Approved Courses

The term ‘globalization’ has become popular only over the past quarter century, since about 1990. By the end of the 20th century a decade later, ‘globalization’ had become one of the dominant terms for academic analyses, in the social sciences as much as in cultural studies, theories of literature and the arts, film and media studies, discussions of planetary militarization, as well as discussions of ecology and environment. What was new in the world that accounts for this sudden popularization of this concept? That will be the starting point of this course.

It is also true, though, that the United States has been the world’s most globalized country in its very formation, with settlers and slaves arriving in the earliest phase, followed by migrants and refugees from all corners of the world over centuries, mostly at the expense of the original indigenous population. ‘Globalization’ can then be seen not as a phenomenon of just recent origin but as something much older that begins with the beginning of Europe’s world-wide colonial expansion several centuries ago.

The opening sessions will take up these two major issues; the historical processes that account for long-term social, cultural and economic integration of the world across continents; and, the historical changes unfolding over the past few decades which are now seen as the main features of contemporary globalization. Rest of the course will be structured around four themes: (1) Globalization and mass migrations of peoples, coerced and uncoerced. (2) Globalization and world-wide degradations of eco-systems. (3) What has been alternately described as ‘globalized militarism’ or ‘the expanding reach of globalized violence’. (4) Globalized media monopolies, information management and mass culture.

Same as Int St 189
Days:   12:00-12:00 AM

This course provides a deep introduction to one of the most gifted and influential thinkers of the Twentieth century, W. E. Du Bois. It’s core is the study of the classic The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches. 
Days: TU  10:00-12:50 PM

Studies the settlement of Japanese in Hawaii and the continental United States since the late nineteenth century. Topics covered include early migration in Hawaii, World War II internment, post-War community development, “model minority” initiatives, discourses of race in Civil Rights and redress campaigns, and questions of contemporary Japanese American identity and historical documentation in public education exhibitions and media.
Days: TU TH  03:30-04:50 PM

This course is a survey of modern Korean society and culture. We will examine and interpret the meanings of Korean social and cultural institutions. Topics of discussion include family and gender relationship, migration and multiculturalism, colonialism, war and national division, industrialization and social movement, as well as globalization and culture industry. We will also briefly explore life and society of North Korea.
Days: MWF  12:00-12:00 AM

Hollywood Exceptionalism will study the history of Hollywood not as a continuously unfolding narrative of industrial innovation and adjustment but as a series of discontinuous episodes--moments of change engineered by the studios in response to or in anticipation of political, economic, social, and legal challenges and opportunities.

The course will begin with Hollywood at the end of the silent era and the beginning of the Depression with films by Cecil B. DeMille and King Vidor.  In the thirties we will focus on the major studios’ cooperation with the New Deal and their so-called collaboration with Hitler.  Congressional legislation and state and federal legal decisions will subsequently guide our advance to the present day.  In the postwar period we will be largely concerned with the consequences of the extension of freedom of speech to motion pictures in the 1950s and as manifested in the auteurist movement called “the New Hollywood” in the 1970s. Subsequent topics will include the privileged status of Disney and its global ambitions, the role of motion pictures as the instrument for the extension of full First Amendment rights to profit-making corporations, and the methods by which the studios have attempted to deal with the advent of social media.  We will conclude with a study of the eventful films of Warner Bros. auteur Christopher Nolan. We will examine the implications of the Aurora Massacre at the opening of The Dark Knight Rises for a reconsideration of corporate liability as a peril faced by the studios that make motion pictures and the theaters that exhibit them.
Days:   12:00-12:00 AM

Defining Decolonization: Indigenous Theories of Intellectual Sovereignty

Insisting that the colonization of the Americas persists today, many American Indian intellectuals reject the term postcolonial to name the present situation of their various Native nations or the United States more broadly. Indeed, as the Standing Rock Lakota nation’s recent struggle to halt construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline demonstrates, the sovereign rights of Native nations to self-govern and steward their lands are often overthrown by corporate interests. The field of Native American studies recognizes that colonialism is perpetuated in the ideological as well as economic and political realms. For example, when non-Native scholars control academic discourse about Indians and their cultural productions, racial identity politics often shut out other significant issues affecting Indian peoples, such as class, gender, sexuality, land relations, and sovereignty. Goals of this course include centering indigenous conceptual frames of reference, constructing genealogies that challenge the master narratives of U.S. history, and training students in the cultural literacy needed to be a good guest in the homeland of American Indian peoples, specifically here in the Acjachemen and Tongva Traditional Territories where UC Irvine is located.

