Politics - Winter 1998

Instructor: Michael Cowan
Office: Oakes 322 (x. 4455)
Office hours: tba
Section leaders: tba

Lectures and films: MWF 9:30-10:40pm, Oakes 105

Discussion Sections: sign-ups for sections will take place in class on Friday, September 27.

This course is an introduction to American Studies as a field of inquiry. It is not intended to be a comprehensive survey of U.S. history and society. Rather, by means of a range of limited case studies, it will try to suggest some ways in which we might think about the complexities of life in this nation and some of the ways in which an examination of those complexities may help us think about what it has meant, now means, and should ideally mean to be citizens of the United States.

On one hand, we will consider what it means to be in a nation cross-cut by extensive social and cultural differences, conflicts, and inequalities, and we will pay particular attention to ways in which such differences revolve around such axes as class, gender, race, and ethnicity. On the other hand, we will consider what it means for the many social and cultural groups that occupy the United States to have to negotiate their differences through the legal/political apparatus, social and economic institutions, technological processes, and mass communication channels that in varying ways affect them all as members of this particular nation. Listening to a diverse group of voices, as they are articulated in autobiographies, fiction, speeches, legal documents, films, and other modes of expression from the eighteeth century to the present, we will examine some of the terms on which different people have themselves thought about their relationship to "America" and to other "Americans," and about their struggles to achieve citizenship and individual and collective fulfillment on their own terms. And we will consider the varied as well as common responses of Americans from different backgrounds to such widely articulated but often ambiguous "national" values as "freedom," "equality," "community," "justice," "progress," "happiness," and "democracy." In the process, we will engage in a continuing dialogue throughout the course about questions of national identity and the dynamics through which our own identities and those of the varied groups within our society have emerged and continue to change.

It is critical for the work of the course that you regularly attend the lectures and film presentations, along with the in-class discussions of this material, on Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays, since these sessions will bear upon your short weekly papers, your group projects, and your final paper.

You will also be assigned to a discussion section, which will meet once a week. They will give you an opportunity to explore issues raised by the reading, lectures, and films in greater depth. The sections will also be the sites for your group projects. Your regular attendance at sections and your careful preparation for and contributions to them will be taken seriously into account in writing your final narrative evaluation.

You are required to attend both the full-class lectures and film presentations on Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays. If you miss more than two of these class meetings without advanced permission of the instructor, you will receive a grade of "No Pass."

You are also required to attend the meetings of your discussion section. If you miss more than one of your discussion section meetings without advanced permission of the instructor, you will receive a grade of "No Pass."

The following texts are required reading for the course. All of them can be purchased in paperback editions at the Bay Tree Bookstore:

Frederick Douglass, The Narrative and Selected Writings (Random House)

Ernesto Galarza, Barrio Boy (Notre Dame)

Jeanne Wakatsuki and Jim Houston, Farewell to Manzanar (Bantam)

Jennifer Hochschild, Facing Up to the American Dream : Race, Class, and the Soul of the Nation Maxine Hong Kingston, China Men (Vintage)

N. Scott Momaday, The Names (University of Arizona Press)

Anzia Yezierska, Bread Givers (Persea Books)

Copies of all the texts are also on two-hour reserve in McHenry Library. In addition, a small amount of supplementary reading will be passed out in class or will be placed on reserve in McHenry.

There will be four in-class examinations, which will focus on your ability to identify and explain the significance of key figures, events, places, terms, and issues raised in the course. You will not be allowed to make up a missed examination unless you have received advance permission from the instructor or unless you a a documented illness or emergency.

You will write a final course paper (7-8 pages) chosen from among a series of specific topics related to the course readings, lectures, and films and to an important issue in the course. The paper is due on Wednesday, December 11, at noon, in Oakes 229. If you do not turn in the paper on time and are otherwise doing passing work on the course, you will receive an Incomplete and will need to complete the paper by the second week of the Winter Quarter.

Each discussion section will develop a group project on a topic chosen by the section's members, and will present the results of this project to the entire class near the end of the course. Your section leaders will work closely with you to help you develop this presentation.

Through written texts, personal stories, and films, this course will study the Chinese American experience from the 1850s to present day within the context of socioeconomic and political developments in China and the United States. Topics will include: immigration patterns; labor history; the anti-Chinese movement; Chinatown and homeland politics; women, family, and the second generation; Chinese American culture and identity; and contemporary issues. The class will make field trips to Chinese American historic sites in the Monterey Bay Region, Angel Island, and San Francisco Chinatown. Students will have an opportunity to work in groups to research and portray fictitious Chinese American historical personages in a presentation to the class.

2. Group presentation of Chinese American historical impersonations.

3. Review of a Chinese American novel or cultural performance.

4. Comprehensive final exam of identification and essay questions.

5. Two Saturday field trips (optional).

1. Diane Mark and Ginger Chih, A Place Called Chinese America

2. Sucheng Chan, This Bitter-sweet Soil

3. Judy Yung, Unbound Feet

4. Peter Kwong, The New Chinatown

5. Timothy Fong, The First Suburban Chinatown

* Judy Yung is a second-generation Chinese American born and raised in San Francisco Chinatown. She worked as a librarian, journalist, and director of two book projects on Asian American women before returning to graduate studies to earn her Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley. Upon graduation in 1990, she came to teach Asian American Studies in the American Studies Department at UC Santa Cruz. Her publications include Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco; Chinese Women of America: A Pictorial History; and Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, 1910-1940.

This course will introduce students to the field of critical race theory ("CRT"). CRT provides a complex analytical tool for challenging the notion of law as neutral and objective and seeks to offer a critical (re)construction of law as a source of empowerment for communities of color in the United States. After a thorough review of the challenge CRT poses to civil rights discourse, we examine CRT's lack of engagement with issues of colonialism and indigenous self-determination. We will explore the possibilities and limitations of CRT as an analytical tool in theorizing indigenous sovereignty vis-a-vis the nation state and in the international arena. Readings will include:

Kimberle Crenshaw, Neil Gotanda & Gary Peller, eds., Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement (New Press, 1996)

Mari J. Matsuda, Charles R., III Lawrence, Words That Wound: Critical Race Theory, Assaultive Speech, and the First Amendment (Westview Press, 1993)

Patricia Williams, Alchemy of Race and Rights (Harvard University Press, 1991)

Ian F. Haney Lopez, White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race (New York University Press, 1998)

Robert A. Williams, Linking Arms Together: American Indian Treaty Visions of Law and Peace, 1600-1800 (Oxford University Press, 1997).

Revised 7/12/04.