ASIAN STUDIES (ASIA)

Additional Resources 

Courses

IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 52.  First-Year Seminar: Food in Chinese Culture.  3 Credits.  

Examines the cultural practice and meanings of food, cooking, eating, and drinking through Chinese literature and cinema. Main themes include food and rituals, gourmandism and poetic taste, cannibalism and the grotesque, and hunger and revolution.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FY-SEMINAR, FC-AESTH.
Making Connections Gen Ed: LA, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 55.  First-Year Seminar: Kung-Fu: The Concept of Heroism in Chinese Culture.  3 Credits.  

Film, history, novels, and theater are used to explore the rich, complex kung-fu tradition in Chinese culture from ancient to modern times, as well as its appropriation in foreign films.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FY-SEMINAR, FC-AESTH or FC-VALUES.
Making Connections Gen Ed: PH, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 56.  First-Year Seminar: Writing Women in Modern China.  3 Credits.  

Compares the rhetoric of equality between the sexes presented by late Qing, May Fourth, and communist thinkers to perspectives on gender and society by 20th-century Chinese women writers. Honors version available.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FY-SEMINAR, FC-AESTH or FC-KNOWING.
Making Connections Gen Ed: LA, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: WGST 56.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 57.  First-Year Seminar: Dis-Orienting the Orient.  3 Credits.  

Examines how the East is constructed as the Orient in different historical periods: 19th-century European colonialism, 1950s to 1960s Hollywood films, contemporary Japanese animation, and the global war on terrorism.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FY-SEMINAR, FC-GLOBAL or FC-KNOWING.
Making Connections Gen Ed: VP, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 59.  First-Year Seminar: Media Masala: Popular Music, TV, and the Internet in Modern India and Pakistan.  3 Credits.  

Explores different examples of broadcast and digital media (music videos, soap operas and reality shows, radio, and social media) with respect to history, gender, sexuality, globalization, environment, religion, regionalism, and activism.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FY-SEMINAR, FC-GLOBAL or FC-KNOWING.
Making Connections Gen Ed: VP, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 60.  First-Year Seminar: Israeli Culture and Society: Collective Memories and Fragmented Identities.  3 Credits.  

The course explores selected themes and case studies pertinent to culture and society in modern Israel, with emphasis on debates about "Israeliness" in various cultural and social arenas.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FY-SEMINAR, FC-GLOBAL or FC-POWER.
Making Connections Gen Ed: BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: JWST 60.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 61.  First-Year Seminar: A Tour of South Asia's Regional Art Cinemas.  3 Credits.  

Students watch and analyze art films by filmmakers working in various languages and regions of South Asia. Students are introduced to the aesthetics and themes that have shaped the various regional cinemas of South Asia. Course materials introduce students to some of the formal elements of filmmaking and provide cultural and historical context.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FY-SEMINAR, FC-AESTH or FC-GLOBAL.
Making Connections Gen Ed: VP, BN, CI.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 65.  First-Year Seminar: Philosophy on Bamboo: Rethinking Early Chinese Thought.  3 Credits.  

This course will introduce students to the main works and themes in early Chinese thought from the earliest recorded writings down to the Qin unification in 221 BCE.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FY-SEMINAR, FC-KNOWING or FC-PAST.
Making Connections Gen Ed: PH, WB.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 69.  First-Year Seminar: Wars and Veterans: Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan.  3 Credits.  

In this seminar, we will explore the various ways that Iran-Iraq, United States-Iraq, and United States-Afghanistan wars have been portrayed in literature, film, and photography. We will deepen and enrich our understanding of war experienced by both veterans and civilians. We will also read articles on war criticism and psychology.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FY-SEMINAR, FC-CREATE or FC-GLOBAL.
Making Connections Gen Ed: LA, CI, GL.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: PWAD 69.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 71.  First-Year Seminar: Asia in Iberian Converso Literature, 1500s-1650s.  3 Credits.  

This course examines how 16th- and 17th-century Iberian authors of Jewish heritage imagined and represented Chinese, Filipinos, Japanese, and Indonesians in their writings (e.g. plays, historical narratives, economic treatises, travel accounts, maps, etc.). We explore how these authors' representations of Asians not only dialogued with various interwoven variables (political, economic, and religious factors), but also revealed the historically complex issue regarding notions of personal identities and nationhood.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FY-SEMINAR.
Making Connections Gen Ed: LA, WB.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: ROML 71.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 72.  First-Year Seminar: Transnational Korea: Literature, Film, and Popular Culture.  3 Credits.  

This first-year seminar introduces students to the history of transnational imaginations in modern Korea. Using literature, film, and television, it explores the ways in which Korean cultural producers have used narratives of transnational travel and exchange to rethink Korea's place in the world and refashion the bounds of Korean identity.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FY-SEMINAR, FC-AESTH or FC-GLOBAL.
Making Connections Gen Ed: LA, BN, CI.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 73.  First-Year Seminar: Popular Culture in the Arab World.  3 Credits.  

This first-year seminar introduces students to aspects of popular culture in the Arab world, taking it as an entry point for understanding the histories, cultures, and societies of the region. The course relies on anthropological readings alongside direct engagements with examples of popular culture from the Arab world.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FY-SEMINAR, FC-GLOBAL or FC-KNOWING.
Making Connections Gen Ed: SS, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 74.  First-Year Seminar: Imagining Palestine.  3 Credits.  

This course explores the idea of Palestine as in Palestinian creative works. We will study what Palestine is for Palestinians, how Palestinian relationships to and expectations of Palestine have changed over time; and how Palestinian portrayals of their homeland have affected perceptions of Palestine/Israel and the Arab world. How have art, film, and literature shaped Palestinian identities and aspirations throughout modern Palestinian history? How have they contributed to personal agency?

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FY-SEMINAR, FC-AESTH or FC-KNOWING.
Making Connections Gen Ed: VP, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 75.  First-Year Seminar: Love in China.  3 Credits.  

We all know that love is not easy. But what makes it so complicated? This course examines how the conception of ''love'' in Chinese culture offers a key to understanding emotions, family structure, gender and sexuality, consumer desire, as well as political sentiments. We will probe into these issues through literary and visual materials from the 8th century B.C.E. to the 21st century.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FY-SEMINAR, FC-AESTH or FC-KNOWING.
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 77.  First-Year Seminar: Women and Performance in Transnational Asia.  3 Credits.  

This course examines art and activist performances produced by women in transnational and global Asia, which speak of their feminist, post-colonial, and anti-hegemonic agenda. These performances reveal various nations' struggle to globalize and reflect how the category of "Asian," intersected with gender, continues to evolve in the West. This course engages with these performances theoretically and responds to the artists' strong voices with critical analysis.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FY-SEMINAR, FC-AESTH or FC-GLOBAL.
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 89.  First Year Seminar: Special Topics.  3 Credits.  

Special topics course. Content will vary each semester. Honors version available.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FY-SEMINAR.
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 124.  Iranian Post-1979 Cinema.  3 Credits.  

We examine the ways the medium has been used to incorporate political and social perspectives, challenge the government, and document the lives and struggles of Iranian people. Among the topics explored are Iranian culture and society, gender politics, ethnicity, attitudes about religion, role of children, and various schools of realism. Previously offered as ASIA 224.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-AESTH or FC-GLOBAL, HI-PERFORM.
Making Connections Gen Ed: LA, BN, EE- Performing Arts.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 126.  Introduction to Persian Literature.  3 Credits.  

