Discuss different facets of Asian histories, cultural lives, and transregional exchanges.

COURSE DESCRIPTION
In this course, we will explore the history of cultural transactions and religious exchanges, colonial encounters, perceptions of World Wars, and impacts of globalization in Asia. The ancient, pre-modern and modern overland and maritime trade networks in Asia not only facilitated the movement of people and commodities, but also played a crucial role in the circulation of cultural traits, commodities, ideas, religious practices, and cosmologies. We will study how different communities map, construct, and establish Asian imaginations and affinities. We shall also examine how Asian cross-cultural exchanges and fraught pasts are preserved and remembered, updated and reinvented through memoryscapes, material cultures, urban landscapes, and quotidian practices. This course will juxtapose theoretical readings and case studies from an interdisciplinary body of literature in anthropology, history, archeology, geography, political science, and art history. Students can apply the course material to understand broader issues such as colonialism and seaborne empires, conflict between history and memory, transcultural exchanges, territorial conflicts, popular culture, and postcolonial urbanisms.
OBJECTIVES
1. Introduce different facets of Asian histories, cultural lives, and transregional exchanges
2. Learn key issues in defining the political and cultural geography of Asia
3. Inquire how Asian imaginaries and landscapes are shaped through socio-political, cultural, religious, and economic transactions
4. Study about colonialism in Asia and post colonial issues
5. Examine dominant concerns of macro-policy issues, territorial disputes, and transnationalism
TOPICS
1. Early commercial and cultural exchanges in Asia
2. Trade, trade routes, and religions
3. Colonial port cities and circulation of commodities
4. Asia at war, memorialization of the World Wars, and conflicted territories
5. Global Asian culture and cities

