Gender and Representation of Asian Women
As taught in: Spring 2010
Two women dressed as geishas. (Image courtesy of Aitor Castano.)
Instructors:
Manduhai Buyandelger
MIT Course Number:
21A.470J / SP.448J / WGS.448J
Level:
Undergraduate
Course Features
Course Description
This course explores stereotypes associated with Asian women in colonial, nationalist, state-authoritarian, and global/diasporic narratives about gender and power. Students will read ethnography, cultural studies, and history, and view films to examine the politics and circumstances that create and perpetuate the representation of Asian women as dragon ladies, lotus blossoms, despotic tyrants, desexualized servants, and docile subordinates. Students are introduced to the debates about Orientalism, gender, and power.
No previous knowledge of gender or representation is expected. The readings and movies will offer you the background you need. However, you must do the reading prior to coming to class and attend all lectures and film screenings. Course discussion and writing assignments focus on assigned readings rather than individual library research. Students carry out individual research projects and present their findings in a conference format at the end of the semester and write a five page paper summarizing their findings.
The class meets once per week and follows a seminar format. Students will be expected to attend all class meetings (attendance will be taken), to complete the readings as scheduled on the syllabus, and to come to class prepared to engage in a focused discussion of the issues raised by the readings.
Soh, C. Sarah. The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan. University of Chicago Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780226767772.
Constable, Nicole. Romance on a Global Stage: Pen Pals, Virtual Ethnography, and "Mail Order" Marriages. University of California Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780520238701.
Soh, C. Sarah. The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan. University of Chicago Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780226767772.
Constable, Nicole. Romance on a Global Stage: Pen Pals, Virtual Ethnography, and "Mail Order" Marriages. University of California Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780520238701.
Syllabus
Course Meeting Times
Seminar: 1 session / week, 3 hours / sessionPrerequisites
No previous knowledge of gender or representation is expected.Course Description
This course explores stereotypes associated with Asian women in colonial, nationalist, state-authoritarian, and global/diasporic narratives about gender and power. Students will read ethnography, cultural studies, and history, and view films to examine the politics and circumstances that create and perpetuate the representation of Asian women as dragon ladies, lotus blossoms, despotic tyrants, desexualized servants, and docile subordinates. Students are introduced to the debates about Orientalism, gender, and power.No previous knowledge of gender or representation is expected. The readings and movies will offer you the background you need. However, you must do the reading prior to coming to class and attend all lectures and film screenings. Course discussion and writing assignments focus on assigned readings rather than individual library research. Students carry out individual research projects and present their findings in a conference format at the end of the semester and write a five page paper summarizing their findings.
The class meets once per week and follows a seminar format. Students will be expected to attend all class meetings (attendance will be taken), to complete the readings as scheduled on the syllabus, and to come to class prepared to engage in a focused discussion of the issues raised by the readings.
Required Books
Soh, C. Sarah. The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan. University of Chicago Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780226767772. Constable, Nicole. Romance on a Global Stage: Pen Pals, Virtual Ethnography, and "Mail Order" Marriages. University of California Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780520238701.Grades
| ACTIVITIES | PERCENTAGES |
|---|---|
| Class discussion & participation | 20% |
| Four response papers | 20% |
| Two 5-7 page essays | 40% |
| Final research paper | 20% |
Assignments
1. Class Discussion and Participation
This seminar promotes an active approach to learning. Not only are you required to attend all class meetings, but you will be expected to engage actively in group discussions in ways which demonstrate your critical reflection on the readings. The final class session will be devoted to presentations of the final research papers, and these presentations will be taken into account in calculating participation grades. Because involvement in class activities is so important, two unexcused absences will lower your grade by one-half of a letter grade. For example, with two unexcused absences your grade will drop from an A- to a B+. Legitimate excuses require a written and signed letter from a doctor.2. Response Papers