This course introduces students to Persian literature from classical to contemporary writers in translation to help them understand the efforts of the Iranian literati in addressing issues surrounding love, the sacred, human diversity, inclusiveness, and the rise of the modern nation-state in Iran through the use of literature.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-AESTH or FC-GLOBAL.
Making Connections Gen Ed: LA, BN, CI.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 127.  Iranian Women Writers.  3 Credits.  

This course introduces students to Iranian women's issues through their literary works. To contextualize, we will read articles and essays on the historical, cultural, social, political, and economic backgrounds. In order to approach these literary works in a more effective manner, we will also be reading various secondary materials.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-AESTH or FC-GLOBAL.
Making Connections Gen Ed: LA, BN, CI.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: WGST 127.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 131.  Southeast Asia before 1800 through Digital History.  3 Credits.  

This course will cover the history of the territories and peoples of Southeast Asia (comprising the modern-day countries of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Singapore and Vietnam), from earliest times to 1800. The course will also delve into debates about the past, who is engaged in such debates, and how to navigate these debates to find reliable historical sources and communicate analysis of those sources for a wide audience.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-PAST.
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: HIST 131.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 132.  Modern Southeast Asia.  3 Credits.  

The history of Southeast Asia from the 19th century to the present. Long-term political, economic, social, and intellectual questions, including the impact of imperialism, the rise of nationalism, the transformation of the economy, the Cold War, and the coherence of Southeast Asia as a region.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-PAST.
Making Connections Gen Ed: HS, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: HIST 132, PWAD 132.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 133.  Introduction to Chinese History.  3 Credits.  

Chinese history from its beginnings to the present, organized around the central theme of how the identity of China and 'Chineseness' was created.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-PAST.
Making Connections Gen Ed: HS, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: HIST 133.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 134.  Modern East Asia.  3 Credits.  

Comparative and interdisciplinary introduction to China, Korea, and Japan in the 19th and 20th centuries, focusing on impact of the West, nation building, industrialization, and evolution of mass society.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-PAST.
Making Connections Gen Ed: HS, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: HIST 134, PWAD 134.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 135.  History of the Indian Subcontinent to 1750.  3 Credits.  

An introduction to major political, religious, social, and cultural events from 3500 BCE to 1750 CE with a focus on Hindu, Muslim, and Buddhist groups before British colonial rule.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-KNOWING or FC-PAST.
Making Connections Gen Ed: HS, BN, WB.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: HIST 135.  
ASIA 136.  History of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh: South Asia since 1750.  3 Credits.  

This course is an introduction to modern India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. We will investigate major political, social, economic, and cultural issues from 1750 to the present.

Rules & Requirements  
Making Connections Gen Ed: HS, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: HIST 136.  
ASIA 138.  History of Muslim Societies to 1500.  3 Credits.  

A broad, comprehensive, and interdisciplinary introduction to the traditional civilization of the Muslim world. Students may not receive credit for both HIST 138/ASIA 138 and ASIA 180/RELI 180.

Rules & Requirements  
Making Connections Gen Ed: HS, BN, WB.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: HIST 138.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 139.  History of Muslim Societies since 1500.  3 Credits.  

A broad interdisciplinary survey of the later Islamic empires since the 15th century and their successor societies in the modern Muslim world. Students may not receive credit for both ASIA 139/HIST 139 and ASIA 181/RELI 181.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-PAST.
Making Connections Gen Ed: HS, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: HIST 139.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 150.  Asia: An Introduction.  3 Credits.  

The course introduces Asia's historical, cultural, and political diversity by examining some of the global forces that have shaped Asian societies (e.g., colonialism, orientalism, and neoliberalism).

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-KNOWING.
Making Connections Gen Ed: SS, BN, GL.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 152.  Survey of South Asian Cultural History.  3 Credits.  

Readings from diverse disciplines illuminate the broad features of South Asia throughout history. Topics include political history and social thought, including gender and caste, and religious and imaginative literature.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-KNOWING or FC-PAST.
Making Connections Gen Ed: LA, BN, WB.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
ASIA 158.  Introduction to East Asian Art and Architecture.  3 Credits.  

This course traces the history of art and architecture in premodern East Asia, emphasizing ideas and ways of seeing and representing that were common or different across East Asia.

Rules & Requirements  
Making Connections Gen Ed: VP, WB.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: ARTH 158.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 163.  Hindi-Urdu Poetry in Performance.  3 Credits.  

This course examines the connection between poetry and performance in the context of Hindi-Urdu literature, particularly the genres of Sufi poetry (qawwali), Bhakti poetry, and the Ghazal.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-AESTH or FC-KNOWING.
Making Connections Gen Ed: LA, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 164.  Music of South Asia.  3 Credits.  

This course provides a comprehensive overview of the music of South Asia, focusing on India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The entire spectrum of musical genres will be covered.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-AESTH or FC-KNOWING.
Making Connections Gen Ed: VP, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: MUSC 164.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 167.  Gender, Sexuality, and Social Justice in South Asia.  3 Credits.  

This course explores questions of ethics, justice, and inequality with respect to gender in modern South Asia. Each unit will probe a different aspect of social justice in order to understand the histories, politics, and expressive cultures of various disempowered communities. Intersections between gender and ethics, politics, sexuality, caste, class, and the environment will be studied in depth.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-POWER or FC-VALUES.
Making Connections Gen Ed: PH, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: WGST 167.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 180.  Introduction to Islamic Civilization.  3 Credits.  

A broad, comprehensive, and interdisciplinary introduction to the traditional civilization of the Muslim world. Students may not receive credit for both RELI 180/ASIA 180 and ASIA 138/HIST 138.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-KNOWING or FC-PAST.
Making Connections Gen Ed: HS, BN, WB.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: RELI 180.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 181.  Modern Muslim Societies.  3 Credits.  

This course surveys important developments in modern Muslim societies since the 16th century and up to the present. Topics covered include Muslim experiences with colonialism and nationalism, modernist reform movements, fundamentalism, women's activism and changes in Qur'an interpretation, Islamic law, and religious practice. Students may not receive credit for both RELI 181/ASIA 181 and ASIA 139/HIST 139.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-PAST.
Making Connections Gen Ed: HS, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: RELI 181.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 183.  Asian Religions.  3 Credits.  

An introduction to major religions of South Asia and East Asia, such as Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, and Shinto.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-KNOWING.
Making Connections Gen Ed: BN, WB.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: RELI 183.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 211.  The Silk Road: Markets, Metaphysics, and Music.  3 Credits.  

This course examines interactions across the Eurasian continent between Russians, Chinese, Mongolian nomads, Arabs, and Europeans during the last millennium and a half as empires rose and religions, trade, and cultures flowed across this vast space. While we will treat the Silk Road as one entity, there were actually three distinct Silk Roads.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-PAST.
Making Connections Gen Ed: BN, GL.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 228.  Contested Souls: Literature, the Arts, and Religious Identity in Modern India.  3 Credits.  

An analysis of how historical interactions between Hinduism and Islam have inspired the creation of philosophies and great works of literature and art that continue to inform Indian society today.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-AESTH or FC-GLOBAL.
Making Connections Gen Ed: LA, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 229.  Breakdancers, Vocaloids, and Gamers: East Asian Youth Cultures.  3 Credits.  

