Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Introduces students to a topic in Global Asian Studies not otherwise covered in depth by regularly scheduled courses. Sample topics include South Asian diasporas; Global Asia in Vancouver; refugee experiences; or Korean culture. This course may be repeated for credit only when a different topic is taught. Students with credit for ASC 202 may not take this course for further credit.

COURSE DETAILS:

South Asian Diasporic Cultures: South Asia in Film and Literature

This course centres on representations of South Asian diaspora mainly focusing on North America (Canada and the United States) and the UK. These stories of settler colonialism, as well as South Asian complicity within settler colonial narratives, will be contrasted with literature about South Asian migration and exclusion in other contexts such as countries within the Middle East and Uganda in the 1970s. We will look at a variety of cultural texts produced about and by South Asian diasporic communities and reflect on how identity, home and belonging were fraught with global power relations such that South Asian migrants were forever migrants. The course will proceed through a close reading of South Asian diasporic film, poetry, art and literature to help us critique and understand South Asian identity and culture in the diaspora in all its multiple, contested and contradictory meanings.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

By the end of the course students will:

• be able to explain how cultural representations are imbued with power.
• have developed the skills necessary to critique a variety of cultural texts.
• build an understanding of South Asian diasporic cultures.
• have built the skills to write a properly referenced academic essay.

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING: