This course examines contemporary Asian American film and visual culture through the lens of cultural recovery, self-invention, and experimentation. Focusing primarily on film and photography, we will explore issues of race and visuality, Hollywood orientalism, memory and postmemory, and racial impersonation and parody. Students will engage with a variety of theoretical and critical approaches. Artists may include Nikki S. Lee, Margaret Cho, Tseng Kwong Chi, Jin-me Yoon, Justin Lin, Binh Dahn, Richard Fung, Mira Nair, Deepa Mehta, and Alice Wu.

What is Latina Feminism? How does it differ from and/or intersect with "other" feminisms? In this seminar, we will explore the relationship between Latina feminist theory, knowledge production, and social change in the United States. This interdisciplinary course explores Latina feminism in relation to methodology and epistemology through a historical lens. This will help us to better understand how Latina feminist approaches can inform our research questions, allow us to analyze women's experiences and women's history, and challenge patriarchy and gender inequality.

Examines the causes of and proposed solutions to 'the Negro problem' in post-Civil War American social thought and public policy. Begins with the life, work, and legacies of DuBois. Drawing on domestic and diasporic fictional and nonfictional depictions of black life in the 'DuBoisian century' the course considers different responses to his 1903 question, 'How does it feel to be a problem?' The course examines the development and contemporary status of black modernity and postmodernity in the writings of Robinson, Smith, Davis, Ransby, YamahttaTaylor, and others.

This course studies the films of Pedro Almodóvar, European cinema's favorite bad boy turned acclaimed auteur. On the one hand, students learn to situate films within the context of contemporary Spanish history (the transition to democracy, the advent of globalization, etc.) in order to consider the local contours of postmodern aesthetics. On the other hand, the films provide a springboard to reflect on larger theoretical and ethical debates related to gender, sexuality, consumer culture, authenticity, and authorship.

Do bodies matter in religious traditions? Whose bodies matter? How do they matter? By studying religious body ideals and practices, we examine the possibilities and problems different kinds of bodies have posed in religious traditions. Topics include religious diet, exercise, and dress; monasticism, celibacy, and sexuality; healing rituals, and slavery and violence. We pay special attention to contemporary challenges to problematic body ideals and practices coming from feminist, disability, postcolonial, queer, and trans theorists and activists.

Performance study - individual instruction.

Performance study - individual instruction.

Performance study - individual instruction.

Performance study - individual instruction.

Performance study - individual instruction.