Youth subcultural practices studied across East Asia. Course examines how young people create meaningful social worlds, from cosplay to skateboarding to video gaming communities. Considers how changes in consumerism, body image, education, and family produce a volatile landscape for youth along the Pacific Rim.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-KNOWING.
Making Connections Gen Ed: SS, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 231.  Bollywood Cinema.  3 Credits.  

This course explores the development of the Indian cinema, with particular emphasis on the Hindi-Urdu films produced in Mumbai (Bollywood).

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-AESTH or FC-KNOWING.
Making Connections Gen Ed: VP, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 233.  Drugs, Sex, and Sovereignty in East Asia, 1800-1945.  3 Credits.  

East Asia's thousand-year superiority in global trade was lost when Britain began illegally selling massive amounts of opium in the 18th century, causing cultural and political changes in Japan and China. This course will analyze these changes in terms of sexuality and political sovereignty from 1800 until World War II.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-PAST or FC-VALUES.
Making Connections Gen Ed: BN, GL.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 235.  Israeli Cinema: Gender, Nation, and Ethnicity.  3 Credits.  

The course explores major periods and trends in Israeli cinema. Focus is given to issues pertaining to gender, ethnicity, and the construction of national identity. Honors version available.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-AESTH.
Making Connections Gen Ed: VP, BN, GL.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: JWST 235, PWAD 235.  
ASIA 240.  Performance in Southeast Asia: Gongs, Punks, and Shadow Plays.  3 Credits.  

The study and comparison of contemporary Southeast Asian performance genres (music, theatre, dance, ritual) in historical and cultural contexts.

Rules & Requirements  
Making Connections Gen Ed: BN, GL.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: MUSC 240.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 255.  The Feast in Film, Fiction, and Philosophy.  3 Credits.  

Comparative and interdisciplinary study of feasting and its philosophical underpinnings, with special attention to the multiple purposes and nuances of food and feasting in literature, film, and the visual arts. Honors version available.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-AESTH.
Making Connections Gen Ed: VP.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: CMPL 255.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 256.  Love in Classical Persian Poetry.  3 Credits.  

We will examine the binaries of sacred and profane love, transgression and the law, self and the other, human diversity and inclusiveness in classical Persian poetry. We will explore the intersections of class, gender, sexuality, religion, etc. We will explore the poems inside their historical, cultural, and social contexts.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-AESTH or FC-GLOBAL.
Making Connections Gen Ed: LA, CI, WB.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: CMPL 256.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 258.  Iranian Prison Literature.  3 Credits.  

This course explores literature written in prisons, particularly under the Islamic Republic. Students will read documents to understand human rights (and violations thereof) from a historical perspective. Since literature, film, philosophy, and theory offer invaluable perspectives, we will examine their contributions in the reflection on human rights in Iran's prisons.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-POWER, COMMBEYOND.
Making Connections Gen Ed: LA, BN, CI.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: CMPL 258.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 260.  Languages of Southeast Asia.  3 Credits.  

This course surveys languages spoken in Southeast Asia, an area rich in linguistic diversity, which is home to more than five distinct language families and well over 1,000 individual languages. Students will investigate the languages--in situ and in the diaspora--through the lens of descriptive linguistics, and will explore the social, cultural, and political aspects of languages in the region. This course is appropriate for students with an interest in linguistics or in Southeast Asia.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL.
Making Connections Gen Ed: BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: LING 260.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 261.  India and Orientalism.  3 Credits.  

This course examines the history of Orientalism with respect to India, and in particular, the ways in which the people and cultures of India have been (mis)represented by Europeans and North Americans in fiction, travel writing, TV shows, and films, from the colonial period to the present.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-POWER.
Making Connections Gen Ed: LA, GL.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: CMPL 261.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 262.  Nation, Film, and Novel in Modern India.  3 Credits.  

Focus on how modern Indian writers and filmmakers have represented the creation of an Indian national identity through such historical periods as British colonialism, the Rebellion of 1857, the Indian Independence Movement, the Partition, and the eras of national integration and globalization.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-AESTH or FC-PAST.
Making Connections Gen Ed: LA, GL.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
ASIA 265.  Eastern Asia.  3 Credits.  

Spatial structure of population, urbanization, agriculture, industrialization, and regional links in China, Japan, and Korea. (Regional)

Rules & Requirements  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: GEOG 265.  
ASIA 266.  Arts of Early & Medieval India.  3 Credits.  

Required preparation, any introductory art history course or permission of the instructor. This course is an introduction to the visual culture of early and medieval India.

Rules & Requirements  
Making Connections Gen Ed: VP, BN, WB.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: ARTH 266.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 267.  South Asia.  3 Credits.  

Introduces students to the geography of South Asia, including an overview of the physical environment, cultural practices, and economic development. Emphasizes the political geography of South Asia and political and social processes such as nationalism and colonialism that have played a formative role in the region.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-POWER.
Making Connections Gen Ed: BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: GEOG 267.  
ASIA 272.  Modern South Asia.  3 Credits.  

Provides students with a critical understanding of the political, economic, and social dynamics of contemporary South Asia. Themes explored include the development (or lack of) democratic structures, continuing relevance of caste and religion, emergence of right wing movements, contesting representations of the past, and the prospects and challenges confronting the region.

Rules & Requirements  
Making Connections Gen Ed: HS, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: HIST 272.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 276.  The Modern Middle East.  3 Credits.  

This course introduces students to the recent history of the Middle East, including a comparison of the Middle East to the United States.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-PAST.
Making Connections Gen Ed: HS, BN, GL.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: HIST 276.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 277.  The Conflict over Israel/Palestine.  3 Credits.  

Explores the conflict over Palestine during the last 100 years. Surveys the development of competing nationalisms, the contest for resources and political control that led to the partition of the region, the war that established a Jewish state, and the subsequent struggles between conflicting groups for land and independence.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-PAST.
Making Connections Gen Ed: HS, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: HIST 277, PWAD 277.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 279.  Islamic Law, Ethics, and Practice.  3 Credits.  

This course provides an introduction to Islamic law in its connection to religious ethics and diverse ritual practices, both in the premodern and modern periods, and through an analysis of local contexts and global flows of ideas and practices that determine what is considered "Islamic" about laws, ethics, and practices.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-KNOWING.
Making Connections Gen Ed: PH, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: RELI 279.  
ASIA 280.  Hindu Gods and Goddesses.  3 Credits.  

This courses focuses on the ways Hindu gods and goddesses are experienced in South Asia through analysis of literary works, including texts, film, comic books, performance, and ethnography. We will also examine key Hindu concepts (dharma, karma, and caste) in Hindu religious narratives. Honors version available.

Rules & Requirements  
Making Connections Gen Ed: LA, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: RELI 280.  
ASIA 281.  The Pacific War, 1937-1945: Its Causes and Legacy.  3 Credits.  

An examination of the origins of the Pacific War, the course of this bitter and momentous conflict, and its complex legacy for both Asia and the United States.

Rules & Requirements  
Making Connections Gen Ed: HS, BN, GL.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: HIST 281, PWAD 281.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 282.  China in the World.  3 Credits.  

