Download Southeast Asia and the World

Southeast Asia and the World
Introduction to the Course:
This course introduces students to Southeast Asia—one of the “crossroads of the world”—and its
history from the earliest times until the end of the twentieth century. Southeast Asia is a large
and complex region, comprised of 11 independent countries—Brunei, Burma/Myanmar,
Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timore Leste, and
Vietnam—and home to animism, Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, and Islam as well as
some of the greatest ethnic, linguistic, and biocultural diversity anywhere in the world. Yet, it
tends to be dwarfed by its powerful neighbors, India and China. In world histories, it has
received scant attention, remaining practically invisible until the 19th century when the entire
region (with the exception of Siam/Thailand) was brought under European and American
colonial rule.
This course will show why and how Southeast Asia is a relevant and important region for
historical study. Students will be asked to examine the unfolding of world history from a
Southeast Asia-centric perspective. What role did long-distance trade in Southeast Asian spices
in the 15th and 16th centuries play in the development of mercantilism, imperialism, and a
capitalist world system? What is the link between European colonial labor policies and practices
in Southeast Asia and the formation of large Chinese and South Asian diasporic networks across
the world? What was the impact of the Cold War and US interventions in Southeast Asia, and how
did Southeast Asians counter or utilize US power? How did a region once known for the massive
immigration of laborers become, at the turn of the 21st century, one of the largest global
exporters of labor? Students will be address these and other questions that will help explore the
region’s distinctiveness as well as its dynamic and evolving interconnections with the rest of the
world.
Objectives:
1. Basic elements: students will have a solid grasp of key figures, cultures, events, and
chronologies in Southeast Asian history.
2. Themes: students will develop an understanding of major themes in the historical analysis of
Southeast Asian history: traditional autonomy of women; debt bondage and unfreedom;
Indianization, Sinicization, Islamization, and Christianization; long-distance trade and crosscultural diasporas; colonialism and its legacies; decolonization, nation-building, and the Cold
War; modernization, “illiberal” democracies, and Islamic fundamentalism; labor migration, illicit
trade, and trafficking.
3. SAS Core Goals: This course is part of the School of Arts and Sciences Core Curriculum, and
satisfies the following SAS core goals:
H. Understand the bases and development of human and societal endeavors across time
and place.
L. Employ historical reasoning to study human endeavors.
M. Understand different theories about human culture, social identity, economic entities,
political systems, and other forms of social organization.
Assessment of SAS core goals:
Student achievement of SAS core goals will be assessed using the essay assignment and the
standard SAS rubrics. Please see below for details of the essay assignment.
1
Required Texts:
1. Craig Lockard, Southeast Asia in World History (Oxford University Press, 2009), ISBN
9780195338119
Course Requirements:
Quizzes (25%): There will be several unannounced ‘surprise’ quizzes that cover the readings, the
lectures, and the discussion.
Essays (15% each, 30% total): Students will write 2 essays (4 double-spaced, type-written pages
each) each responding to one of the essay questions provided below. The first essay, due by
the end of WEEK 7, should respond to a question from List A. The second essay, due by the
end of WEEK 14, should respond to a question from List B. The answers to the questions
should be clearly formulated, adequately developed, and convincing (in other words, they
should be backed up by sufficient supporting evidence and examples). They are not intended
as a research exercise, so no further readings are required. The use of material external to the
course is discouraged.
List A
1. What were the political, social, economic, and cultural foundations of “traditional” Southeast
Asia and how were they influenced by increasing contact with Indic and Sinitic civilizations
in the first millennium C.E.?
2. Why, in the 13th and 14th centuries, did powerful Southeast Asian kingdoms lose their
dominant positions controlling the enormous east-west trade between India and China?
3. What role did long-distance trade in Southeast Asian spices play in interconnecting far-flung
societies and cultures across the globe and fueling the development of mercantile empires?
4. Describe and analyze one of the major religious transformations and/or reformations in
Southeast Asia that we have considered. How do you account for the changes? Who and/or
what was responsible for them?
List B
1. How did European colonial labor policies and practices in Southeast Asia result in the
formation of large Chinese and South Asian diasporic networks across the world?
2. Why did the Cold War prove to be so violent, bloody, and “hot” in Southeast Asia? What
was the impact and limit of US influence in the region during this period and how did
Southeast Asians counter or utilize US power?
3. Describe and analyze the historical connections between military occupation,
commercialization of sex, disease control, and moral politics in Southeast Asia.
4. How did a region once known for the massive immigration of laborers become, at the turn of
the 21st century, one of the largest global exporters of labor? What were the principal factors
stimulating change and governing its directions?
5. The trade in illicit goods has centrally shaped the historical development of Southeast Asia.
Do you agree or disagree?
2
Midterm and Final Examinations (20% for the Midterm, 25% for the Final): The two
examinations will comprise of a map quiz and a number of identification and short-answer
questions based on the readings, lectures, and discussions. Your main arguments should be
clearly stated throughout the essay and they should be backed up with plenty of examples.
Class Participation: You are required to complete ALL the required readings for each week. I
also encourage class participation as much as possible. Extra credit will be given for students
who respond to questions or raise them in response to lectures, depending on the quality and
frequency of that participation. To maximize participation, you should prepare the readings
conscientiously, take notes on it, ask questions of it, and think deeply about it, all in advance
of class.
* Important Notices About Your Essays *
1. All written work is to be your own original work, done for this course. DO NOT
PLAGIARIZE. Plagiarism is taking someone else’s words, ideas or arguments without
acknowledging them appropriately. If you use the exact words taken from a source, they must be
in quotation marks (and the source referenced). If you paraphrase, give the source in a reference.
