Asian Americas In this course we will investigate cultural transformations, cultural politics, and the cultural productions of and about Asian Americans. The themes of immigration, nation, and citizenship are central to the construction of the U.S. racial category of Asian. Those addressed within the category are highly diverse and differentiated along class, gender, and generational lines, yet the racial category structures particular kinds of experiences and possibilities for subjects. Historical transformations and contemporary issues in a variety of Asian American contexts will be investigated through a variety of texts including historical accounts, cultural studies, anthropological studies, autobiography, and fiction.

The Immigrant Memoir In this seminar, we will explore memoirs focused on the writing of memories about immigrant experiences in the United States. The memoirs we cover will detail subjective understandings of immigration revealing how immigrants navigate cultural, social, economic, and political challenges. The course will be an advanced seminar in immigrant history and experience in the United States as we investigate the contexts of migration of each story. We will discuss the power and the pitfalls interpreting memoir writing as social critique. The course will cover a variety of conventions within the genre of immigrant memoirs. In addition to studying book-length memoirs, we will approach how authors use poetry, short story, film, and graphic novels to tell personal stories.  Students will also write memoirs in a variety of styles. This course is part of the Public Humanities Labs Initiative administered by the Axinn Center for the Humanities.

Immigrant America In this course we will trace American immigration history from the late 19th to the turn of the 21st century, and examine the essential place immigration has occupied in the making of modern America and American culture. The central themes of this course will be industrialization and labor migrations, aftermaths of wars and refugees, constructions of racial categories and ethnic community identities, legal defining of "aliens" and citizenship, and diversity in immigrant experiences. To explore these themes, we will engage a range of sources including memoirs, novels, oral histories, and films.

Humanitarian Visas in Vermont and Beyond This public humanities lab course will engage the topic of humanitarian visas in Vermont and beyond the state. We will learn about the various forms of humanitarian visas as historically defined by the US government including visas for refugees, asylees, trafficked people, and those who qualify for temporary protected status. We will study the histories of refugee resettlement in Vermont and learn from organizations that advocate on behalf of migrants. This course is part of the Axinn Center for the Humanities’ Mellon Foundation Public Humanities Initiative.

Asian Americas In this course we will investigate cultural transformations, cultural politics, and the cultural productions of and about Asian Americans. The themes of immigration, nation, and citizenship are central to the construction of the U.S. racial category of Asian. Those addressed within the category are highly diverse and differentiated along class, gender, and generational lines, yet the racial category structures particular kinds of experiences and possibilities for subjects.  Historical transformations and contemporary issues in a variety of Asian American contexts will be investigated through a variety of texts including historical accounts, cultural studies, anthropological studies, autobiography, and fiction.

Devouring Difference: Race and Food In this course, we will discuss how the connections between food and race are articulated at different moments in United States history. We begin with an exploration of the relationship between slavery, capitalism, and food. We then discuss how foods like bananas and spam have functioned as objects that forge colonial, imperial, and military relationships between the United States and various sites around the world. The course ends with a discussion of contemporary politics around food by centering racialized subjects situated within both national and global markets of food production, marketing, and consumption. Informed by queer theory, this course foregrounds the centrality of embodiment and desire when interpreting the connections between food and race.

Critical Studies of Sport Sports offer important contexts for the study of social relations, inequalities, and differences in North America. Sports exist as an important arena where ideas around class, gender, sexuality, race, ability, and status are embodied and performed. In this course we will discuss the significance of sports to ideas of the self as well as in broader cultural, social, economic, and political realms. We will analyze a variety of issues including the relationship of sports to media, celebrity, money, religion, and education. We will also investigate the significance of sports and athletes to contemporary processes of globalization. (Not open to students who have taken AMST 1003).

Asian American Food Studies In this course we will discuss how food shapes a sense of belonging and identity in Asian America. Going beyond how Asian American cultures are consumed through food items and restaurants, we will focus on how Asian Americans have defined themselves through food. Required readings will engage questions about the production, circulation, and consumption of food. We will critically engage the genres of memoir, recipe books, fiction, historical accounts, cultural criticism, and food criticism as we write pieces in each of these styles. There will also be a limited amount of cooking involved in the course.

Cultural Formations of the 1980s In this course we will investigate cultural formations of the United States during the 1980s through a critical examination of fiction, music, television, art, advertising, and film. We will connect texts produced during and about the period with social, political, and economic transformations that began with the so-called “Reagan Revolution.” Social issues concerning race, class, gender, and sexuality will be analyzed through topics including the Culture Wars, globalization and outsourcing, the ascendance of Wall Street, the rise of AIDS, attacks on the welfare state, the emergence of hiphop, and the War on Drugs

Formations of Race and Ethnicity in the U.S. Historical memories, everyday experiences, and possible futures are powerfully shaped by racial and ethnic differences. Categories of race and ethnicity structure social relationships and cultural meanings in the United States and beyond. In this course we will track the theoretical and historical bases of ideas of race and ethnicity in modern America. We will investigate how race and ethnicity intersect at particular historical moments with other forms of difference including gender, sexuality, nation, and class. The course offers an approach informed by critical studies of race including texts in history, political theory, cultural studies, and anthropology.

Theory and Method in American Studies (Junior Year) A reading of influential secondary texts that have defined the field of American Studies during the past fifty years.  Particular attention will be paid to the methodologies adopted by American Studies scholars, and the relevance these approaches have for the writing of senior essays and theses.

Rachael Joo

Reviews and ratings for Rachael Joo at Middlebury College.Rachael Joo teaches Asian Americas, The Immigrant Memoir, Immigrant America and more.  Explore top rated instructors and find the best for you.Is Rachael Joo good ? Find out on MiddCourses.

Professor Joo is a very relaxed teacher, this is a nice class if you need to fill credits/are interested in the subject, exams are very chill and so are the presentations. I definitely recommend this class. 

This class was really fun to participate in and have meaningful conversations. This class has ALOT of reading, say, around a book per week. Some of the books are very heavy and can be a hard read, but prof Joo is very understanding that these are deeply emotional books and understands if you need space. Besides that, the assignments were weekly book reflections and some writing assignments. 

Professor Joo is super passionate about this class. The readings were not too difficult and the class was easy to follow along. Would highly recommend taking this class as it is not too challenging but still has work.