This course explores the evolution of China as a geopolitical entity from global perspectives, 1350 to the present.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-PAST.
Making Connections Gen Ed: HS, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: HIST 282.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 283.  Chairman Mao's China in World History.  3 Credits.  

To put the recent transformation of the People's Republic of China in context, the course examines the different facets of Maoism that governed the country in its early years. It highlights Maoism as a global force that paved the way for China's re-integration into the world order. Honors version available.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-PAST.
Making Connections Gen Ed: HS, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: HIST 283.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 284.  The Buddhist Tradition: East Asia.  3 Credits.  

An examination of the development of Buddhism after its importation to East Asia.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-PAST.
Making Connections Gen Ed: BN, WB.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: RELI 284.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 285.  The Buddhist Tradition: Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka.  3 Credits.  

This course explores the Theravada school of Buddhism and themes in the social, cultural, and political lives of the Theravada Buddhist countries of Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-KNOWING or FC-VALUES.
Making Connections Gen Ed: BN, CI.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: RELI 285.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 288.  Modern Japan.  3 Credits.  

Explores Japan's history, culture, and society from the Meiji Restoration of 1868 to the present.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-PAST.
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: HIST 288.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 300.  The Buddhist Tradition: India, Nepal, and Tibet.  3 Credits.  

Examines the diverse beliefs, practices, and cultures associated with Buddhism in the Himalayan regions of India, Nepal, and Tibet. Topics include Buddhism's development and spread, the cultural dynamics of Himalayan societies, monasticism, folk religion, revivalism, tourism, gender, globalization, and the role of the state in shaping Buddhist life and culture.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-KNOWING or FC-VALUES.
Making Connections Gen Ed: PH, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: RELI 283.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 301.  Premodern Japanese Religions.  3 Credits.  

Historical survey of the major premodern religious traditions in Japan: Shinto, Buddhism, Shugendo, and Christianity.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-PAST.
Making Connections Gen Ed: BN, WB.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: RELI 286.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 302.  Modern Japanese Religions.  3 Credits.  

Survey of the major religious traditions in modern and contemporary Japan: Shinto, Buddhism, and the New Religions.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-KNOWING.
Making Connections Gen Ed: SS, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: RELI 287.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 303.  Chinese Religions.  3 Credits.  

Historical introduction to Chinese religions: Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism, and folk religion.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-PAST.
Making Connections Gen Ed: BN, WB.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: RELI 288.  
ASIA 304.  Sex, Religion, and Violence: Revolutionary Thought in Modern South Asia.  3 Credits.  

Which of the following would you consider potentially political issues: celibacy; semen retention; body-building; depiction of gods/goddesses; or bomb making? Well, they all are. This course examines debates over sex, religion, and violence that constituted a key part of revolutionary thought and anti-colonial struggles in modern South Asia.

Rules & Requirements  
Making Connections Gen Ed: HS, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: HIST 331.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 329.  Middle East Women Writers.  3 Credits.  

We examine works written by Middle Eastern women. We will begin with reading speeches and short stories in the 1860s. We will focus on topics such as Middle Eastern women and feminism and the West; women and nationalism; women and colonialism; women and patriarchy; women, sexuality, and religion.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-POWER.
Making Connections Gen Ed: LA, CI, GL.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: WGST 329.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 330.  Melancholy Japan: Myth, Memory, and Everyday Life.  3 Credits.  

Ethnographic study of the profound social and cultural transformations that accompanied the capitalist modernization of Japan. Considers the emergence of native ethnology and state interventions into everyday life.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-KNOWING.
Making Connections Gen Ed: SS, BN, CI.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: ANTH 330.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 331.  Cracking India: Partition and Its Legacy in South Asia.  3 Credits.  

What happened when the British carved Pakistan out of the predominately Muslim corners of India? Readings and films focus on the causes and consequences of this event, the Partition of India. Honors version available.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-PAST, RESEARCH.
Making Connections Gen Ed: HS, BN, GL.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: PWAD 331, HIST 335.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 332.  The Story of Rama in India.  3 Credits.  

Centered on the story of the Hindu god Rama, this course explores Valmiki's Ramayana, alternate versions of the story, its performance in theatre, and its role in politics. Students may not receive credit for both ASIA 332 and ASIA 382.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-AESTH or FC-KNOWING.
Making Connections Gen Ed: LA, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 333.  The Mahabharata: Remembered and Reimagined.  3 Credits.  

Introduction to Vyasa's Mahabharata as well as adaptations of the story in literature, theater, and film. Students may not receive credit for both ASIA 333 and ASIA 383.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-KNOWING or FC-VALUES.
Making Connections Gen Ed: LA, WB.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 342.  Cultural Productions of East Asia.  3 Credits.  

This course introduces cultural productions of East Asia since the 20th century. We will learn about literature, film, food, philosophy, and political struggles of the nations that are grouped in the geographical category of East Asia. This course investigates those cultural productions within the frameworks of colonialism, globalization, gender relations as well as nationalism.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-AESTH or FC-GLOBAL.
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 350.  The Asian American Experience.  3 Credits.  

The course addresses the history and sociology of Asian immigration and experience in the United States, as well as the formation of diasporic identities among Asian Americans.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-PAST or FC-POWER, RESEARCH.
Making Connections Gen Ed: HS, NA, US.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: AMST 352.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 353.  Southeast Asian North Carolina.  3 Credits.  

Drawing from Asian American Studies and Asian Studies, the course explores the political histories and lived experiences of Southeast Asians and Southeast Asian Americans in North Carolina. Students will consider issues relevant to NC Southeast Asian communities such as food justice, labor organizing, mental health support, anti-racism work, transnational connections, etc. Course materials will include both written academic works and first-person narrative accounts from local community members.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-POWER.
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: AMST 353.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 358.  Religion and Tradition in Israeli Cinema, TV, and Literature.  3 Credits.  

This research-intensive course focuses on the ways religion and religious practices are represented in Israeli literature and media. The greater part of the semester will explore the variety of religious traditions in Israel within the framework of Zionist thought, gender and sexuality issues, and ethnic differences.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-POWER, RESEARCH.
Making Connections Gen Ed: LA, BN, CI.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: JWST 358.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 359.  Literary Diasporas of the Middle East.  3 Credits.  

Analyzing the relationship between the diaspora communities and their new surroundings by drawing on theories of migration, narration, and identity, we will examine the literature born out of this discourse. We will shed light on the historical, cultural, and aesthetic value of this literary production in the Middle East.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-POWER.
Making Connections Gen Ed: LA, BN, CI.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: CMPL 359.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 360.  Contemporary Asian American Literature and Theory.  3 Credits.  

This course will explore contemporary Asian American literature and theory and will examine how Asian American literature fits into, yet extends beyond, the canon of American literature.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-AESTH or FC-POWER.
Making Connections Gen Ed: LA, US.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: ENGL 360.  
ASIA 365.  Chinese Diaspora in the Asia Pacific.  3 Credits.  

This course is an examination of the histories, social organization, and cultures of the Chinese diaspora in the Asia-Pacific region, focusing on contemporary issues in the cultural politics and identities of "overseas Chinese." Previously offered as ANTH/ASIA 578.

Rules & Requirements  
Making Connections Gen Ed: BN, CI, GL.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: ANTH 365.  
ASIA 375.  Memory, Massacres, and Monuments in Southeast Asia.  3 Credits.  