WEEKLY SCHEDULE
Week-1: Introduction
Tue 08/24: Course Overview
Thurs 08/26:
Bharucha, Rustom. 2006. “What is Asia.” In Another Asia: Rabindranath Tagore and Okakura Tenshin, New Delhi: Oxford University Press. [Pages 10-20 only]
Week-2: Exchanges through Land and Sea
Tue 08/31:
Waugh, Daniel. 2010. “The Silk Roads in History.” Expedition,Vol. 52 Issue 3, pp 9-22.
Thurs 09/02:
Sen, Tansen. 2016. “The Impact of Zheng He’s Expeditions on Indian Ocean Interactions.” Bulletin of SOAS, 79 (3): 609–636.
Week-3: Interculturalism and Religions
Tues 09/07: Screening: Documentary on the Silk Road
Thurs 09/09: Xinru, Liu. 1995. “Silks and Religions in Eurasia, C. A.D. 600-1200.” Journal of World History, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Spring), pp. 25-48.
Week-4: Palmer Museum Visit
Tue 09/14: Group-1 will visit the Palmer Museum to see the Asian collection
Thurs 09/16: Group-2 will visit the Palmer Museum to see the Asian collection
Week-5: Africans Slaves & Rulers in India
Tues 09/21: “Introduction: African Elites in India,” Fitzroy Andre Baptists, John McLeod, and Kenneth X. Robbins.
Thurs 09/23: Eaton, Richard M. 2005. “Malik Ambar (1548-1626): The Rise and Fall of Military Slavery.” In A Social History of the Deccan, 1300-1761: Eight Indian Lives. Cambridge; NY: Cambridge University Press, 105-128.
Week-6: Europeans & Mercantile Colonialism
Tues 09/28: Turner, Jack. 2007.“ Spices and Christians.” In Encompassing the Globe: Portugal and the World in the 16th and 17th Centuries (Exhibition Catalogue), ed. Levenson, Jay A, pp. 45-53. Washington, D.C: Smithsonian Institution.
Thurs 09/30: Chaudhari, K.N. 1985. “The Dutch and English East India Companies and Bureaucratic form of Trade in Asia.” In Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean: An Economic History from the Rise of Islam to 1750, pp. 80-97. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Week-7: Indian Ocean Mercantile Materiality
Tues 10/05:Um, Nancy. 2015. “Chairs, Writing Tables, and Chests: Indian Ocean Furniture and the Postures of Commercial Documentation in Coastal Yemen, 1700–40.” Art History(Special Issue: Objects in Motion in the Early Modern World), Volume 38 (4): 702-717.
Tues 10/07: Meier, Prita. 2015. “Chinese Porcelain and Muslim Port Cities: Mercantile Materiality in Coastal East Africa.” Art History (Special Issue: Objects in Motion in the Early Modern World), Volume 38 (4): 718-731.
Week-8: Stories of Colonial Port Cities
Tue 10/12: Kehoe, Marsely L. 2015. “Butch Batavia: Exposing the Hierarchy of the Dutch Colonial City.” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art, 01/2015, Volume 7, Issue 1, p1-28.
Thurs 10/14: Architect’s Lounge. “A Historical Glimpse Into One Of India’s Oldest Colonial Port City Of Pondicherry.”Link: https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/article/a-historical-glimpse-into-one-of-indias-oldest-colonial-port-city-of-pondicherry/
Week-9: Tea & Opium
Tue 10/19: Bard, Solomon. 2000. “Tea and Opium.” Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 40, pp. 1-19.
Thurs 10/21: Midterm Exam
Week-10: The World Wars and Memory in Asia
Tues 10/26:Cook, Haruko T., and Cook, Theodore F. 2003. “A Lost War in Living Memory: Japan’s Second World War.”European Review, Vol. 11, No. 4, 573–593.
Thurs 10/28: Jeychandran, Neelima. 2017. “Representing and Reconstructing Memories of the World Wars in India.” International Association of Research Institutes in the History of Art Journal, 0170.
Week-11: Mega Claims and Initiatives
Tues 11/02: Raine, Sarah. 2011. “Beijing’s South China Sea Debate.” Survival, 53:5, 69-88.
Thurs 11/04: Rolland, Nadège. 2017. “China’s ‘Belt and Road Initiative’: Underwhelming or Game-Changer?” The Washington Quarterly, 40:1, 127-142.
Week-12: Africans in Asia
Tues 11/09:
Amoah, Padmore. 2019.“Africans in China and Chinese in Africa: Trends and the Social Integration Conundrum”. Link: https://africansinchina.net/2019/06/14/africans-in-china-and-chinese-in-africa-trends-and-the-social-integration-conundrum/
Mishra, Abishek. 2020 “India’s Racial Prejudice Is Jeopardising Ties With African Nations.” Link: https://thewire.in/rights/india-racism-african-foreign-students
Thurs 11/11:In-class screening: Guangzhou Dream Factory(2017)
Week-13: Popular Culture
Tues 11/16: Takhar, Amandeep, Maclaran, Pauline, and Stevens,Lorna. “Bollywood Cinema’s Global Reach: Consuming the ‘Diasporic Consciousness.’” Journal of Macromarketing,Volume: 32 issue: 3, pp: 266-279.
Thurs 11/18:Yoon, Kyong. 2018. “Diasporic Youth Culture of K-Pop.” Journal of Youth Studies, Published online: 05 Jul 2018.
——-Sun 11/21 – Sat 11/27 Thanksgiving Break——-
Week-14: Asian Cities
Tues 11/30:Bouchon, Frederic A. L. 2013. “Truly Asia and global city? Branding strategies and contested identities in Kuala Lumpur.” Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, Vol. 10 (1): 6-18.
Thurs 12/02: Jones, Gareth A., and Sanyal, Romola. 2015. “Spectacle and Suffering: The Mumbai slum as a worlded space.”Geoforum, Volume 65, Pages 431-439.
Week-15: Asian Futures
Tues 12/07:
Mayuri Mei Lin & Rafki Hidayat. “Jakarta, the fastest-sinking city in the world.” Link: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-44636934.
Thurs 12/09:
Select Topics on Asian futures (students can suggest the topicsfor discussion)

Divide your essay so that you have 3 paragraphs in total. Each paragraph corresponds and has one topic that you suggest. The total number of topics that is needed is 3 though you can give more if you want.
One topic should be related to the Middle East leaving two more topics for you to choose as you like.
Make sure not to repeat topics that was already studied. You will find a list of topics covered above.

Last Completed Projects