There are four response papers on assigned readings over the course of the semester. These papers require you to reflect on the readings, either by developing your own insights or by evaluating the methods used by their authors. Each is worth five points, for a total of 20% of your course grade. Late papers will not be accepted.3. Two 5-7 Page Essays
In weeks 5 and 9, you will be asked to submit a 5-7 page (double-spaced) essay on an assigned question. These essays will require you to make a critical, insightful, and compelling argument that synthesizes issues raised by readings from the previous weeks. Each paper will count for 20% of your course grade. Papers will be due in class. Unexcused late papers will be penalized one portion of a grade (e.g. an A becomes an A-) for each day late.4. Final Research Paper
At the end of the semester, you will complete a final research paper (5 pages). Final papers will be due on the last class.Calendar
| SES # | TOPICS | KEY DATES |
|---|---|---|
| I. Major Terminologies and Frameworks | ||
| 1 | Introduction to course goals, organization, and syllabus | |
| 2 | Orientalism | Response paper 1 due |
| 3 | The politics of representation | Response paper 2 due |
| II. Figures and Stereotypes | ||
| 4 | Madame Butterfly and improvisations 1 (gender subversions, place, and race) | |
| 5 | Madame Butterfly and improvisations 2 (race, power, and place) | Essay 1 due |
| 6 | Bad girls | |
| 7 | The book The Comfort Women | Response paper 3 due |
| 8 | The book The Comfort Women (cont.) | Research paper abstract due |
| III. Other Representations | ||
| 9 | Dragon ladies and maids | |
| 10 | Female forms of power | Response paper 4 due |
| 11 | The book Romance on a Global Stage | |
| 12 | The book Romance on a Global Stage (cont.) | Essay 2 due |
| 13 | Student presentations on research projects | |
| 14 | Student presentations on research projects (cont.) | Research paper due |
Readings
Required Books
Soh, C. Sarah. The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan. University of Chicago Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780226767772. Constable, Nicole. Romance on a Global Stage: Pen Pals, Virtual Ethnography, and "Mail Order" Marriages. University of California Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780520238701.| SES # | TOPICS | READINGS and screenings |
|---|---|---|
| I. Major Terminologies and Frameworks | ||
| 1 | Introduction to course goals, organization, and syllabus | No readings |
| 2 | Orientalism | Said, Edward W. "Introduction." In Orientalism. Vintage, 1979. ISBN: 9780394740676. Prasso, Sheridan. "The Real Memoirs of a Geisha." In The Asian Mystique: Dragon Ladies, Geisha Girls, and our Fantasies of the Exotic Orient. Pp. 200-223. ISBN: 9781586482145. Anne, Allison. "Memoirs of the Orient." In Journal of Japanese Studies 27, no. 2 (2001): 381-398. Mulvey, Laura. "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema." In Visual and Other Pleasures. Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, pp. 14-38. ISBN: 9781403992468.Screening: Excerpt of Memoirs of Geisha. |
| 3 | The politics of representation | Stoler, Ann L. "Making Empire Respectable: The Politics of Race and Sexual Morality in 20th-Century Colonial Cultures." American Ethnologist 16, no. 4 (1989): 634-660. ———. "Educating Desire in Colonial Southeast Asia: Foucault, Freud, and Imperial Sexualities." In Sites of Desire Economies of Pleasure: Sexualities in Asia and the Pacific. Edited by Lenore Manderson and Margaret Jolly. University of Chicago Press, 1997, pp. 27-48. ISBN: 9780226503042. Manderson, Lenore. "Parables of Imperialism and Fantasies of the Exotic: Western Representations of Thailand—Place and Sex." In Sites of Desire Economies of Pleasure: Sexualities in Asia and the Pacific. Edited by Lenore Manderson and Margaret Jolly. University of Chicago Press, 1997, pp. 123-145. ISBN: 9780226503042. Chatterjee, Partha. "The Nation and Its Women." In The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. Princeton University Press, 1993, pp. 116-135. ISBN: 9780691019437. Screening: The Electronic Storyteller: TV & the Cultivation of Values. |
| II. Figures and Stereotypes | ||
| 4 | Madame Butterfly and improvisations 1 (gender subversions, place, and race) | Yoshihara, Mari. "The Flight of the Japanese Butterfly: Orientalism, Nationalism, and Performances of Japanese Womanhood." American Quarterly 56, no. 4 (2004): 975-999. Kondo, Dorinne K. "M. Butterfly: Orientalism, Gender, and Critique of Essentialist Identity." Cultural Critique 16 (1990). De Lauretis, Teresa. "Popular Culture, Public and Private Fantasies: Femininity and Fetishism in David Cronenberg's 'M. Butterfly'." Signs 24, no. 2 (1999). |
| 5 | Madame Butterfly and improvisations 2 (race, power, and place) | Shimizu, Celine Parreñas. "The Bind of Representation: Performing and Consuming Hypersexuality in Miss Saigon." Theatre Journal 57 (2005): 247–265. Prasso, Sheridan. "The Other Side of Miss Saigon." In The Asian Mystique: Dragon Ladies, Geisha Girls, and our Fantasies of the Exotic Orient. ISBN: 9781586482145. Heung, Marina Heung. "The Family Romance of Orientalism: From Madame Butterfly to Indochine." In Visions of the East: Orientalism in Film. Edited By Matthew Bernstein and Gaylyn Studlar. Rutgers University Press, 1997, pp. 158-184. ISBN: 9780813522951. Screening: Indochine. |