The past in Southeast Asia's present, focusing on global, national, and local processes; individual and collective memory; and the legacies of violent death.

Rules & Requirements  
Making Connections Gen Ed: BN, GL.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: ANTH 375.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 379.  Cowboys, Samurai, and Rebels in Film and Fiction.  3 Credits.  

Cross-cultural definitions of heroism, individualism, and authority in film and fiction, with emphasis on tales or images that have been translated across cultures. Includes films of Ford, Kurosawa, and Visconti. Honors version available.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-AESTH or FC-GLOBAL.
Making Connections Gen Ed: VP.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: CMPL 379.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 380.  Almost Despicable Heroines in Japanese and Western Literature.  3 Credits.  

Authors' use of narrative techniques to create the separation between heroines and their fictional societies and sometimes also to alienate readers from the heroines. Austen, Flaubert, Ibsen, Arishima, Tanizaki, Abe.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-AESTH or FC-GLOBAL.
Making Connections Gen Ed: LA.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: CMPL 380, WGST 380.  
ASIA 381.  Religions of South Asia.  3 Credits.  

Exploration of the major religious traditions of South Asia. Focuses on the beliefs and practices associated with different traditions, and the ways that these relate to one another and to broader political, historical, and cultural formations. Also addresses questions of modernization, reform, communal violence, and other transformations of religious life.

Rules & Requirements  
Making Connections Gen Ed: SS, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: RELI 381.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 382.  The Story of Rama in Indian Culture--Experiential.  3 Credits.  

Explores Valmiki's Ramayana (story of the Hindu god Rama), alternate versions of the story, its performance in theater, and its role in politics. Students work outside of class to stage scenes from the Ramayana, open to the public. Students may not receive credit for both ASIA 332 and ASIA 382.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-AESTH or FC-KNOWING, HI-PERFORM.
Making Connections Gen Ed: LA, BN, EE- Performing Arts.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: RELI 382.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 383.  The Mahabharata: Remembered and Reimagined--Experiential.  3 Credits.  

Introduction to the classical Mahabharata as well as modern retellings of the epic in contemporary literature, film, and theater of India. Students work outside class to stage one or more scenes from the Mahabharata, open to the public. Students may not receive credit for both ASIA 333 and ASIA 383.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-KNOWING or FC-VALUES.
Making Connections Gen Ed: LA, BN, EE- Performing Arts.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: RELI 383.  
ASIA 384.  Religion and Globalization in Southeast Asia.  3 Credits.  

How does globalization affect religious life? How do historical, cultural, and religious traditions mediate the experience of globalization in particular locales? This course analyzes the forces and practices associated with political-economic and cultural globalization in Southeast Asia and explores the religious transformations and innovations that these processes have inspired.

Rules & Requirements  
Making Connections Gen Ed: SS, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: RELI 384.  
ASIA 386.  Dance and Embodied Knowledge in the Indian Context.  3 Credits.  

In this theory-practice course focusing on religion, performance, and South Asian studies we will analyze the nature of embodied knowledge, aesthetic theory, and the creative power of dance performance in the Indian context. The course also includes a practical component involving embodied experience with Indian classical dance forms.

Rules & Requirements  
Making Connections Gen Ed: VP, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: RELI 386, COMM 386.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 387.  Disciplining the Body and Mind: The Martial Arts of East Asia in Religion, History, and Culture.  3 Credits.  

This course offers an introduction to the history and practice of East Asian martial arts. We will explore the social, political, and cultural contexts of the martial arts, from the classical period to the present. Integral to this course is a practical component involving embodied experience with martial arts training.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-KNOWING, HI-PERFORM.
Making Connections Gen Ed: BN, EE- Performing Arts.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: RELI 387, COMM 387.  
ASIA 390.  Seminar in Asian Studies.  3 Credits.  

When offered, the topic will vary with the instructor. The class will be limited to a seminar size.

Rules & Requirements  
Repeat Rules: May be repeated for credit; may be repeated in the same term for different topics; 12 total credits. 4 total completions.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 418.  Family and Gender in Early Modern China and Korea.  3 Credits.  

This course explores family and kinship in early modern China and Korea through the lens of gender and sexuality. In particular, it invites students to think beyond the bias that women in premodern East Asia were victims of patriarchy to understand their active participation in their world-making as well as their dynamic imagination and expression through writing, working, learning, loving.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-PAST or FC-POWER.
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: HIST 418, WGST 418.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 425.  Beyond Hostilities: Israeli-Palestinian Exchanges and Partnerships in Film, Literature, and Music.  3 Credits.  

Focuses on the various collaborations, exchanges, and mutual enrichment between Israelis and Palestinians in the realm of culture, particularly literature and cinema. These connections include language (Israeli Jewish authors writing in Arabic and Palestinian writers who choose Hebrew as their language of expression), collaborating in filmmaking, and joint educational initiatives.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-POWER.
Making Connections Gen Ed: BN, GL.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: PWAD 425, JWST 425.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 427.  Cold War Culture in East Asia: Transnational and Intermedial Connections.  3 Credits.  

This course introduces students to the specific contours that the Cold War accrued in East Asia. Focusing on literature and film, it explores what the fall of the Japanese Empire and the emergence of the post-1945 world meant across the region.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-VALUES.
Making Connections Gen Ed: LA, BN, CI.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: CMPL 527, PWAD 427.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 429.  Culture and Power in Southeast Asia.  3 Credits.  

The formation and transformation of values, identities, and expressive forms in Southeast Asia in response to forms of power. Emphasis on the impact of colonialism, the nation-state, and globalization.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-POWER.
Making Connections Gen Ed: SS, BN, GL.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: ANTH 429, FOLK 429.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 431.  Persian Sufi Literature.  3 Credits.  

This course aims to explore Persian Sufism, its foundation, Sufi practices and doctrines, and Sufi themes in literature. By looking at its development, we will examine the nature of Sufism, the controversies and debates, and the influence of Sufism on the literary dimension of the Islamic world.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-AESTH or FC-GLOBAL.
Making Connections Gen Ed: LA, CI, GL.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 435.  The Cinemas of the Middle East and North Africa.  3 Credits.  

This course explores the social, cultural, political, and economic contexts in which films are made and exhibited and focuses on shared intra-regional cinematic trends pertaining to discourse, aesthetics, and production.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-AESTH or FC-GLOBAL.
Making Connections Gen Ed: VP, BN, GL.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: PWAD 435, CMPL 535.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 436.  Language, Exile, and Homeland in Zionist Thought and Practice.  3 Credits.  

Employing Zionist and post- and anti-Zionist documents, treatises, and mostly literary and cinematic texts, this class will focus on the relations between language, Jewish-Israeli identity, and the notion of homeland. Previously offered as HEBR 436.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-POWER.
Making Connections Gen Ed: BN, GL.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: JWST 436.  
ASIA 440.  Gender in Indian History.  3 Credits.  

An analysis of the roles of women and men in Indian societies from the early to the modern periods. Topics include the cultural construction of gender and sexuality; beauty and bodily practices; gender and religion; gender and politics; race, imperialism, and gender. Previously offered as HIST/ASIA 556.

Rules & Requirements  
Making Connections Gen Ed: HS, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: HIST 440.  
ASIA 441.  Religion, Co-existence, and Conflict in Pre-Colonial India.  3 Credits.  

