Global Asia
ANTH 442 / SISA 442 / WOMEN 446, Spring 2008

Active participation in each class session is a requirement of this course. As a result, missing more than two classes will seriously harm evaluation of your performance. Your class participation grade is based on your preparation for and contribution to in-class activities and discussion, and is judged not by the quantity of your comments but by their quality. This means that the more time you spend reading and thinking about the issues in the readings, the better your grade will be. (10% / 40 points)

Two short reflection papers (2-3 pages each) at the beginning of the quarter will serve to immerse you in the themes and questions of the course. Handouts with prompts for each short paper will be distributed one week in advance. These papers will be graded as follows: 40 points (distinguished); 30 points (good); 20 points (fair); 10 (turned-in, but poor effort). (2 papers, 40 points each; 20% / 80 points total)

Handouts:
Reflection Paper #1
Reflection Paper #2

You will write a short essay (5 pages) in response to questions that will be distributed one week in advance. (20% / 80 points)
Midterm Paper Questions

You will craft a keyword entry (1-2 pages) for our class-produced Global Asia Illustrated Compendium of Keywords, a cumulative collection of the vocabulary we have been building in relation to course concepts, questions, and debates. Keywords are sites of conflict and disagreement, so your entry should reflect two or more different understandings of the world-making term whose histories, usages, and political trajectories you choose to chart. You will be encouraged to be as creative, erudite, pithy, or eccentric as you like in your keyword choice, and to include diagrams, pictures, quotations, or stories that help illuminate the sociocultural life of your keyword. You should pick a keyword related to the topic you want to research and explore further in your final paper; in this way, your entry will provide you with a roadmap of sorts for the final paper. A handout with prompts and examples for this assignment will be distributed and discussed in class. You will submit a first draft of your entry, receive feedback from your classmates, and then submit a final, revised entry to complete the full assignment. Both your draft and revision will be graded as follows: 40 points (distinguished); 30 points (good); 20 points (fair); 10 (turned-in, but poor effort). An on-line submission system, linked to the course website, is under development so that you can post your entries electronically, making the full compendium viewable to everyone in the class. (draft + revision, 40 points each; 20% / 80 points total)

Handouts:
Keyword Handout
Keyword Revision Handout
Keyword Peer Review Form

A final 10-page paper is required. As suggested above, the keyword entry assignment will help you identify a topic and set of questions that you want to research and explore further in this paper. You may choose to research and critically examine a specific aspect of Global Asia, to investigate critical theoretical issues through course and related readings, or to analyze a particular historical or anthropological cultural encounter, but you will be expected to make full use of course concepts and readings in your analysis. I will be available to work with students on paper outlines and ideas through Weeks 8 and 9. During Week 10 students will give short in-class presentations on how they are expanding their keyword entries into research projects to receive further feedback from other students. You cannot pass the class if you do not complete the final paper. (30% / 120 points)

Final Paper Guide
Mary Louis Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation, New York: Routledge, 1992. (Chapter on "contact zone" concept.)