| 6 | Bad girls | Sunindyo, Saraswati. "Murder, Gender and the Media." In Fantasizing the Feminine in Indonesia. Edited by Laurie J. Sears. Durham: Duke University Press, 1996, pp. 120-139. ISBN: 9780822316961. Kim, Elaine H. "'Bad Women': Asian American Visual Artists Hanh Ohi Pham, Hung Liu, and Young Soon Min." Feminist Studies 22, no. 3 (1996): 573-602. Hershatter, Gail. "Courtesans and Streetwalkers: The Changing Discourses on Shanghai Prostitution, 1890-1949." Journal of the History of Sexuality 3, no. 2 (1992): 245-269. Liechty, Mark. "Carnal Economies: The Commodification of Food and Sex in Kathmandu." Cultural Anthropology 20, no. 1 (2005): 1-38. |
| 7 | The Comfort Women | Soh, C. Sarah. The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan. University of Chicago Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780226767772. |
| 8 | The Comfort Women (cont.) | Soh, C. Sarah. The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan. University of Chicago Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780226767772. Screening: Silence Broken: Korean Comfort Women. |
| III. Other Representations | ||
| 9 | Dragon ladies and maids | Shimizu, Celine Parenas. "The Sexual Bonds of Racial Stardom: Asian American Femme Fatale in Hollywood." In The Hypersexuality of Race: Performing Asian American Women on Screen and Scene. Duke University Press, 2007, pp. 58-102. ISBN: 9780822340331. Chang, Grace. "The Global Trade in Filipina Workers." In Dragon Ladies: Asian American Feminists Breath Fire. South End Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780896085756. Lowie, Miriam. "Breaking the Cycle." In Dragon Ladies: Asian American Feminists Breath Fire. South End Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780896085756. Chin, Christina, et al. "Without a Trace, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Prime-Time Television." In Contemporary Asian America. Edited by Min Zhou and J. V. Gatewood. NYU Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780814797136. Lee, Robert. "The Cold War Origins of the Model Minority Myth." Orientals: Asian Americans in Popular Culture. Temple University Press, 1999. ISBN: 9781566397537. Screening: Clip from The Curse of the Golden Flower. Screening: Clip from Charlie's Angels. |
| 10 | Female forms of power | Steedly, Mary. "Someone Else is Speaking." In Hanging Without a Rope. Princeton University Press, 1993, pp. 174-202. ISBN: 9780691094618. Tsing, Anna. "Riding, Writing." In In the Realm of the Diamond Queen. Princeton University Press, 1993, pp. 231-252. ISBN: 9780691000510. Heng, G., and J. Devan. "State Fatherhood: The Politics of Nationalism, Sexuality, and Race in Singapore." In Nationalism and Sexualities. Edited by Andrew Parker, et al. Routledge, 1992, pp. 343-357. ISBN: 9780415904339. Screening: Dream Girls. |
| 11 | Romance on a Global Stage | Constable, Nicole. Romance on a Global Stage: Pen Pals, Virtual Ethnography, and "Mail Order" Marriages. University of California Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780520238701. |
| 12 | Romance on a Global Stage (cont.) | Constable, Nicole. Romance on a Global Stage: Pen Pals, Virtual Ethnography, and "Mail Order" Marriages. University of California Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780520238701. |
Assignments
Essay 1
- Discuss the history of the trajectory of a global narrative of Madame Butterfly, its various adaptation and improvisations in the light of our discussion on colonialism, Orientalism, and audience theory.
Or
- How Said's theory of Orientalism can be revised in the light of the gendered discussions by two of the following authors: Stoller, Allison, Butler, or Mulvey. In other words, what points and discussions would you change in Said's piece and what would you suggest to add when you incorporate the insights of these authors?
Essay 2
- Pick two anthropologists from the course and discuss the extent to which these anthropologists succeeded or failed to deconstruct the stereotypes of Asian women. Which strategies were the most helpful?
Or
- Compare two stereotypes/figures of Asian women. Discuss them in relation to colonialism, nationalism, and domestic politics in Euro-American world.
Research Project
Each student is responsible for working on a research project throughout the semester, culminating in a five page paper. You will need to identify a historical or a contemporary figure in fiction, popular culture, media, or in history that in your opinion serves as a stereotype. This person can be a contemporary or a historical subject. Your method should be two-fold:- Describe the figure, argue for its enduring contribution to stereotypes of Asian women by situating it historically within the history of Orientalist, feminist, and other frameworks and strategies that we have studied in this course;
- Identify a body of knowledge that tries to confront a particular stereotype of Asian women. That can be films, photographs or other visual media, research articles, ethnography and fiction. Paper topics must be approved by the professor, with proposals, abstracts, and preliminary bibliographies due in Week #8.
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