Courses / Undergraduate

Spring 2020

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

    ASAMST 190 001 | CCN: 18524

    Lok Siu

    TH 2:00 - 4:59pm 200 Wheeler

    4 Units

    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 when we are simply debating the merits of a Netflix series or eating in a restaurant, we are engaging with public culture. This seminar examines both choreographed and everyday forms of public culture to explore the cultural politics of remembrance, refusal, recuperation, and transformation. It explores a wide range of public culture as potential sites for invoking and engendering new assemblages of cultural meaning that calls in question our inherited ways of knowing and inspires new understandings of ourselves and the world we inhabit. The course requires active participation, and  students will have an opportunity to visit cultural sites, participate in events, and interpret performances, rituals, and narratives.