UCSB Prof. Rudy V. Busto
Spring 2007 rude@religion.ucsb.edu
Hours: W 12 – 2 & by appt.
Religious Studies 123 / Asian American Studies 161
ASIAN AMERICAN RELIGIOUS
TRADITIONS:
Critical Appraisals
This course examines issues and themes
in the history, development, and study of Asian American religious
traditions. This is not a “survey” of religious traditions, but a course organized
around a selection of major issues and problems particular to the presence and
predicaments of Asian Americans and, to a large degree, Pacific Islanders. The approach is interdisciplinary (history,
sociology, theology, religious studies, etc.), anchored to a critical Asian
American studies perspective, and constructed within the larger context of
religion in the United States. “Asian
American Religious Studies” is an emergent academic area of inquiry and this
course is part of the ongoing scholarly challenge to current paradigms of
knowledge about Asian Americans and the place of religion in Asian American
communities.
Some of the topics we will cover
include: immigration history and theory,
paradigms of race/ethnicity, religious institutions and assimilation,
Orientalisms, Asian American Christianity, American” Buddhism, Pacific Islander
sovereignty, Asian American theology.
The tools fashioned through the reading, lectures, and discussions will
allow students to assess other materials (e.g., news coverage, films, popular
culture, scholarship, etc.) from an Asian American Religious Studies
perspective.
It
is imperative that you come to class as much of the course content and
synthesis is in the lectures & discussions.
You cannot pass this course if you do not come to class. It is assumed that you will read closely and
participate in class discussions (inasmuch
as 70+ students can do so). There are no
formal prerequisites for this course, though previous courses in Asian American
or Religious Studies will be helpful.
This course fulfills the GE requirements: WRT, E or
ETH (Be sure you are clear about
which ones work for your particular case).
•
Midterm 25% Thursday, May 3 (Week 5)
•
Paper 50% Due Tuesday, June 5
•
Final 25% Thursday, June 14 4–7 pm
•
Two mini-writing assignments + /
– Due Apr 5 & May 22
•
Attendance/Participation
+ / –
•
Quizzes on reading + / –
Texts
A Course Reader available at
Grafikart, 6550 Pardall Road, Isla Vista
Articles on Electronic Reserves
(ERes)
CONCEPTS & CONTEXTS
Week
1
4.3 Introduction, Syllabus , Requirements
4.5 Religion and Race: Categories of Analysis
***Due: Mini-Assignment #1: the
connection between religion and race ***
Week
2
4.10 The American Context
Fei,
“A World Without Ghosts”
Bellah,
“Civil Religion in America”
Joshi, “Religious Oppression”
4.12 Orientalism and Religion
Said, “Introduction” to Orientalism
Iwamura, “The Oriental Monk in American
Popular Culture”
Week
3
4.17 Race & Immigration Contexts for Asian
American Religion
Chan, “European and Asian Immigration
into the United States in Comparative Perspective, 1820s to 1920s”
“Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)”
“United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923)”
“Asian Exclusion Act (1924)”
TRADITIONS & ISSUES
4.19.
Buddhism in America
Seager, “Very Basic Buddhism” and
“Three Vehicles”
Verhoeven, “Americanizing the Buddha”
Barrows, “Words of Welcome (1893)”
Dharmapala, “The World’s Debt to Buddha
(1893)”
Shaku, “Reply to a Christian Critic
(1896)”
Week
4
[
4.23 – Monday: EXTRA CREDIT
James Yee, “Guantanamo Bay – A Struggle for
Justice and Human Rights”
8 PM
Campbell Hall (Free)
** Extra reading available on ERes: James Yee, “Terribly American”** ]
4.24 Asian American Buddhism: Southeast Asian Traditions in the U.S.
Guest
Lecturer: Mimi Khuc, UCSB Religious
Studies
Cadge, “Theravada Buddhism in America”
Douglas, “The Cross and the Lotus”
Perreira, “Sasana Sakon and the New Asian American”
4.26 Asian American Buddhism: Communities in Transition
Lin, “Journey to the Far West: Chinese
Buddhism in America”
Suh, “’To Be Buddhist is to be Korean’”
Lavine, “Tibetan Buddhism in America”
Adelman, “The American Kalmyks”
Week
5
5.1 What is “American” Buddhism?
Video:
“Won’t You Pimai Neighbor”
Kornfield, “Is Buddhism Changing in
North America?”