This course traces the fascinating history of material, cultural, and theological exchanges and conflicts between individuals belonging to two of the world's major religions: Hinduism and Islam. Throughout the course we will also analyze how modern commentators have selectively used the past to inform their understandings of the present. Previously offered as HIST/ASIA 555.

Rules & Requirements  
Making Connections Gen Ed: HS, WB.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: HIST 442.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 442.  Postcolonial Literature of the Middle East.  3 Credits.  

This course introduces students to postcolonial literature and theory. The main focus in the course is on literary texts and literary analysis. However, we will use postcolonial theory to engage critically with the primary texts within a postcolonial framework. We will explore language, identity, physical and mental colonization, and decolonization.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-AESTH or FC-GLOBAL, RESEARCH.
Making Connections Gen Ed: LA, CI, GL.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: CMPL 442.  
ASIA 445.  Asian Religions in America.  3 Credits.  

A study of intercultural interaction and interreligious encounter focusing on Asian religions in America, 1784 to the present.

Rules & Requirements  
Making Connections Gen Ed: GL, US.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: RELI 445.  
ASIA 447.  Gender, Space, and Place in the Middle East.  3 Credits.  

Examines gender, space, and place relationships in the modern Middle East. Investigates shifting gender geographies of colonialism, nationalism, modernization, and globalization in this region. (GHA)

Rules & Requirements  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: GEOG 447, WGST 447.  
ASIA 453.  Global Shangri-La: Tibet in the Modern World.  3 Credits.  

An examination of the history, society, and culture of modern Tibet and its imagination in the context of international politics and from a multidisciplinary perspective.

Rules & Requirements  
Making Connections Gen Ed: SS, BN, GL.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 462.  The Arab-Jews: Culture, Community, and Coexistence.  3 Credits.  

This course is designed to examine Jewish life in Arab lands in the last century by examining culture, language, and the communal life that the Arab-Jews shared with their neighbors.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-POWER.
Making Connections Gen Ed: BN, GL.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: JWST 462, PWAD 462.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 469.  Asian Economic Systems.  3 Credits.  

This course provides an in-depth examination of the behavioral principles and performances of five core Asian economic systems: Japan, China, Taiwan/South Korea, North Korea and Thailand.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL.
Requisites: Prerequisites, ECON 400, and 310 or 410; a grade of C or better in ECON 400, and 310 or 410 is required.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: ECON 469.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 471.  Gender and Sexuality in Middle Eastern Literature.  3 Credits.  

We examine gender and sexuality in literature written by various authors from the Middle East. Our discussions will focus on the significance of sexuality, harems, same-sex desire and homosexuality, construction of female sexuality, masculinity, contraception and abortion, the institution of marriage, gay/lesbian underground subcultures, and social media as sexual outlet.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-POWER, RESEARCH.
Making Connections Gen Ed: LA, CI, GL.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: WGST 471.  
ASIA 482.  Sex, Gender, and Religion in South Asia.  3 Credits.  

This seminar draws on feminist and philosophical theory, including the works of Plato, Butler, and Foucualt, as well as postcolonial theory, to explore the categories of sex and gender in South Asian religions. We also analyze the moral cultivation of the self in relation to gender identity in South Asia.

Rules & Requirements  
Making Connections Gen Ed: PH, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: RELI 482, WGST 482.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 483.  Cross-Currents in East-West Literature.  3 Credits.  

The study of the influence of Western texts upon Japanese authors and the influence of conceptions of "the East" upon Western writers. Goldsmith, Voltaire, Soseki, Sterne, Arishima, Ibsen, Yoshimoto, Ishiguro.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-AESTH or FC-GLOBAL.
Making Connections Gen Ed: LA, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: CMPL 483.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 485.  Gender and Sexuality in Islam.  3 Credits.  

This course approaches constructions of gender and sexuality in Muslim societies in diverse historical and geographical contexts. It focuses on changing interpretations of gender roles and sexual norms. Themes include gender in Islamic law, sexual ethics, masculinity, homosexuality, marriage, and dress.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-POWER, RESEARCH.
Making Connections Gen Ed: BN, CI.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: RELI 485.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 486.  Islam and Feminism/Islamic Feminism.  3 Credits.  

This course explores Muslim women scholars, activists, and movements that have, over the course of the past 150 years, participated in the debate about the compatibility and relationship of Islam and feminism. It offers an introduction to feminist debates about religion and patriarchy focusing on Islam as 'other' and juxtaposes it critical analysis of contextual expressions of Muslim and Islamic feminist activists, thinkers, and movements that challenge and change gender norms and practices.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-POWER.
Making Connections Gen Ed: BN, GL.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: RELI 486.  
ASIA 487.  Mountains, Pilgrimage, and Sacred Places in Japan.  3 Credits.  

This course explores the role that mountains and pilgrimage have played in Japanese cosmology and how they relate to methodology of studying place and space.

Rules & Requirements  
Making Connections Gen Ed: BN, CI.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: RELI 487.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 488.  Shinto in Japanese History.  3 Credits.  

This course discusses the development of Shinto in Japanese history and covers themes such as myths, syncretism, sacred sites, iconography, nativism, religion and the state, and historiography.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-PAST.
Making Connections Gen Ed: BN, CI, WB.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: RELI 488.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 489.  Animals in Japanese Religion.  3 Credits.  

Permission of the instructor. This course examines the cultural construction of animals in Japanese myth, folklore, and religion.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-KNOWING.
Making Connections Gen Ed: LA, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: RELI 489.  
ASIA 490.  Advanced Topics in Asian Studies.  1-4 Credits.  

The course topic will vary with the instructor.

Rules & Requirements  
Repeat Rules: May be repeated for credit; may be repeated in the same term for different topics; 12 total credits. 3 total completions.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
ASIA 496.  Independent Readings.  1-3 Credits.  

Permission of the department. For the student who wishes to create and pursue a project in Asian studies under the supervision of a selected instructor. Course is limited to three credit hours per semester.

Rules & Requirements  
Repeat Rules: May be repeated for credit; may be repeated in the same term for different topics; 12 total credits. 4 total completions.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 522.  Beauty and Power in the Classical Indian World.  3 Credits.  

This course combines readings in representative literary cultures in Sanskrit and several other literary languages from India's classical period in translation, emphasizing poetry and related aesthetic theories, with scholarly readings on Sanskrit poetics, and the literary history of the period. Seminar format.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-AESTH or FC-KNOWING, RESEARCH.
Making Connections Gen Ed: LA, WB.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
ASIA 536.  Revolution in the Modern Middle East.  3 Credits.  

This course will focus on revolutionary change in the Middle East during the last century, emphasizing internal social, economic, and political conditions as well as international contexts.

Rules & Requirements  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: HIST 536.  
ASIA 537.  Women in the Middle East.  3 Credits.  

Explores the lives of women in the Middle East and how they have changed over time. Focus will change each year.

Rules & Requirements  
Making Connections Gen Ed: HS, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: HIST 537, WGST 537.  
ASIA 538.  The Middle East and the West.  3 Credits.  

This course explores changing interactions between the Middle East and the West, including trade, warfare, scientific exchange, and imperialism, and ends with an analysis of contemporary relations in light of the legacy of the past.

