Syllabus

University of British Columbia

Faculty of Arts

Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice

GRSJ230 Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Representation in Modern Asia

2015 Winter (September-December)

Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays 2-3 pm

Location: Buchanan B313

Dr. Ray Hsu (ray.hsu@ubc.ca)

Office: Jack Bell Building, room 041

Office hours: calendly.com/rayhsu

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/Gender-Race-Sexuality-and-Asianness-1631418240454964/

Collaboration tool: GRSJ230.slack.com

This course explores the complex relationships between gender, race, sexuality and representations of “Asianness” through an interdisciplinary lens. This course is built on three pillars: the work of differently positioned activists/artists/academics, blogging as a mode of public scholarship and collaboration in flexible learning environments.

The first pillar foregrounds the work of activists/artists/academics who are currently conducting work at different intersections of gender, race, sexuality and representation: from Jenny Wills’s national media work calling art institutions to task on orientalizing exhibitions to Michiko Bown-Kai’s ministry-based work on queer spirituality and youth empowerment to Tad Ozumi’s dance-based work on decolonizing movement, the emphasis is on how differently positioned actors produce knowledge that circulates beyond campus. Whenever possible, this course brings them into the classroom either in-person or via video streaming for lively and often provocative discussion.

The second pillar involves the production of blogging “ePortfolios” so that students can create alternative knowledge products that don’t have the instructor as their sole audience. Students must define a topic of shared concern for an audience then develop a blog on this topic in the spirit of developing what public scholarship could be, with all its possibilities and limitations in university contexts. Our goal to develop and define audiences that are not abstractions (i.e. “the public”) and learn from them.

The third pillar involves small group peer review in-class and online. One day of the week is devoted to small groups meeting in-class, while the online meetings takes place on a platform called Slack (ours is accessible at GRSJ230.slack.com). Each peer review group uses student-defined criteria as a frame for offering feedback and helping improving the student’s work in dialogue with the student. The goal is to evaluate public scholarship (in the form of alternative knowledge products) by allowing students to seize control of a larger share of their learning by making the evaluation of the products part of the knowledge production process.

By building the course on these three pillars—differently positioned activists/artists/academics, blogging, and peer review under flexible learning—we hope to move closer to seizing control of the modes of knowledge production, circulation and consumption available to us. At every turn, we will interrogate what “modern Asia” means: what do we “know” about gender, race, and sexuality through representations of Asianness today and how can we contribute to these ways of knowing?

Learning Objectives and Outcomes

1. To interrogate representations of “Asian” identities and bodies across media

2. To equip students with conceptual tools to understand gender, race, sexuality intersectionally

3. To learn how to conduct peer review in a flexible learning environment offline and online

4. To develop knowledge products with an attention to how they circulate and are consumed by “on-campus” publics as well as those that are “off-campus”

Course Assignments and Due Dates

25% Blog Proposal (600-900 words; due Sept 28, 2 pm)

25% Peer Review (due on a weekly basis; submit with ePortfolio)

25% Summary Presentation (due Nov 20 (if on video) or according to sign-up date (if in-class))

25% Completed Blog ePortfolio (due Nov 24, 2 pm)

Assignments may be penalized 5 points for each day they are late.

Course Assignment Explanations and Requirements

You are invited to participate in ways that you feel comfortable. While engaging in spoken and written discussion is the most normative way, please discuss with me any other ways you prefer to engage. I expect you to come to class having consumed all the required material.

Readings: Responsive Consumption

Our “readings” will consist of material online in different media, including traditional articles as well as news reports, blog posts, videos and comics: the goal is to be responsive to topics of shared concern in the current online media landscape. Please see our Facebook page for readings: https://www.facebook.com/Gender-Race-Sexuality-and-Asianness-1631418240454964/

1/ Blog Proposal (600-900 words; due Sept 28, 2 pm)

Goal: To prepare you to conduct research on a subject of your choice that has not yet been published in the public domain.

For your Blog Proposal, choose a topic that is relevant to this course that few others are doing on the internet on which you can do better. Please include:

a. Introduction/Context: What is your research question? Why did you choose this topic? What kind of audience do you plan to reach and why?

b. Brief literature review: What have others said about your topic? What gaps are there in existing information online? Why is your blog new and important?

c. Evidence: What will you examine to answer the research question that you have laid out in your Introduction? How will you go about gathering this evidence?

d. Conclusion: Issues/concerns

2/ Peer Review (due on a weekly basis; submit with ePortfolio)

Goal: To evaluate your peers based on criteria that they have defined as most critical for their knowledge products.