This course will engage with works by indigenous scholars who develop research methodologies and modes of critique, analyses, and debate that work to decolonize the educational system. Students will explore a range of American Indian intellectual traditions from the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek, Kiowa, Pequot, Acoma Pueblo, Kumeyaay, Hopi, and Ojibwe nations including oral narratives, speeches, essays, poetry, autobiography/memoir, and novels as well as educational art forms such as songs, wampum belts, birch bark writings, pottery, and baskets. Students will also engage with the works of scholars who contribute indigenous perspectives to the fields of feminism, queer studies, and critical race theory.
Days:   12:00-12:00 AM

Introduction to important themes in the history of people of Asian ancestry in the United States from the nineteenth century to the present.
Days: MO WE  10:30-11:50 AM

Analyzes experiences of refugees and immigrants from Southeast Asia, which may include those from Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Examines political and economic factors for their exodus and how they reconstruct their identities, histories, and communities.
Days: MO WE  09:00-10:20 AM

Controversy has accompanied and, arguably, defined photography since the medium's very inception. Moving chronologically, we will examine a series of case studies that reveal important dimensions of photography and artistic, political, and technological developments that paralleled its development. A particular emphasis will be the question of photography's ethics. A preliminary list of case studies includes the controversy over the status of photography's inventor; the 19th century trials of ghost photographers; the ethics of manipulating photography, as in the legendary war photographs of Matthew Brady and Robert Capa; the work of Diane Arbus; Robert Mapplethorpe's obscenity trial; Richard Prince's appropriation of Instagram photographs for gallery exhibitions; and the Abu Ghraib photographs.
Days: MO WE  01:30-02:50 PM

Examination of gender and sexuality in relation to the emergence of the modern world, modernity, and capitalism; commodification, circulation, and transnational exchanges relating to race, gender, class, sexuality, religion, and nationality.
Days: TU TH  12:30-01:50 PM

This course will review critical scholarship, and especially feminist inquiry, that has tackled three core issues of our times: money, sex, and power. Drawing from a variety of case studies from around the world, we will analyze how these seemingly discrete terms have emerged historically, and how they combine with one another to form a complex world of transnational political economies, race and gender relations, erotic politics, and class struggles.
Days: TU TH  03:30-04:50 PM

In this class we will explore a variety of approaches to the theory and practice of "close reading," that most fundamental skill for all literary analysis and argument. We will explore some of the critical history of the idea of "close reading" and engage in numerous practical exercises in close reading of poetry, prose and drama with a particular emphasis on the effective use of close reading in critical writing. Weekly writing exercises will be required, as well as a final exam. Texts will be made available online or provided in class.
Days:   12:00-12:00 AM

This course focuses upon a basic history of games introducing historically popular games, their themes, topics, and their mechanisms. Along with the course content, students will develop a historical game from any time period and in any media.
Days: M  04:00-07:50 PM

Early Modern Europe was a time of tremendous upheavals that transformed the earlier medieval social structures and laid the foundation for our own world. Central to this period were challenges to traditional religious views (coming from conflicts within Europe but also from European encounters with other cultures) and the introduction of new modes of reasoning. Although these developments are often associated with a process of “secularization,” i.e., the gradual diminishment of the role of religion in public life and the substitution of non-religious ideas for religious ones, we will try to paint a more nuanced picture that sees faith and reason, the religious and the secular, in a complex dialogue (dialectic) with each other. The time period of the course material stretches from 1517 (Luther’s “99 Theses” unleash the Reformation) to 1789 (the French Revolution).

Some of the major topics to be explored in the course from a variety of disciplines (literature, art, history, philosophy, political theory, sociology) are:

1. Debates concerning Humanism and the Reformation (Luther and Erasmus)
2. The significance of the Thirty Years’ War, 1618-1648 (not just wars of religion)
3. Interactions with the Ottoman Empire and Islam (Shakespeare’s Othello and the  development of Renaissance art/perspective out of Arabic influences)
4. New attempts to ground philosophy in reason (Descartes) and their relation to  faith (Pascal, Kant)
5.  The rise of new forms of rationality (scientific, economic/capitalist)
6. The role of the state in relation to religion (Hobbes, Spinoza)
7. Enlightenment understandings of (religious) toleration (Nathan the Wise, a play  by the major German author Gotthold Ephraim Lessing)
8. The French Revolution, radical secularism (“laicism”), and the return of religion

All of these topics from the Early Modern period have immediate relevance for events unfolding in the world today.
Days:   12:00-12:00 AM

Focuses on cultural and political-economic analysis and representations of disease both within the U.S. and globally.
Days: MO WE  10:30-11:50 AM

History and discourses of the black protest tradition. Traces emergence of black protest against racial slavery and white supremacy from the early colonial period to present and the complex elaboration of identity politics within black communities in the twentieth century.

Prerequisite: Satisfactory completion of the Lower-Division Writing requirement.

Restriction: Upper-division students only.
Days: TH  09:00-11:50 AM

Analyzes Asian American race relations and racialized interconnections, as well as Asian Americans in racial hierarchy. Topics include racial categorization, citizenship, immigration, equity.
Days: MO WE  12:30-01:50 PM