American Studies 230 - CLQ:ASIAN AMER-INTERNMENT

Topics course. This course is open to anyone particularly interested in learning about Asian/Pacific/American (A/P/A) history. The objective of the course is two-fold. The first is to provide the students with a fundamental understanding of A/P/A history that is inextricably linked to the goal of the United States to establish military, economic and cultural hegemony in the world as seen through its colonial and neo-colonial policies both in the U.S. and the Asian/Pacific region. The second is to introduce them to the various themes as well as methodological and theoretical frameworks used by scholars in the field of A/P/A Studies in order to encourage them to either work toward a Five College A/P/A Studies Certificate or pursue further studies in the field: During World War II, about 120,000 Japanese and Japanese American residents and citizens of the United States were forcibly removed from their homes and incarcerated in government-run facilities that were euphemistically called internment camps. Since the 1940s, historians, novelists, poets, filmmakers, visual artists, psychologists, and many others have narrated the experience of incarcerees. These narratives seek not only to tell stories, but also to investigate the ironies, contradictions, and paradoxes that led to incarceration, oversaw its execution, and continue to linger. This course will engage meditatively and critically with selected narratives of internment – truly, incarceration.