Reading Responses
In “Beauty and the Idea of America”, Fenella Cannell explores the conception of beauty in Naga City, Bicol, Philippines. She asserts
that Bicolanos’ perceptions of beauty are aligned with American conceptions of beauty, specifically praises of “brains and beauty” and an individual-emphasis, stemming from America’s goals to secularize the Philippines. Cannell connects beauty to...
In ‘The Single Woman,’ Zeamer uses Jiem’s persepective to explore how the rising population of urban single women in Thailand symbolizes a shift in expectations for gender roles. Women are becoming more modern, more willing to wait for marriage, and pursuing education and career goals instead. Marriage has a dual role for Thai women. On one hand, it is a societal expectation, it is seen as natural for women to want to marry. On the other hand, it...
Conklin’s Maling, A Hanunóo Girl from the Philippines reads as an extended vignette of a young girl (Maling) conscientiously navigating the dynamics and demands of the community-world she inhabits. The opening lines establish that Maling’s infant brother of 18 days, Gawid, has passed, which Conklin uses to pivot to Maling’s narrative and how she grew/grows into the roles she occupies.
To start, Maling’s 7 years of youth chipped in to support familial unity during Gawid’s birth. While...
Based on her time spent in Pulau Langkawi, Janet Carsten attempts to characterize kinship formations of Malay communities on the island, concluding that ideas of kinship form around “relatedness” that centers siblingship, and understands food, particularly the relational practice of feeding one another, and the physical house as life-possessing nourishment that reproduces and frames familial relationships. Carsten explains that women are central...
In Taglish, or the Phantom Power of the Lingua Franca, Vicente L. Rafael proposes that Taglish as a lingua franca is a driving force in Philippine history and identity. Taglish is a form of code switching in which English, Spanish, and Tagalog are freely interchanged. Rafael guides the reader through Philippine history with an eye towards the interactions between language, popular media, and the privileged mestizo class. Rafael introduces the social hierarchy by analyzing a scene from...
In the essay “Speak Good English Lah!” by Jessica Hsieh, Hsieh explores the public reaction to the Speak Good English Movement (SGEM) launched by the government in 2000. SGEM promotes the usage of Standard Singaporean English (SSE), as opposed to the local dialect, Singlish. Singlish has an English foundation, combined with Hokkien, Malay, Cantonese, and Mandarin. As Hsieh describes, Singlish is often referred to as a “lower-class English dialect”...
In the opening passages of “Everyday Sacrifice and Language Socialization in Vietnam: The Power of a Respect Particle”, Merav Shohet introduces the reader to two common notions of sacrifice and moral conduct in Vietnamese society: filial piety and a concept known as hy sinh, which Shohet translates as “sacrifice”. She connects the teachings by noting how “both hy sinh and filial piety involve both moral conduct (i.e., discrete acts) and cognitive-emotional states (i.e.,...
James Scott’s “The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia” frames its argument around a “what if” question: how does our conception of history change if we question certain underlying assumptions?
Scott’s main argument challenges the belief of linear progression to statehood, upsetting the grand narrative of human progress, with the hill region of Zomia as his setting. For thousands of years, ethno-linguistically diverse groups have migrated to Zomia—...
Over the course of the semester, students will write a total of two reading responses. The reading responses should be approximately 500-750 words, followed by two or three thought provoking questions for potential discussion in class, and two or three “key quotes” from the reading.
***Click here to sign up for your 2 readings.***
Students might consider dividing these reading responses into two paragraphs. The first paragraph should consist of a straightforward and concise...
Over the course of the semester, students will write a total of two reading responses. The reading responses should be approximately 500-750 words, followed by two or three thought provoking questions for potential discussion in class, and two or three “key quotes” from the reading.
***Click here to sign up for your 2 readings.***
Students might consider dividing these reading responses into two paragraphs. The first paragraph should consist of a straightforward and concise...