PMA 4020

U.S. Cultures of War and Empire

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2021-2022.

This course examines the history and afterlives of U.S. war and empire across the Asia/Pacific region and the politics they engender for Asian/Pacific Americans. Since the Philippine American war (1898-1904), the overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani's monarchy (1893) and the subsequent annexation of the Hawaiian Islands (1898), the 20th century has been constituted by U.S. wars and colonial conquests across the Asia/Pacific region. From South Korea to Vietnam, Japan to Cambodia, Laos to Okinawa, U.S. presence has been felt in "hot wars" as well as Cold War discourse, in the U.S. military-industrial complex and its socio-political, cultural and environmental impact within the region. Reckoning with this global U.S. history, students will better understand Asian/Pacific Islander racialization in the U.S. At the same time, we will reckon with Black, indigenous, and Latinx racialization through and against U.S. wars and militarism in Asia. Course themes include: critical refugee studies, U.S. militarism & gender, settler colonialism, transpacific critique, the politics of memory and post-memory.

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