Cultural Studies is an
interdisciplinary, and sometimes anti-disciplinary, approach to the study of
culture, particularly its broadly-conceived and complex array of signifying
practices. Cultural Studies theorists assume that culture cannot be understood
apart from politics, and Cultural Studies practitioners are concerned with
questions of power, and often strive to engage in analysis or theory that will
contribute to counterhegemonic struggle, and often in a way that draws upon
marxist lines of thinking.
Another important hallmark of Cultural Studies is
that it is a located practice—that the scholar works with attention to the
specific struggles, questions, and problems that characterize the place out of
which she/he is situated. This class will therefore focus on
“Asia/Pacific” as a place of contestation (and this will include
thinking about the contradictions, problems, and possibilities of the term
“Asia/Pacific” itself), and cultural struggle and creativity. As we
pay particular attention to how Cultural
Studies is practiced in Hawai’i, and other locales in the United States, Asia,
and the Pacific, we will put this work into dialogue with foundational and more
contemporary Cultural Studies work that emerges from other locations, and we
will think about how Cultural Studies work does and does not translate and
travel from one time and place to another.
We will begin the course with works foundational to
Cultural Studies (Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, Stuart Hall, Raymond Williams)
that focus on questions of ideology and class struggle. We also will consult
various tables of contents to Cultural Studies collections in order to
understand the multiple ways the field has been mapped and the tensions and
continuities among these conceptualizations of Cultural Studies and its
origins.
In addition to foundational works, the course will
concentrate on concepts that are central to work being done in Cultural
Studies, especially as it is practiced in Hawai’i and the Pacific. The course
is organized around keywords that include the following: settler/native,
sex/gender, race/ethnicity, state/nation, land/water, indigeneity, sustainability,
empire, education, public intellectual. We will consider how these different
concepts overlap as well as diverge and we also will continuously keep in mind
concerns of class, capital, and the workings of ideology that a Cultural
Studies approach foregrounds. We will put our theoretical readings in dialogue
with cultural texts (poetry, fiction, videos, film, advertisements, etc.).
As we proceed, we will attend closely to questions of
methodology: we will think about how
Cultural Studies research is constructed both at the level of research and
writing, and we will investigate the ways it is both interdisciplinary and anti-disciplinary. This will involve thinking about the wide
array of literary and extra-literary texts that Cultural Studies scholars make
use of and how they read them; what constitutes an archive and different ways
to conduct archival research; practices and ethics of (auto)ethnography; and
how the writer situates her or himself in terms of identity and location.
Requirements:
1. A presentation on a keyword or issue related to
the course reading (10% of your grade).
2. An abstract and a conference-length paper that
will be presented to the class (55%).
3. Two other short papers (approx. 5 pages each), one
involving synthesizing and taking a critical position on a theoretical or critical
text; and the other, using a theoretical text to provide a reading of a
cultural text (30%). One of these papers will be linked to participation in a
625 colloquium, which will involve students from all sections of 625 presenting
on a theme common to all the courses.
4. Attendance at and a one-page reflection on two
events (talks, demonstrations, performances) that are relevant to the class
concerns (5% of your grade).
5. Regular attendance.
General
Student Outcomes:
1. Foundational knowledge of the theories and methods
of this concentration;
understanding of advanced research methods.
2. Written and oral ability to place your scholarly
work within broader critical
conversations.
3. Independent research in CSAP.
4. Ability to make precise use of critical vocabulary
to frame and support analysis.
5. Experience with delivering concise, informed,
focused, thoughtful presentations to other professionals in the field.
TEXTS
(tentative listing):
Books (to be ordered through
Revolution Books):
Purnima Bose and Laura E.
Lyons, eds., Cultural Critique and the Global Corporation
Wayne Kaumualii Westlake, Westlake
Poems
Films:
Dean
Hamer and Joe Wilson (dirs.), Kumu Hina
Agnieszka Holland (dir.), A
Girl Like Me
Anne Keala Kelly (dir.), Noho
Hewa
P. Sainath, Nero’s Guests(documentary)
Partial list of additional course readings: selections from Settler Colonial Studies, 3. 3-4 (2013); Raymond Williams,
“Culture”; Stuart Hall, “Cultural studies and its theoretical
legacies”; Karl Marx, Ch. One of Capital; Haunani-Kay Trask,
“Lovely Hula Hands”; Louis Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State
Apparatuses”; Antonio Gramsci, sels. from Prison Notebooks; Stuart Hall,
“The Problem of Ideology”; Gayatri Spivak, “Can the Subaltern
Speak?”; Noenoe Silva, “Early Hawaiian Newspapers”; Ann Cvetkovich,
“AIDS Activism and Public Feeling”; Paul Gilroy, “History of
Black Ephemera”; Ty Kawika Tengan, “Narrating Kanaka “; Monisha
Das Gupta, “The Neoliberal State and the Domestic Workers’ Movement in
NYC”; J. Kehaulani Kauanui, sels. from Hawaiian Blood;Ruth Wilson
Gilmore, “Fatal Couplings of Power and Difference”; Patrick Wolfe,
“Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native”; Candace Fujikane,
intro. to Asian Settler Colonialism;Epeli Hau’ofa, “Our Sea of
Islands”; Cristina Bacchilega, sels. from Legendary Hawai’i; Ngugi
wa Thiong’o, excerpt from Decolonizing the Mind;Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick,
“Queer and Now”; Judith Butler, “Imitation and Gender
Insubordination”; Judith Butler, “Violence, Mourning, Politics”;selections from the special Biography issue, “Life in Occupied
Palestine” (2014); Eyal Weizman, selections from Hollow Land and The
Least of All Possible Evils; P. Sainath, selection from Everybody Loves
a Good Drought; Julie Kaomea, “A Curriculum of Aloha?”; Konai Helu Thaman,
“Negotiating Places and Spaces “; Edward Said, “The Public Role
of Writers and Intellectuals”; Haunani-Kay Trask, “Racism against
Native Hawaiians at the University of Hawai’i”