[A description of this image by Dannah Dennis]
Week 1 - Introductions
Wednesday, January 4
Why study romance and intimacy?
No reading due
Week 2 - Communicating Intimacy
Monday, January 9
Ahearn, Laura. 2003. “Writing Desire in Nepali Love Letters.” Language and Communication 23(2): 107-122.
Wednesday, January 11
Allison Alexy. 2017. “What Can Be Said? Communicating Intimacy in Millennial Japan.” In Intimate Japan, edited by Allison Alexy and Emma E. Cook. Forthcoming from the University of Hawai’i Press. Pages: 1-24.
Week 3 - Searching for Romance
Monday, January 16
No class in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Day
Wednesday, January 18
Meet the Patels. Director: Geeta V. Patel and Ravi V. Patel. 2014.
* all films are streaming from the course’s Canvas page.
Week 4 - Public Desires
Monday, January 23
Yan, Yunxiang. 2003. Private Life Under Socialism: Love, Intimacy, and Family Change in a Chinese Village 1949-1999. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Read: Preface through Chapter 3; pages: xi - 85.
Wednesday, January 25
Yan, Yunxiang. 2003. Private Life Under Socialism: Love, Intimacy, and Family Change in a Chinese Village 1949-1999. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Read: Chapters 4, 5, and the Conclusion; pages: 86-139 and 217-236.
Friday, January 27
Thesis for first paper due to Canvas at 5pm.
Week 5 - Queer Intimacies
Monday, January 30
Engebretsen, Elisabeth. 2015. Queer Women in Urban China: An Ethnography. London: Routledge.
Read: Chapters 1, 3, and 5.
Wednesday, February 1
No class meeting. Unfortunately, I need to cancel this meeting because I will be away at a conference. Please use this time to work ahead on the upcoming readings and paper drafts.
Friday, February 3
Rough draft of first paper due to Canvas at 5pm.
Week 6 - Selling Forever
Monday, February 6
Epstein, Edward Jay. 1982. "Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond?" The Atlantic Monthly 249(2): 23-34.
Savage, Dan. 2005. The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage, and My Family. New York: Plume.
Read: Chapter 1, "Road Trip," and Chapter 8, "Borrowed;" pages 3-17; 139-160.
Wednesday, February 8
Zelizer, Viviana. 2000. "The Purchase of Intimacy." Law and Social Inquiry 25(3): 817-848.
Friday, February 10
First paper due to Canvas at 5pm.
Week 7 - Buying Dreams
Monday, February 13
The Great Happiness Space. 2006. Director: Jake Clennell, dir. 76 minutes.
* all films are streaming from the course’s Canvas page.
Wednesday, February 15
Akiko Takeyama. 2010. “Intimacy for Sale: Masculinity, Entrepreneurship, and Commodity Self in Japan's Neoliberal Situation.” Japanese Studies 30(2): 231-246.
Week 8 - Reading Romance
Monday, February 20
Radway, Janice. 1984. Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature. Durham: University of North Carolina Press.
Read: Introduction, Chapters 2 and 3; pages: 1-18, 46-118.
Wednesday, February 22
Radway, Janice. 1984. Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature. Durham: University of North Carolina Press.
Read: Chapters 4, 5, and 6; pages: 119-208.
Friday, February 24
Thesis for second paper due to Canvas at 5pm.
Week 9 - Transnational Romance
Monday, March 6
Constable, Nicole. 2003. Romance on a Global Stage: Pen Pals, Virtual Ethnography, and "Mail Order" Marriages. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Read: Introduction, Chapters 1, 3, and 4; pages: 1-30 and 63-115.
Wednesday, March 8
Constable, Nicole. 2003. Romance on a Global Stage: Pen Pals, Virtual Ethnography, and "Mail Order" Marriages. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Read: Chapters 5, 6, and 8; pages: 116-174 and 210-226.
Friday, March 10
Rough draft of second paper due to Canvas at 5pm.
Week 10 - Power and Intimacy
Monday, March 13
Seeking Asian Female. 2013. Director: Debbie Lum.
* all films are streaming from the course’s Canvas page.
Wednesday, March 15
Freeman, Caren. 2005. "Marrying Up and Marrying Down: The Paradoxes of Marital Mobility for Chosŏnjok Brides in South Korea." In Cross-Border Marriages: Gender and Mobility in Transnational Asia, edited by Nicole Constable, 80-100. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Week 11 - Contracting Romance
Monday, March 20
Chigusa Yamaura. 2017. “Making Ordinary, If Not Ideal, Intimate Relationships: Japanese-Chinese Transnational Matchmaking,” in Intimate Japan, edited by Allison Alexy and Emma E. Cook. Forthcoming from the University of Hawai’i Press. Pages: 197-214.
Second paper due to Canvas at 5pm.
Wednesday, March 22
No new reading due. Continue the discussion about the previous readings.
Week 12 - Buying Love
Monday, March 27
Cho, John Song Pae. 2009. “The Wedding Banquet Revisited: "Contract Marriages" between Korean Gays and Lesbians.” Anthropological Quarterly 82(2): 401-422.
Wednesday, March 29
Hoang, Kimberly Kay. 2015. Dealing in Desire: Asian Ascendancy, Western Decline, and the Hidden Currencies of Global Sex Work. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Read: Introduction and Chapters 1 and 2.
Friday, March 31
Thesis for third paper due to Canvas at 5pm.
Week 13 - Vulnerabilities
Monday, April 3
Hoang, Kimberly Kay. 2015. Dealing in Desire: Asian Ascendancy, Western Decline, and the Hidden Currencies of Global Sex Work. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Read: Chapters 3 and 4.
Wednesday, April 5
Hoang, Kimberly Kay. 2015. Dealing in Desire: Asian Ascendancy, Western Decline, and the Hidden Currencies of Global Sex Work. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Read: Chapters 5 through Conclusion.
Friday, April 7
Rough draft of third paper due to Canvas at 5pm. Also remember to email to your peer editors.
Week 14 - Barriers to Intimacy
Monday, April 10
Sandberg, Shana Fruehan. 2017. “Resisting Intervention, (En)trusting My Partner: Unmarried Women’s Narratives about Contraceptive Use in Tokyo,” in Intimate Japan, edited by Allison Alexy and Emma E. Cook. Pages: 60-75.
Wednesday, April 12 - Failures and Risks
Mazzarella, William. 2003. “Citizens Have Sex; Consumers Make Love.” In his Shoveling Smoke: Advertising and Globalization in Contemporary India. Durham: Duke University Press Books.
Friday, April 14
Peer edits due for both papers you read. Answer the seven assigned questions, upload your answers to Canvas (so I can see them), and email them to the authors by 5pm.
Week 15 - Final Thoughts and Future Questions
Monday, April 17
No reading due
Tuesday, April 25
Third paper due to Canvas by 5pm