Rules & Requirements  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: HIST 538.  
ASIA 539.  The Economic History of Southeast Asia.  3 Credits.  

This course is intended as a broad overview of Southeast Asian economic history from premodern times to the present day.

Rules & Requirements  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: HIST 539.  
ASIA 545.  The Politics of Culture in East Asia.  3 Credits.  

Examines struggles to define culture and the nation in 20th-century China in domains like popular culture, museums, traditional medicine, fiction, film, ethnic group politics, and biography and autobiography.

Rules & Requirements  
Making Connections Gen Ed: SS, BN, GL.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: ANTH 545.  
ASIA 557.  Fiction and History in India.  3 Credits.  

This course examines the histories, representations, and cultural perceptions surrounding bandits and rebels in modern India. The representations of bandits and rebels are studied in the light of the emergence of nationalism, shifting notions of gender and masculinity, race relations, and emergence of capitalist structures.

Rules & Requirements  
Making Connections Gen Ed: HS, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: HIST 557.  
ASIA 570.  The Vietnam War.  3 Credits.  

A wide-ranging exploration of America's longest war, from 19th-century origins to 1990s legacies, from village battlegrounds to the Cold War context, from national leadership to popular participation and impact.

Rules & Requirements  
Making Connections Gen Ed: HS, GL.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: HIST 570, PWAD 570.  
ASIA 574.  Chinese World Views.  3 Credits.  

Explores the indigenous Chinese sciences and the cosmological ideas that informed them. Topics include astronomy, divination, medicine, fengshui, and political and literary theory. Chinese sources in translation are emphasized.

Rules & Requirements  
Making Connections Gen Ed: SS, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: ANTH 574, RELI 574.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 581.  Sufism.  3 Credits.  

Permission of the instructor. A survey of Islamic mysticism, its sources in the Qur'an and the Prophet Muhammad, and its literary, cultural, and social deployment in Arab, Persian, Indic, and Turkish regions.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-PAST.
Making Connections Gen Ed: BN, WB.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: RELI 581.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 582.  Islam and Islamic Art in South Asia.  3 Credits.  

A survey of the formation of Islamic traditions in the subcontinent from the eighth century to the present, with emphasis on religion and politics, the role of Sufism, types of popular religion, and questions of Islamic identity.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-PAST.
Making Connections Gen Ed: HS, BN, WB.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: RELI 582.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 583.  Religion and Culture in Iran, 1500-Present.  3 Credits.  

Iran from the rise of the Safavid empire to the Islamic Republic. Topics include Shi'ism, politics, intellectual and sectarian movements, encounters with colonialism, art and architecture, music, literature.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-GLOBAL or FC-PAST.
Making Connections Gen Ed: HS, BN, WB.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: RELI 583.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 584.  The Qur'an as Literature.  3 Credits.  

A nontheological approach to the Qur'an as a literary text, emphasizing its history, form, style, and interpretation.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-AESTH or FC-PAST.
Making Connections Gen Ed: LA, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: RELI 584.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 587.  Islam and Sexual Diversity.  3 Credits.  

This course explores sexual norms and practices in Muslim contexts in the premodern and modern periods. It considers theories from sexuality, gender, and queer studies, and focuses on the contextual production of sexual norms, going beyond the sex and gender binary, and reflecting on a diverse range of sexual practices in Muslim communities and societies, analyzing concepts such as power, pleasure, control, as they are mapped onto and lived in diverse Muslim bodies.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: FC-POWER or FC-VALUES.
Making Connections Gen Ed: PH, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: RELI 587.  
ASIA 681.  Readings in Islamicate Literatures.  3 Credits.  

Permission of the instructor. Study of selected religious, literary, and historical texts in Arabic, Persian, or Urdu.

Rules & Requirements  
Repeat Rules: May be repeated for credit. 6 total credits. 2 total completions.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: RELI 681, ARAB 681.  
ASIA 682.  Contemporary Chinese Society.  3 Credits.  

Presents recent anthropological research on the People's Republic of China. In addition to social sciences sources, fictional genres are used to explore the particular modernity of Chinese society and culture.

Rules & Requirements  
Making Connections Gen Ed: SS, BN.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
Same as: ANTH 682.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 691H.  Senior Honors Thesis I.  3 Credits.  

Permission of the department. Required for honors students in Asian studies.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: RESEARCH.
Making Connections Gen Ed: EE- Mentored Research.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
IDEAs in Action General Education logoASIA 692H.  Senior Honors Thesis II.  3 Credits.  

Permission of the department. Required for honors students in Asian studies.

Rules & Requirements  
IDEAs in Action General Education logo IDEAs in Action Gen Ed: RESEARCH.
Making Connections Gen Ed: EE- Mentored Research.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
ASIA 720.  Methods and Themes in Asian and Middle Eastern History.  3 Credits.  

This graduate-level course introduces recent scholarly publications in the broad field of Asian history. Covered themes include environmental history and space, colonial and urban contexts, daily life, and margins.

Rules & Requirements  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
ASIA 721.  Transnational Feminisms of the Middle East and South Asia.  3 Credits.  

This seminar introduces students to transnational feminisms of the Middle East and South Asia. It examines a diverse range of women's thought and responses to the global and the local in this part of the world, with a focus on theoretical paradigms and tools to better understand women in a global context. Research methods also emphasized in this seminar.

Rules & Requirements  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
ASIA 722.  Asia in Motion: TransAsia and Transpacific Approaches to the Study of Asia.  3 Credits.  

This graduate seminar examines theoretical and research texts related to the mobility of people, languages, ideas, and cultures across Asia and the Pacific. This course aims to critically investigate Asia's past and present with TransAsia and Transpacific perspectives through examining five main themes related to Asian mobilities; 1) Empires, 2) Labor, 3) Transnational Family, 4) Language and Media, and 5) Citizenship.

Rules & Requirements  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
ASIA 723.  Sound, Sensations, Transnational Asia.  3 Credits.  

This course explores sound practices and sensations arising around lives in transnational Asia. Transnational, meaning anything that challenges the notion of rigid boundary of the nation-state and citizenship. Indigeneity, immigration, colonialism, exile, and diaspora are all part of the sonic discourses of this course. The sounds and listening practices found in a wide range of Asia in general (East, South Southeast, West Asia, and Asian America/West) are covered in this course.

Rules & Requirements  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
ASIA 725.  Critical Approaches to Asian and Middle Eastern Studies.  3 Credits.  

This interdisciplinary graduate seminar is a foundational course for the M.A. in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. The seminar introduces critical theories and disciplinary and interdisciplinary methodologies in studying South Asia, East Asia, and the Middle East. It studies the regions in part and as a whole by applying regional, transnational and global lenses, taking seriously relevant languages, cultural formations, histories, and philosophies. The seminar employs theoretical, ontological and epistemological terrains to critically analyze texts/media.

Rules & Requirements  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
ASIA 730.  The East Asian Anthropocene: Culture, Climate and Colonialism in Japan and China.  3 Credits.  

This course is intended as a graduate seminar devoted to the new topic of the Anthropocene and the ways in which capitalism and climate change have emerged therein. However, we will focus on the ramifications of the Anthropocene for East Asia (especially Japan and China).

Rules & Requirements  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
ASIA 731.  Technologies of Imagination: Science, Cultural Production, East Asia.  3 Credits.  

