Macalester Moodle

East Asia encompasses the incredibly varied modern states of China, Japan, and Korea. In many ways, it is a difficulty and arbitrary geographic distinction rather than any sort of a unified cultural or political unit. However, in some ways it is also a useful distinction, and it is these aspects which we will focus on. Students will gain a broad‐based historical and cultural understanding of East Asia in its global context, beginning with the origins of this culture, and including its inter‐regional connections and its encounters with the West. In this way, this course addresses the preconception that East Asia existed unchanged until the arrival of Europeans. The theme of this course is “Contact and Change,” which will afford an opportunity to examine two of the principal challenges facing historians: accounting for change and understanding people and societies separated from us by space and time.

Encompassing a vast and diverse region that includes the present-day states of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives, and Bhutan, South Asia is home to a fourth of the world’s population. What was political, social, and cultural life in this region like before modernity? How did the plural religious, linguistic, and social identities that shape everyday life emerge? How did the encounter with colonialism reshape the contemporary trajectories of South Asian cultures? Proceeding chronologically, we will explore important themes that continue to inspire a rich historical scholarship, namely: processes underlying the integration of diverse cultural traditions across the Indian Ocean; the emergence, and consolidation of Indo-Persian kingship and attendant forms of socio-cultural life; changes wrought upon this landscape by the arrival of European colonial rule; and the postcolonial trajectories of South Asian societies.

We will explore these changes by engaging with sources and scholarship on different genres and mediums of communication ranging from art, architectural practices, music, film, fiction, and ethnography. This course will not only introduce you to critical issues for understanding contemporary South Asia but also to cultural practices and modes of representation unique to the region. By examining the past with an eye to its contemporary relevance, we will investigate why premodern identities and histories remain at the center of debates about politics and culture in contemporary South Asia.