Informal #8 Assignments for Research on Tropic of Orange by Karen Tei YamashitaWhat project you sign up for will affect when you give you give your presentation on your topic to the class (no more than 5 minutes). You will also have to turn in a written summary/analysis of 1-2 pages (max).
October 6:
1. Interview with Karen Tei Yamashita in Words Matter: Conversations with Asian American Writers. [Yuling ]
2. 1975 and the experiences of Vietnamese refugees (or other South East Asian immigrants to the U.S. during that time period). [Chanchan ]
3. Excerpt from Mike Davis's City of Quartz: "Sunshine or Noir?" (an intellectual & cultural history of Los Angeles, focusing on film noir produced in mid-20th c L.A.). [Mujie]
4. The geography of Los Angeles, especially its freeways and the settings of key events in the novel take place (see the chapter headings). A map would be appreciated. [Eric Kurth]
5. Reporter Rubén Salazar: who was he? Why might he be important to Gabriel or to Los Angeles history in general (R. Acuña's Occupied America is a decent source on Salazar)? Also find out about Seiji Ozawa or any of the names on pages 47-48 and briefly tell us who they were (space permitting). [John Tran]
6. Latin American History: Look up the events described on pages 49-51. What can you tell us about their significance? What do they have in common? [Darwin Ramos]
October 11
7. Excerpt from Mike Davis's City of Quartz: "The Hammer and the Rock." A history of the L.A.P.D.'s practices and of L.A. youth gang culture. A map in this section of Davis's book is directly referred to on pages 80-81 of the novel. [Emelyn Lacayo]
October 13
8. Report on the world of Mexican Wrestling (Lucha Libre). Visuals will be appreciated. Knowledge of Spanish would be helpful. [Crit Scholer]
9. What is NAFTA? [Lenee Forcier]
October 18:
10. Research Latin American Economic history. What is the role of the IMF (International Monetary Fund)? (See page 147.) [Jennifer Smelyanets]
11. Research Emiliano Zapata and his death (see page 147). How was he significant? To whom? [Stephanie Ha]
12. Choose one of the topics from Rafaella's papers (top of page 161: Maquiladoras and Migrants, Devaluation of Currency and Foreign Economic Policy, etc.) and use that as your research topic. [Jose Tejeda]
13. Research Luis Alfaro, John Malpede, and David Wellna. How does the fact that hey are real people affect the story? What kind of work do they do? [Elizabeth Heinitz]
14. Examine parts of/review Guillermo Gomez-Peña's New World Border (from which Yamashita takes one of her epigraphs). The whole book is available at course reserve in the library. He is a performance artist so the book is a mixture offbeat and playful poetry and prose. You get to pick what you focus on.October 20:
15. Research Coatlicue in Meso-American mythology. [Caroline Tran]
16. Examine one or more of the following topics: Who are the "Women of Cochibamba?"The Plaza of tears? The Plaza de Mayo (I think she means the one in Argentina and Las Madres de La Plaza de Mayo)? [Mirza Sabanovic]
October 25: Professional Scholarship/Literary Criticism on Tropic of Orange
17. Julie Sze. "'Not by Politics Alone': Gender and Environmental Justice in Karen Tei Yamashita's Tropic of Orange." The Bucknell Review. 44.1 (2000) 29-42. [Damaja Jones]18. Hsiao-ching-Li,-Florence. "Imagining the Mother/Motherland: Karen Tei Yamashita's Tropic of Orange and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's Dictee" Concentric:-Literary-and-Cultural-Studies (Concentric). 2004 Jan; 30(1): 149-67. [on order from ILL]
19. Rody,-Caroline "The Transnational Imagination: Karen Tei Yamashita's Tropic of Orange." Asian North American Identities: Beyond the Hyphen. Ty,-Eleanor (ed. and introd.); Goellnicht,-Donald-C. (ed. and introd.). . Bloomington, IN : Indiana UP, 2004. ix, 212 pp. [Prof. has Xerox of CSU link book]
20. Wallace,-Molly:"Tropics of Globalization: Reading the New North America" Symploke:-A-Journal-for-the-Intermingling-of-Literary,-Cultural-and-Theoretical-Scholarship (Symploke). 2001; 9(1-2): 145-60. [available online via Project MUSE] [Sheila Lopez]
21. Sadowski-Smith,-Claudia. "The U. S.-Mexico Borderlands Write Back: Cross-Cultural Transnationalism in Contemporary U. S. Women of Color Fiction.î" Arizona-Quarterly:-A-Journal-of-American-Literature,-Culture,-and-Theory (ArQ). 2001 Spring; 57(1): 91-112. [Hard copy in periodicals section in library/lower level] [Kenneth Licad]
Informal #9 is a one-page report on one of the propositions in the Voter Information packet for the November 2004 election. It is due October 27th.
Your first complete draft of formal paper #2 (on some aspect of Karen Tei Yamashita's novel, Tropic of Orange) is due November 1, 2004.
Tentative List of Informal Writings Due During the Course of the Semester
1 In-class diagnostic test (Day one)
2 Due Sept.1: Write no more than one page in response to one or more of questions 1-6 on pages 227-228 AND gather evidence in response to question 5 on page 318 of Fields of Reading.
3 Due Sept. 8: Write a minimum of one page of reading notes and/or exercises on the sections of the Bedford Handbook that have been personally assigned to you.
4 Due September 13: Page on the article we select for that day.
5 Due September 15: Page in response to one or more of the questions on page 403.
6 Due by Sept. 20th***Infopower online tutorial (http://tutorials.sjlibrary.org/infopower/index.html)
7 Due Sept. 22: Page on the articles we select for that day.
8 Due Oct. 6 through 25: One-page assignment on background for Yamashitaís Tropic of Orange (topics to be assigned). Students will present the knowledge they acquire from their research in class.
9 Due October 27: One-page analysis of one of the propositions in the Voter Information pamphlet.
10 ***Due by November 8: 10 & 11 Interview of professor in your chosen/potential field regarding the writing done in his or her discipline (2 page write-up).
12 Due Nov. 15th: Page on the articles we select for that day.
13 Due Nov. 24th: One-page on Mills OR one-page on of the sources you are using for your research project.
14 Due November 29th: one-page analysis using at least two essays (questions 1 & 2 on page 780 and 773-774 are good topics)
15 *** Due no later than December 4th Review of an event on campus/in the community: performances, museum exhibits, lectures, are all important possibilities.
***These informals should be considered "due immediately" as they rely on events outside the confines of the 1B section 12 schedule. Please make plans far in advance of their due-dates so that you can be sure of completing the assignment.