Focusing on East Asia, this seminar introduces students to scholarly intersections between science studies and literary and cultural studies. Drawing upon recent scholarship from these fields, it explores the intertwined pasts and presents of scientific, technological, and cultural production. In so doing, it challenges students to think critically about the contingent nature of disciplinary boundaries and the centrality of East Asia's place in global flows of knowledge, objects, and expression.

Rules & Requirements  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
ASIA 732.  Making: Technology and Material in Modern East Asia.  3 Credits.  

This graduate seminar introduces students to the joint methods of material culture studies and the history of science and technology with a focus on early modern and modern East Asia. It interweaves the two fields of study through the framework of "making." The course comprises two components -- reading-based discussion and research. Students will learn, evaluate, and build research methods through discussion and use them to conduct research and write research papers.

Rules & Requirements  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
ASIA 740.  Chinese Civilization: A Conceptual History.  3 Credits.  

This seminar will look at how terms for concepts of 'civilization' in different languages (Old Chinese, Modern Mandarin, English, Japanese) and different historical periods have been used to refer to what is now China as a "civilization." This graduate seminar explores the roles played by various notions of 'civilization' in the articulation of different conceptualizations of "Chinese civilization."

Rules & Requirements  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
ASIA 741.  Honglou Meng: The Story of the Stone.  3 Credits.  

This course focuses on the most celebrated novel titled Honglou Meng or The Story of the Stone by Cao Xueqin (1715-1763). This 120-chapter-long novel tells the downfall of a great aristocratic family that is presented as a microcosm of traditional Chinese societies. The novel features all aspects of traditional Chinese cultures including architecture and garden, education, families and interfamilial connections, generational relationships, genders, history, marriages, mythology, philosophies, poetry, etc.

Rules & Requirements  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
ASIA 742.  Indigenous Ecologies in Literatures of China and Taiwan.  3 Credits.  

This seminar applies theories from Postcolonial Ecocriticism and Sinophone Studies to analyze diverse Indigenous ecologies in environmental literature from China and Taiwan. We read poems, philosophy, and fiction featuring the cosmologies of Han and Uyghur farmers, Tibetan, Mongolian, and Kazakh nomads, Indigenous Taiwanese hunters and fishers, and Hmong foragers, analyzing relational ontologies among humans, non-human animals, assemblages, and ecosystems. Knowledge of Chinese language, literature, history, or philosophy recommended but not required.

Rules & Requirements  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
ASIA 743.  Age Studies in Chinese and Sinophone Media.  3 Credits.  

This course examines how old age has been problematized and negotiated in literature and media over the last four decades, when prolonged life expectancy initiated the shift of the PRC, Taiwan, and Hong Kong into aging societies. Engaging with age-themed literary and cinematic materials, spanning memoir and pathography to family melodrama, documentary, and science fiction, students will examine how old age is at once produced and problematized through cultural imaginations.

Rules & Requirements  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
ASIA 770.  The Moving Imagination.  3 Credits.  

This graduate seminar investigates competing concepts of modernity in South Asia as imagined in film and television media. We begin by exploring how notions of modernity have emerged in South Asia, and how film and television have imagined a "modern" society. Particular topics covered include social justice, gender, nation, globalization, and cosmopolitanism. We will also engage with critiques of films, television programs, and Internet-based videos with respect to social justice, environment, and technology.

Rules & Requirements  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
ASIA 771.  Performance in South Asia: Contexts and Theories.  3 Credits.  

This seminar examines a range of performance practices in South Asia, and some of the theories and methods scholars have used to research and understand them. It especially focuses on emerging analytical frameworks and approaches currently shaping the field. In this seminar, "performance" is conceptualized broadly to include aesthetic, social and political forms of performance spanning theatre, dance, musical concerts, film, religious events, military rituals, and so forth.

Rules & Requirements  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
ASIA 780.  Minorities in the Middle East.  3 Credits.  

This course enriches students' understanding of the diversity of Middle Eastern countries, exploring histories of intercommunal contact and conflict. We will investigate contemporary representations and lived realities of religious, ethnic, and sexual minorities of the Middle East from diverse political, cultural, historical and aesthetic perspectives. Although the majority of people living in the Middle East converted to Islam after the Arab conquests, there remained important minorities including indigenous Christians, Jews, and in Iran some Zoroastrians.

Rules & Requirements  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
ASIA 781.  The Body and Body Politics in the Arab World.  3 Credits.  

What is political about the body? This seminar introduces students to social scientific and humanistic approaches to the body. Instead of taking the body as simply a biological entity, it places it within a wider network of meanings, practices, institutions, histories, and forms of power. The course explores the operations of different regimes of power on and in the body and, conversely, shows how the body can become a locus of resistance and creativity.

Rules & Requirements  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
ASIA 782.  Visual Culture of the Middle East.  3 Credits.  

Examines the role of images in the modern ME & how these images shape transnational relationships and conceptions of the region within the global imaginary. How do images "speak"? What role do they play in constructing subjectivities and identities of belonging? What is their relationship to power locally and globally? We will analyze a variety of texts and media (film, photography, video, television, modern art, street art, graphic novels, social media, etc) from the ME.

Rules & Requirements  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
ASIA 783.  Critical Postcolonial Perspectives on the Arab-Jew: Promises and Limitations.  3 Credits.  

This seminar investigates the rise of the radical discourse and literature on the Arab-Jew / Mizrahi in the late 1980s and explores its connection to Israel's "new historians," post-Zionism, and post-nationalism and to Third-worldism. With the increasing presence of the Arab-Jew / Mizrahi in academic discourse and, to an extent, in Israeli (and Arab) media and culture, the original discourse has witnessed various permutations and increasing diversification from its inception to the present.

Rules & Requirements  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
ASIA 785.  Critical Genealogies of Middle East and North Africa Studies.  3 Credits.  

This seminar is the core course for the graduate certificate in Middle East studies. It is an introduction to critical issues in the disciplinary, interdisciplinary, and cross-disciplinary study of the Middle East.

Rules & Requirements  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
ASIA 790.  Graduate Seminar on Topics in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies.  3 Credits.  

The course topic will vary with the instructor.

Rules & Requirements  
Repeat Rules: May be repeated for credit; may be repeated in the same term for different topics; 12 total credits. 4 total completions.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
ASIA 796.  Independent Study in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies.  3 Credits.  

Requires department permission. Student will create and pursue an individual research project in Asian and Middle Eastern studies under the supervision of a selected instructor. Permission of the department.

Rules & Requirements  
Repeat Rules: May be repeated for credit; may be repeated in the same term for different topics; 6 total credits. 2 total completions.  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
ASIA 991.  Research and Writing in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies.  3 Credits.  

This seminar guides students through the major stages and mechanics of thesis writing, including focusing your topic and research questions, finding primary and secondary sources, writing a prospectus and a literature review, developing your argument cohesively across chapters, organizing chapters, building a bibliography, proper citation, and formatting the thesis. The seminar serves as a forum for reading and presenting on academic scholarship in the field and as a writing workshop. DAMES MA students only.

Rules & Requirements  
Grading Status: Letter grade.  
ASIA 993.  Master's Research and Thesis.  3 Credits.  

Individual research in a special field under the direction of a member of the department.

Rules & Requirements  
Repeat Rules: May be repeated for credit.