Nattier, “Visible and Invisible: Jan Nattier on the Politics of
Representation in Buddhist
America”
Beastie Boys, “Bodhisattva Vow”
Chin, “Attack of the White Buddhists”
hooks, “Waking Up to Racism”
5.3 MIDTERM
Week
6
5.8 Hawaiian Native Traditions: Hula and History
Video:
“American Aloha: Hula Beyond
Hawai’i
Buck, “Transformations in Ideological Representations”
Trask, “Lovely Hula Hands”
5.10
Japanese American Religion, Identity and Civil Religion
Guest Lecturer: Dr. Jane Iwamura, USC
David Yoo, “A Religious History of Japanese
Americans in California”
Duncan Ryuken Williams, “From Pearl
Harbor to 9/11”
Joanne Doi, “Tule Lake Pilgrimage”
Website: “Face to Face: Stories from the Aftermath of infamy”
At: http://www.itvs.org/facetoface/flash.html
Recommended: Sucheng
Chan, “Changing Fortunes: 1941-1965”
[ERes]
Week
7
5.15 South Asian Traditions: Contexts
Tweed & Prothero, “Introduction to
Asian Religions”
Vivekananda, “Hinduism (1893)”
Dass, “The Only Dance There Is (1974)”
Tweed & Prothero, “Asian Indian Gurus,
Converts, and Movements”
Singer, “Conversion Through Foodways
Enculturation”
5.17 South Asian Traditions: Communities
Singh, “The Racialization of
Minoritized Religious Identity”
Mazumdar & Mazumdar, “Creating the
Sacred”
Smith and Bender, “The Creation of Urban
Niche Religion”
Narayanan, “Sacred Land, Sacred Service”
Week
8
5.22
Bent out of Shape? Yoga’s South
Asian/North American Pretzel Logic
Video excepts in class for discussion
Bordenkircher, “Why ‘Christian Yoga’?,
“Getting Started,” “Connecting the Breath,” “Getting Warm” (excerpt)
Dave
Hunt, “Yoga for Christians?”
***Due: Mini-Assignment # 2 on South Asian Traditions
5.24
Beyond Its European Captivity: Asian
American Christianities
Moffett, “The First Missions to India”
Kim and Kim, “The Ethnic Roles of
Korean Immigrant Churches”
Jeung, “New Asian American Churches and
Symbolic Racial Identity” [ERes]
Gonzalez and Maison, “We do not Bowl
Alone”
Week
9
5.29 Born Again in Asian America: Evangelical Christianity
Stafford, “The Tiger in the Academy”
Tokunaga, “Pressure, Perfectionism and
Performance”
Busto, “The Gospel According to the
‘Model Minority?’”
Alumkal, “The Scandal of the ‘Model
Minority’ Mind?”
Kim, “Negotiation of Ethnic and
Religious Boundaries by Asian American
Campus Evangelicals”
5.31 Asian American Theology: From Different Shores
Yoshii, “The Buena Vista Church Bazaar”
Nakashima Brock, “On Mirrors, Mists and
Murmurs”
Bundang, “’This is Not Your Mother’s
Catholic Church”
Cheng, “Multiplicity and Judges
19: Constructing a Queer Asian Pacific
American Biblical Hermeneutic”
Park, “A Theology of Tao (Way)”
Week
10
6.5 Catching up /TBA
*** Due in class: Paper ***
6.7
Last Discussion, Assessment
FINAL EXAMINATION: THURSDAY 14 June, 4 – 7 pm
Course Culture:
* Attendance and informed participation
and are essential to your success in this course. Come to class having read the assigned texts
and prepared to actively engage the material with other students.
* Classroom respect. Religion always seems to stir up emotions and
theological strife among scholars; this is part of the learning process and
intellectual discomfort is necessary for honest scholarship. While you are not expected to
"like" everything you read or hear in the class, you are expected to
have respect for these positions and be civil to your peers who may hold
them. Heated discussions are okay so
long as the focus is on ideas and not on personal attack, stereotyping, or
unreflective commentary.
Do not engage in side conversations during
lectures, or do other coursework while in class. DO NOT fall asleep in class and DO NOT TEXT
or EMAIL in the classroom!
* Missed classes. If you miss a class, you are responsible for
obtaining notes (do not ask the professor for notes), handouts and finding out
about any other information/ assignments.
* Writing. The writing in the course is designed to get
you to think about the course material from within the texts/lectures and
through “lite” research. I take the
University Writing Requirement seriously and my goal is to get you into the
habit of producing technically correct papers.
Writing well is the result of practice.
* Grading policy. I am willing to reconsider grades for written
work but with the understanding that an honest reconsideration may in fact
result in a lower grade than the original one.
The best way to appeal for a grade change is to write up your concern
and give it to me for consideration.
* Turn off your cell phone before you come
to class.