Exploring Orientalist Adventures in the Americas

In this class we will study 20th and 21st century adventure narratives from the Americas to explore how artists have struggled to represent Asian or Middle East cultures within or against Western imperialist ideologies. We will use Edward Said’s seminal work Orientalism as a theoretical framework and study how racist narratives are predominant within our industrial mass media (radio, serials, films, comic books, social media, and streaming services). Furthermore, we will explore how new gender and race paradigms have provided space for adventure narratives that attempt to dismantle the biases against Asian citizens in the Americas. This class will cover from Martial Arts narratives in the United States to Mexican Geisha comic books to Argentinean adventures in the Middle East.