ADAAS

Asian American Studies emerged as a result of student organizing against racism and war in the late 1960s, most famously at San Francisco State College, where a campus-wide strike led to the founding of the first College of Ethnic Studies in the U.S. More than simply advocating a multicultural politics of visibility and inclusion, Asian American Studies opened up space for critical scholarship on the relationship between US foreign policy in Asia and waves of Asian migration, as well as on processes of racial formation, unequal citizenship, labor stratification, diasporic belonging/unbelonging, and the aesthetic practices of representation and self-representation. Asian Diaspora and Asian American Studies at Barnard offers an approach to this interdisciplinary field informed by transnational and intersectional feminism, Black, Indigenous, and critical ethnic studies, postcolonial studies, and queer diasporic critique. Students are encouraged to explore histories and experiences of Asian populations in the U.S. and also to de-center the U.S. by investigating the transregional and translocal interconnections within Asia and beyond. ADAAS at Barnard encompasses Asian diasporas from West Asia (usually known by the colonial term “Middle East”) to the Pacific Islands in the context of global capitalism, imperialism, and colonialism.

To sign up, contact Manijeh Moradian, ADAAS Director at mmoradia@barnard.edu

Learning Outcomes
Students who successfully complete this minor or concentration will be able to demonstrate critical understandings of:
1. the genealogies and critical questions shaping the field of Asian Diaspora and Asian American Studies 
2. the historical processes of colonial modernity and racialization and how these have shaped Asian migration and diasporic and minority experiences
3. how social difference and social power are negotiated at the intersection of race, ethnicity, gender, and class, with complicated political and cultural outcomes.
4. how local, regional, and global histories and contemporary conditions interact to shape disparate experiences of migration and diaspora for heterogeneous Asian populations
5. how theories of diaspora offer new frameworks of investigation and understanding, problematizing normative notions of national culture, authenticity, citizenship, and belonging
6. the complex and shifting politics of self-representation and expressive cultural work for different Asian diasporic populations
7. how to place Asian diasporic histories of racialization, inclusion, and exclusion in relation to histories of anti-Blackness, the dispossession of indigenous populations, and the experiences of other diasporic communities.

Requirements 
The concentration and minor consist of five courses to be distributed as follows:
One introductory class
Two intermediate classes
Two advanced seminars
Please check current departmental course listings for updated information.

ADAAS Course offerings Spring 2025
Introductory Courses:
WMST BC2150 Intersectional Feminisms
WMST BC2140 Critical Approaches to Social and Cultural Theory
Intermediate Courses:
HIST BC2859 South Asian Diasporas
Advanced Courses:
ARCH 3901 Senior Seminar: Architecture and Environments of South Asia
ARCH GU4100 Partitions, Borders, Camps
CSER UN3905 Asian Americans and the Psychology of Race
CSER UN3942 Race and Racisms
EDUC BCBC3070 "Growing up Palestinian: The sociopolitical contexts of childhood and youth"
ENGL UN3439 Afro-Asian Literary Imaginaries
SOC BC3927 Advanced Topics: Immigration Inequality
THTR UN3157 Postcolonial Drama: The Canon and its Other
THTR-UN 3158 Asian American Performance
WMST GU4330 SWANA Diasporas