ASIAN 265L: Icons of East Asia: Stereotypes, gender, & cultural history from geisha girls to martial masters

The purpose of this class is to explore, critically and comparatively, various discourses about popular cultural icons of East Asia. We will focus on two specific well-known examples - women entertainers and male figures adapt at martial arts- with the following aims: 1) to focus on specific historical contexts, which suggest how and why these categories were formed and became important; 2) to understand how dynamic and motivated these seemingly unchanging and timeless icons actually are; and 3) to investigate how gendered identities are constructed and manipulated for particular goals.