AMST 375
Asian American Sexualities Spring 2024
Division II Difference, Power, and Equity
Cross-listed WGSS 375 / AAS 375
This is not the current course catalog

Often framed as objects of sexual use and perversity, how might Asian/Asian American subjects contend with these projections and enact their own sexualities? Anchored in this question, this theory-intensive course introduces students to core texts in Asian American Studies, feminist and queer criticism, and performance studies alongside a host of cultural productions (e.g., film, visual art, performance, poetry). It will focus on an array of topics, including western demands to “come out,” the history and activism of “comfort women,” HIV/AIDS, orientalism/ornamentalism, the criminalization of Sikh, South Asian, and Muslim Americans post-9/11, queer kinship, sex work, representations in pornography, drag performance (among others) to explore questions of racialized and sexualized pain alongside pleasure, play, and critique from feminist, queer, trans, and queered positions.