These peer reviews involve begin by establishing the criteria by which the blogs will be evaluated as alternative knowledge products. Taking the UBC Faculty of Arts Grading Criteria (see Appendix 1) as a springboard, you will either choose this as a default or develop new criteria that better fit the kind of product you wish to create. You will then form a peer review group with three other students (for a total group of four). When you review your peers’ work, use the criteria that they have defined as a frame for offering your feedback and helping them improve their work. This peer review is designed to allow you and your peers to seize control of a larger share of your learning by making the evaluation of your product part of your knowledge production process.

Submit screenshots of all the Peer Reviews that you’ve written about your group members as part of your final ePortfolio.

3/ Summary Presentation (10 minutes in person, due on sign-up date, or 1 minute on video, due Nov 20, 2 pm)

Goal: To share the results of your research with your peers in a community of practice.

You may choose to either deliver in class a 10-minute presentation based on what you’ve learned producing your blog or produce a 1 minute video (or as dictated by online video best practices) on the same topic that can be posted to your blog.

4/ Completed Blog ePortfolio (due Nov 24, 2 pm)

Goal: To give you the opportunity to engage in research and produce a document of public knowledge.

For your ePortfolio, revise your weekly blog according to feedback from peer review and from me. Submit to me via direct message on Slack any previously published versions of your work: PDFs of these versions is one default way to do it. Submit also a summary of your revisions as part of a cover letter.

Statement of Academic Standards for the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice

Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice (GRSJ) is a multidisciplinary field, which brings together teachers and students from a variety of academic backgrounds with often quite different ways of articulating and responding to assignments. This diversity is an intellectual asset. Nevertheless, some basics need to be set out so that evaluation procedures can continue to be relatively standardized across all Institute courses. Each instructor will, of course, adapt these general guidelines where necessary in their own course but students should expect that the following guidelines are basic to all courses in the GRSJ Program. GRSJ course assignments follow the conventions of grammar and punctuation expected in academic writing. Language in GRSJ course assignments is non-sexist, non-racist, and non-heterosexist. Arguments are logical and coherent, and organization of materials is appropriate to the topic. Sources are cited following a consistent footnote and bibliography format as appropriate in the field. Since plagiarism is a serious offense, care should be taken to ensure that materials from other sources are correctly attributed to their authors. How a paper is written and what it says are not separate issues, but rather, components of the whole project and are evaluated accordingly.

Academic Honesty: Acknowledge and cite the oral and written work of others in all your assignments. Not citing sources is considered plagiarism. Review the sections of the University Calendar address policies and regulations related to academic honesty and standards (www.calendar.ubc.ca/vancouver/?tree=3,286,0,0) and plagiarism (vpacademic.ubc.ca/academic-integrity/ubc-regulation-on-plagiarism/). See the online Plagiarism Resource Centre (learningcommons.ubc.ca/resource-guides/avoiding-plagiarism/) on what plagiarism is and how to avoid it. If you have questions in relation to the work that you do in this course, please ask me.

Statement of Respect: Students, instructors, visitors and readings/media in Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice courses often raise controversial issues in the course of classroom discussion. It is vital that your fellow students and the Instructor and the TA be treated respectfully at all times and in all interactions. Remember, one can disagree without being disagreeable.

Academic Accommodations for Students with Disabilities: To request accommodations, you should arrange to meet with an Access and Diversity Office advisor to discuss what you are eligible for (students.ubc.ca/success/student-supports/academic-accommodations). If you have a letter from the Access and Diversity Office indicating that you have a disability that requires specific accommodation, present that letter to me so you can discuss the accommodations you might need for class.

Appendix 1: UBC Faculty of Arts Grading Schema (to be used as guidelines for developing Evaluation Criteria for Peer Review). Source: http://www.calendar.ubc.ca/vancouver/?tree=3,42,96,0

80% to 100% (A- to A+)

Exceptional performance: strong evidence of original thinking; good organization; capacity to analyze and synthesize; superior grasp of subject matter with sound critical evaluations; evidence of extensive knowledge base.

68% to 79% (B- to B+)

Competent performance: evidence of grasp of subject matter; some evidence of critical capacity and analytic ability; reasonable understanding of relevant issues; evidence of familiarity with the literature.

50% to 67% (D to C+)

Adequate performance: understanding of the subject matter; ability to develop solutions to simple problems in the material; acceptable but uninspired work, not seriously faulty but lacking style and vigour.

00% to 49% (F)

Inadequate performance: little or no evidence of understanding of the subject matter; weakness in critical and analytic skills; limited or irrelevant use of the literature.