to the Americas,” in Coerced and Free Migration, ed. D. Eltis (Stanford, 2002), pp. 228-‐258. Stuart Hall, "Cultural Identity and Diaspora," in Colonial Discourse and Postcolonial Theory, eds. P. Morley and L. Chrisman (Columbia, 1994), pp. 393-‐403 Brent Edwards, “The Uses of Diaspora” Social Text 66, 19.1 (2011): 45-‐73. Lisa Lowe, “The Intimacies of Four Continents” Haunted by Empire, ed. A. L. Stoler (Duke UP, 2006), pp. 191-‐212. Great Britain Colonial Office Correspondence (selections) Moon-‐Ho Jung, “Outlawing ‘Coolies’: Race, Nation, and Empire in the Age of
Emancipation,” American Quarterly 57:3 (Sept 2005): 677-‐701 Madhavi Kale, Chapters 1-‐2, from Fragments of Empire: Capital, Slavery, and Indian Indentured Labor in the British Caribbean (U Pennsylvania, 1998), pp. 12-‐65 Lisa Yun, “An Afro-‐Chinese Caribbean: Cultural Cartographies of Contrariness in Antonio Chuffat Latour, Margaret Cezair-‐Thompson, and Patricia Powell,” Caribbean Quarterly 50, No. 2 (Summer 2004): 26-‐43. W. W. Rostow, An American Policy in Asia (MIT and Wiley, 1955), pp. 1-‐7 Henry R. Luce, “An American Century,” [orig. pub. 1941] reprinted in American Legacy, ed. M. Hogan (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 11-‐29 T. Fujitani, Geoffrey White, Lisa Yoneyama, eds., Introduction, Perilous Memories: The Asia-‐Pacific War(s) (Duke, 2001), pp. 1-‐29 Jodi Kim, Introduction, Chapter 1, Ends of Empire: Asian American Critique and the Cold War (U Minnesota, 2010), pp. 1-‐62 Yen Le Espiritu, "We-‐Win-‐Even-‐When-‐We-‐Lose Syndrome: U.S. Press Coverage of the 25th Anniversary of the 'Fall of Saigon,'" American Quarterly 58:2
(June 2006): 329-‐352 U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (McCarran-‐Walter Act) U.K. Commonwealth Immigration Act of 1962 Lisa Lowe, Chapter 1, Immigrant Acts (Duke, 1996), pp. 1-‐36 A. Sivanandan, A Different Hunger: Writings on Black Resistance (Pluto, 1982), pp. 5-‐54 Gayatri Gopinath, “Archive, Affect, and the Everyday,” in Political Emotions: New Agendas for Communication, eds. J. Staiger et al. (Routledge, 2010) Books available for purchase at the University of Toronto Bookstore: Lok Siu and R. Parreñas, eds. Asian Diasporas: New Formations, New Conceptions (Stanford, 2007) Patricia Powell, The Pagoda (Harcourt, 1998) Chang-‐Rae Lee, A Gesture Life (Riverhead, 2000) Lê Thi Diem Thuy, The Gangster We Are All Looking For (Anchor, 2004) Shyam Selvadurai, ed., Story-‐Wallah: Short Fiction from South Asian Writers (Houghton Mifflin, 2004) Michael Ondaatje, Anil’s Ghost (Vintage, 2000)
Schedule of assigned readings and discussions Week 1 diaspora and the intimacies of four continents Tu Oct 9 W. Look-‐Lai, “Asian Contract”; L. Lowe, “Intimacies”;
B. Edwards, “Uses of Diaspora”; S. Hall, “Cultural Identity” W Oct 10 M. Kale, Chapters 1-‐2, from Fragments of Empire
M.-‐H. Jung, “Outlawing” Selected colonial office documents
Th Oct 11 P. Powell, The Pagoda; L. Yun, “An Afro-‐Chinese Caribbean”
First group presentation Week 2 diaspora and the aftermaths of war Tu Oct 16 W. W. Rostow, from An American Policy; H. Luce, “American Century”;
T. Fujitani, G. White, L. Yoneyama, Introduction to Perilous; L. Siu and R. Parreñas, Introduction to Asian Diasporas;
W Oct 17 J. Kim, Introduction, Ch. 1, from Ends C.R. Lee, A Gesture Life
Th Oct 18 Y. L. Espiritu, “We Win”; lê, Gangster We Are All Looking For
Second group presentation Week 3 diaspora, memory, transformation Tu Oct 23 U.S. McCarran-‐Walter Act of 1952;
U.K. Commonwealth Immigration Act of 1962; A. Sivanandan, from Distant; G. Gopinath, “Archive, Affect, Everyday”; L. Lowe, Ch. 1, Immigrant Acts; Selections from Story-‐Wallah
W Oct 24 M. Ondaatje, Anil’s Ghost Third group presentation Th Oct 25 class cancelled