English

This course offers a broad introduction to key debates within economic geography. It explores the geographies of production and global production networks; the re-centering of economic geography through engagement with the Global South and development; the centrality of uneven development in capitalist economic social relations; the connections between globalization and local socio-spatial relations; and alternative or diverse economic practices that challenge neoliberalism. The course challenges students to understand how economic processes of valuation, production, consumption, and exchange play out in practice in time and place.

This seminar engages with key moments in the development of Asian American critical discourses. It takes as its starting point Chih-ming Wang's contention that much of the Asian American critical work that has been produced in Taiwan so far has downplayed or neglected the interdisciplinary and internationalist character of Asian American studies. We will ask: what, then, would constitute an adequate form of engagement with Asian American critical discourses and texts? Our working hypothesis will be that Asian American culture is not a stable pre-constituted object awaiting excavation and recovery; we will instead approach it as a process of contestation and critical reformulation that is not yet settled. Our starting point will be critical accounts of the Asian American movement including the 1968-1969 student strikes at San Francisco State College and UC Berkeley. We will then examine other key moments that may include the following: the controversy over the canonization of Maxine Hong Kingston's _The Woman Warrior_; the murder of Vincent Chin in Detroit; “the fall of the International Hotel” in San Francisco; the heated debates surrounding Ronald Takaki's popular history _Strangers from a Different Shore_; the politics of ethnicity; the near implosion of the Association for Asian American Studies following the granting of a book award for Lois-Ann Yamanaka's novel _Blu's Hanging_; debates concerning the internationalization of Asian American studies; and the stakes involved in reading Asian American literature after the catastrophic events in Japan on March 11, 2011. We will conclude our seminar by asking (following a forum published in the _Journal of Asian American Studies_): has Asian American studies failed? Students in this seminar will be expected to read widely across interdisciplinary debates and to write regularly about the texts in our course readings. Students will have a chance to learn about and use key Asian American studies library resources available in Taiwan.

This foundational course combines theoretical and conceptual thinking from human geography and ways to analyze and understand the reciprocal relationships between humans and their environments, both natural and built. The learning materials are designed to introduce students to key themes and concepts that relate to human/environment relationships seen from the perspective of human geography and related social sciences, ranging from the complex and evolving relationship between society and nature to the significance of urban design for human wellbeing. Students work in small groups to further explore the weekly themes through discussion and practical exercises.

This courses analyzes the ways in which culture and science, as particular forms of culture, interacted and mutually shaped one another throughout history. Topics include: science and technology in culture; space as cultural and scientific matter; time as cultural and scientific matter; the cultural impact of the Scientific Revolution; Industrial Revolution, Romanticism, and the concept of nature; the crisis of science and its cultural import; science and culture in a digital environment.