Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Introduces students to the interdisciplinary field of critical refugee studies drawing on a Global Asia framework. The course centers Asian refugee knowledge and cultural production to examine critiques of imperialism, colonialism, capitalism, and patriarchy and imagine alternative models of coexistence.

COURSE DETAILS:

This course introduces students to the interdisciplinary field of critical refugee studies drawing on a Global Asia framework. By centering Asian refugee knowledge and cultural production, we will examine critiques of imperialism, colonialism, capitalism, and patriarchy. Moreover, we will explore the alternative models of coexistence these works dare to imagine.

Critical Refugee Studies in Global Asia brings together contemporary works of literature, visual art, film, and theoretical works by and about refugees and migrants in Asia and the Asian diaspora. Through cultural analysis and theoretical concepts that enhance one another, we will explore the innovative, creative, and scholarly strategies and cultural genealogies of works that challenge conventional depictions of the refugee experience. We will explore how these works grapple with themes such as displacement and diaspora, community and kinship, power and complicity, and flight and captivity. Our weekly discussions will be framed by the following questions: What is a refugee? What is refugee cultural production? Who is the intended audience, or audiences? What relationship does each cultural artifact have to Asian languages and translation? How does the transnational nature of Asian refugee art and literature contribute to our understanding of what constitutes Asian literary, cultural, and knowledge production? How can these works help us understand concepts such as: freedom, relationality, and refusal? What kinds of critiques of imperialism, settler colonialism, white supremacy, neoliberal humanitarianism, and patriarchy can we take away from these works? Lastly, what Asian cosmologies and cultural and literary traditions inform these texts, the critiques they offer, and the alternative models of coexistence they dare to imagine?

 

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

By the end of this course, students will:

• have a general grasp of refugee as a legal and political category and theoretical concept and the historical context out of which these emerge
• have the vocabulary to articulate critical and nuanced analysis of the representation of refugees and migrants in media and institutional policy and discourse
• be able to identify and articulate key debates, concepts, and frameworks in critical refugee studies
• be able to apply frameworks and concepts from critical refugee studies to analysis of cultural texts/media in an oral presentation and facilitate peer dialogue
• be able use frameworks and concepts from critical refugee studies to formulate a compelling research essay or podcast episode
• scrutinize and summarize relevant scholarly work to support in-class discussion and course assignment

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING:

REQUIRED READING NOTES: