As the faculty member who personally brokered the arrangement for Kalpen Modi (aka Kal Penn) over the past four months, I think I am likely the best person to address some of the concerns expressed in the March 27 editorial in The Daily Pennsylvanian.
Mr. Modi visited the University of Pennsylvania for Asian Pacific American Heritage Week at the beginning of November 2006. This is an annual, week-long event organized by students and not by our program.
He found the students who attended his session on the challenges of working as a minority actor to be so stimulating that he approached me a few days later about the possibility of teaching a course. He had already discussed this possibility with several other prominent peer institutions.
As a quantitative sociologist, I spend most of my days reading tables and graphs, not looking for celebrities to teach courses for us. However, like any intellectual, I am an open-minded thinker and am willing to listen to new ideas. From early November until as recently as yesterday, Mr. Modi and I have had extensive conversations by e-mail, phone and in person.
Mr. Modi is an extremely intelligent, articulate and thoughtful individual. Because he is a highly visible actor, it might be easy for some to confuse him with the characters he plays - Mr. Modi is not Kumar (Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle) nor Taj (Van Wilder) and not even Gogol Ganguli (The Namesake). He also is not the terrorist he played on this season's 24 nor the serial rapist he played on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.
I hope we are smart enough at Penn to be able to distinguish the actor from his roles. He is a working actor in an industry that promotes stereotypes and offers few opportunities for Asian American actors. In fact, all of these roles directly engage the stereotypes of Asian Americans.
We talked freely about the possibilities of courses he wished to teach. I then worked closely with him to construct detailed syllabi.
The larger lecture course will focus on "Popular Images of Asian Americans" (similar to a writing course currently offered through us by the Critical Writing Program, or Sociology 137 ["Media and Popular Culture"]).
The smaller seminar course will focus on the process of bringing a film targeted at a young (ages 16 to 35) demographic from inception, writing, casting, production, advertising to distribution. Mr. Modi will offer a first-hand account of how the current internal structure of Hollywood works to limit roles available to women and ethnic minorities.
I don't think anyone else at Penn is more qualified to teach such a course. Both courses include academic readings and film screenings outside of class (as with most Cinema Studies courses). My colleagues in Asian American Studies, Cinema Studies, Theatre Arts and Sociology who teach courses in race, ethnicity, popular media and culture think favorably of this appointment. Moreover, I am personally committed to assisting him.
Dennis DeTurck (dean of the College), Ann Matter (associate dean for the humanities), Timothy Corrigan (professor of English and director of Cinema Studies) and I have each examine his proposed syllabi. Everyone who has been involved with this arrangement has been impressed by Mr. Modi's seriousness in pursuing this position.
In fact, he has already spoken to many of his colleagues in the film industry (including notable actors, screenwriters, producers and directors) about coming to Penn during Spring 2008. Mr. Modi has had to jump over many more hurdles than other adjunct professors or teaching assistants, many of whom also do not have Ph.D.s.
As a tenured member of the Sociology faculty and director of the Asian American Studies Program, I am not someone who takes his appointment lightly. We are fortunate to have someone like Mr. Modi on campus for an entire semester. He will not get rich by doing this, and I think that says a lot about his dedication to actively engage with the academy.
The Asian American Studies Program is absorbing the majority of the cost of his visiting lectureship, and Cinema Studies is also contributing to it, so it will not be an additional burden on the budget of the School of Arts and Sciences. I have already devoted much of my free time to making this work.
I hope we can enthusiastically welcome him and offer him a chance to enrich the learning experience of not just undergraduates, but the entire Penn community before we judge him too quickly.
Grace Kao is director of the Asian American Studies Program and an associate professor of Sociology, Asian American Studies and Education. She can be reached at grace2@pop.upenn.edu.
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