Spring 2025 Courses

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(World Cultures)

Mark Chiang

MW 1:00PM – 1:50PM, CRN 46223 LEC | BSB 140

F 10:00AM – 10:50AM, CRN 46228 D1 | ETMSW 2433
F 11:00AM – 11:50AM, CRN 46229 D2 | BSB 281
F 12:00PM – 12:50PM, CRN 46230 D3 | BSB 281
F 1:00PM – 1:50PM, CRN 46231 D4 | ETMSW 2433

On Campus

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This course examines various historical, cultural, and political representations of Asia, Asian America, and Asians in the world. Students will explore how peoples and ideas from Asia and across transoceanic and transnational diasporas have influenced a globalized world and continue to inform our contemporary understanding of Asia and Asian America.

The course also examines how historical issues such as colonialism, war, global capitalism, and migration have shaped the experiences and representations of Asians, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and peoples in Asian diasporas.

Viraj Patel

R 11:00PM – 11:50PM
CRN 39127 LCD

On Campus | SH 212

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(Individual and Society and Understanding U.S. Society)

Larry Lee

2:00PM – 2:50PM

CRN 39128 (GLAS) | LEC – AL | MW

CRN 39129 (GLAS) | DIS – AD | F

On Campus | LAC A003

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This course provides students with a survey of major concepts, methods, and debates in the study of Asian American studies. Students will also gain an introduction to the histories, community institutions, and contemporary issues of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Individual and Society, and US Society course.

Fredy Gonzalez

MW 9:30AM – 10:45AM
CRN 39124 (GLAS)

On Campus | TR 208

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Introduction to the main historical events that define the Asian experience in the United States from the mid-nineteenth century to the present.

Justin Phan

TR 2:00PM – 3:15PM

CRN 47084 (GLAS)

On Campus | TH 204

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This class will introduce students to some of the landmark films of Asian and Asian American cinematic history. While we will attend to the technical elements of film as an art form, the class will mostly explore the social and historical contexts of these films in order to develop a sense of the trajectory of Asia and the Asian diaspora over the course of the 20th century. Coursework will include essays and short writing assignments, as well as a final project.

Laura Hostetler

RT 9:30am – 10:45am | LCA A005

HIST CRN 39459 | LCD – AS
GLAS CRN 39460 | DIS – AD

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Since 1911 China has seen dramatic changes in forms of government, family life, women’s roles, economic systems, and areas of intellectual inquiry. In many ways,  1911- or indeed the whole twentieth century, marks a divide between “traditional” China and “modern” China. New technologies and ways of thinking introduced during the nineteenth and early twentieth cen­turies resulted in changes that made age-old philosophies and patterns of behavior no longer viable. What kinds of narratives did Chinese people create in order to understand the changes that they experienced? How would people in China decide what to retain from their history and what to reject? How would they explain these choices? How would China come to define itself both in relation to other nations, and in relation to the past? What kinds of conflict emerged in this transition and how did people deal with it? How does the history of twentieth-century China continue to impact the course of Chinese history, politics, and culture today?

Online Asynchronous

Rama Mantena

CRN 46254 | DIS – AD
CRN 46257 | LCD – AL

ARRANGED

LCA A005

Where did the philosophy of “nonviolence” originate from? Were there any empires in India before the British? You will find answers to these questions and more in this course on the history of South Asia before 1857. This course will introduce you to the diverse civilizations and overlapping histories of the modern nation states of South Asia (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.) We will explore the cultural, social, and political developments in the region from the Indus Valley period to the rise of the British Empire.

This course is an online asynchronous course with organized weekly lesson modules made up of short videos of lectures, reading assignments and writing exercises. When taught online or hybrid, students will be required to have reliable internet access and a means for accessing it (computer preferable).

Class Schedule Information: To be properly registered, students must enroll in one Lecture-Discussion and one Discussion. Past course, and World Cultures course.

Michelle Lee

MW 9:30AM – 10:45AM

CRN 42781 (GLAS)

On Campus | LC 205

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This class introduces students to the visual culture of, for, and by Asian Americans. We will use an interdisciplinary approach that combines visual theory and ethnic studies to examine visual culture as a medium through which Asian American histories, critique, and stories are told. This includes but is not limited to visual arts in museums, films, television, digital media, and fashion.

Justin Phan

TR 11:00AM – 12:15PM

CRN 39133 (GLAS)

On Campus | LC 207

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Despite popular depictions in Hollywood that mainly portrayed Vietnam as a foregone war that took place in a small region of the globe, Vietnam is also a country, an imagined community, a geopolitical figure, and a cultural and political cause that inspired transnational imaginations for what a free world would and could look like. Looking to “Global Vietnam” as an analytic, this interdisciplinary course draws from the social sciences and humanities to trace the global reaches of Vietnam and to situate Vietnamese histories and cultural politics in comparative, relational, and transnational perspectives. As such, the class draws from Asian American and global studies to examine how artists, community organizers, and scholars in Vietnam and the Vietnamese diaspora create new visions that contend with overlapping legacies of war, empire, militarism, and global capitalism in their own contexts and in relation to other struggles for social justice.

Karen Su

TR 12:30PM – 1:45PM

CRN 39134 (GLAS)

On Campus | LH 207

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This special topics course focuses on Asian American life stories presented through a variety of genres: oral histories, biography, autobiography, memoir, podcasts, graphic novels, children’s picture books, films, photography, visual art, etc. We will examine the artistic and political strategies of cultural production used in order to represent Asian American lives. Students will pursue analytical, research, and creative assignments in which they study and apply different artistic and political strategies themselves.

Fredy Gonzalez

T 3:30 PM – 6:00 PM

CRN 39136

On Campus | LH 115

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Interdisciplinary exploration of Asian diasporic histories and community formations in Chicago through academic coursework that examines dynamics of globalization in the local context.

Michelle Lee

MW 3:00PM – 4:15PM

CRN 48140 LCD | BSB 215
CRN 48141 LCD | BSB 215

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In this course, students will examine the history, theories, and practices of feminism with a specific focus on Asian America. While this course contextualizes the formation of Asian America and transnational feminisms alongside decolonization Third World Liberation struggles, and the Cold War, this course will mostly explore key concepts, theories, and analytics of feminisms through the writings of women of color, Asian American, and transnational feminists.

Laura Hostetler

TR 12:30PM – 01:45PM

GLAS CRN 39463 (G)
GLAS CRN 39464 (UG)

On Campus | LH 205

(Instructor Consent and Department Approval Required)

Mark Chiang (39137)
Fredy Gonzalez (40200)
Anna Guevarra (39138)
Julian Rey Ignacio (47087)
Michael Jin (39139)
Clare Kim (44967)
Michelle Lee (46262)
Mark Martel (39142)
Nadine Naber (39140)
A. Naomi Paik (44965)
Justin Phan (39141)
Karen Su (40201)

ARRANGED