ASIA 208 - Demilitarizing the Pacific

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

(Same as AMST 208) The Pacific euphemistically called “America’s Lake” has been a site of US empire building and Indigenous and Asian resistance against US military expansion. This course examines demilitarization movements in the Pacific through visual and material culture. We analyze historical and ongoing processes of military basing, nuclear testing, tourism, sex work and logistics industries among others to better understand the relationship between demilitarization and decolonization in the Pacific. Through different forms of visual representation and material objects, this course engages oceanic indigenous voices, island feminism, bomb survivor narratives and global demilitarization activism. Students grapple with how militarism becomes invisible in American daily life, the colonial foundations in which this invisibility is produced through American and Asian imperialisms, and how demilitarization movements are reimagining what genuine security and safety can look in our world without militarism as a governing ideology. Amy Chin.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: CLS