Please familiarize yourself with the History Department’s statement on plagiarism, which can be
found on the Department’s Homepage: http://history.rutgers.edu/undergrad/plagiarism/htm.
2. To be fair to everyone, the highest grade of a late essay is B. The only exceptions will be for
documented illness or exceptional personal/family problems. Extensions must be authorized in
advance of the due date.
3. You may organize and format the research essay in whatever way you feel is the clearest, most
efficient, and aesthetically pleasing. Your grade for the essay will be based in part on how clearly
and coherently you present your thoughts and ideas. Please make sure that the organization, word
choice, and style of writing make your main points easily comprehensible. You do not want
errors in spelling, grammar, or punctuation to distract the reader.
COURSE OUTLINE, THEMES & READINGS
UNIT I: INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF SOUTHEAST ASIA
Week 1
Lecture 1. Introduction to the course
Week 2
Lecture 1. Introduction to the region: what is Southeast Asia?
READ: Lockard, Southeast Asia in World History, pp. 1-4 & Chapter 1
Lecture 2. Culture, tradition, and regional identity: the position of women
READ: Barbara W. Andaya, The Flaming Womb: Repositioning Women in Early Modern
Southeast Asia (University of Hawai’i Press, 2006), 11-41.
Week 3
3
Lecture 1. Social and political relations: slavery and bondage
READ: Anthony Reid, “Introduction: Slavery and Bondage in Southeast Asian History,”
in Anthony Reid, ed., Slavery, Bondage and Dependency in Southeast Asia (St. Martin’s
Press, 1983), 1 – 43.
Lecture 2. Social and political relations: freedom and the art of not being governed
WATCH: Lecture on “The Art of Not Being Governed: Hill Peoples and Valley
Kingdoms in Mainland Southeast Asia” by James C. Scott (April 2009), available via the
following link: http://www.cornell.edu/video/?videoID=625
UNIT II: SOUTHEAST ASIA’S EARLY CONNECTIONS
Week 4
Lecture 1. Indianization & Sinicization: assimilation vs. localization
READ: Lockard, Southeast Asia in World History, Chapters 2-3
Lecture 2. Case study: Khmer “Hinduism” in early Cambodia
READ: O. W. Wolters, “Khmer ‘Hinduism’ in the Seventh Century,” in Early Southeast
Asia: Selected Essays, by O.W. Wolters & edited by Craig J. Reynolds (Southeast Asia
Program Publications, Cornell University, 2008), 177–192.
Week 5
Lecture 1. Islamization
READ: Lockard, Southeast Asia in World History, Chapter 4
Lecture 2. Case study: pious Muslims and “infidels” in the Malay archipelago
READ: 1. Ibn Battuta: Travels in Asia and Africa, 1325-1354, The adventures of Ibn
Battuta, a Muslim traveler of the 14th century (University of California Press, 1986),
excerpts, and 2. Ma Huan, The Overall Survey of The Ocean’s Shores [Ying-Yai ShengLan], translated by J. V. G. Mills (White Lotus Press, 1997), excerpts.
UNIT III: The Era of Colonialism
Week 7
Lecture 1. Conversion and conquest in the “Age of Commerce”
READ: Lockard, Southeast Asia in World History, Chapter 5
Lecture 2. Trade, labor, and sex in the “Age of Commerce”
READ: 1. Lynn Pan, “East Meets West” in Sons of the Yellow Emperor: A History of the
Chinese Diaspora (Kodansha America, 1994), 27 – 42, and 2. Barbara Andaya, “From
Temporary Wife to Prostitute: Sexuality and Economic Change in Early Modern
Southeast Asia,” in Journal of Women’s History 9.4 (1998), 11 – 34.
Week 8
4
Lecture 1. Necessary Evil, Lucrative Vice: Plantation and Opium Regimes
READ: Lockard, Southeast Asia in World History, Chapters 6 & 7
Lecture 2. Case study: Opium and Alcohol in the Dutch East Indies and British Malaya
READ: 1. J. F. Scheltema, “The Opium Question,” American Journal of Sociology 16.2
(1910), 213–235, and 2. “Indian Labour in Malaya, Toddy Drinking,” The Indian (26
December 1940).
Week 9
Lecture 1. Ideologies of colonialism: civilization, modernity, and progress
FILM: Anna and the King (1999)
READ: Rudyard Kipling, “The White Man’s Burden,” McClure’s Magazine (February
1899)
Lecture 2. Education and sanitation: the “civilizing” effects of colonial rule
READ: 1. Reynaldo C. Ileto, “Cholera and the Origins of the American Sanitary Order in
the Philippines,” in Vicente Rafael, ed., Discrepant Histories (Temple University Press,
1995), 51 – 81, and 2. R.A. Kartini, “Give the Javanese Education!” in Letters from
Kartini (1992), 529-547.
Week 10
Lecture 1. Colonialism and its discontents: colonial disease and self-loathing
READ: 1. Lockard, Southeast Asia in World History, Chapter 8, and 2. George Orwell,
“Shooting an Elephant” (1926)
Lecture 2. A critique of “civilization” and “progress” in French Indochina
READ: Vũ Trọng Phụng, Lục Xì: Prostitution and Venereal Disease in Colonial Hanoi
(1937), translated by Shaun Kingsley Malarney (University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2011),
excerpts.
UNIT IV: Decolonization and Independence
Week 11
Lecture 1. WWII and the Japanese Occupation
READ: Benedict Anderson, “Japan: The Light of Asia,” in Josef Silverstein, ed.,
Southeast Asia in World War II (1966), 13–50.
Lecture 2. Pan-Asianism
READ: 1. Benda and Larkin, “Japanese Blueprint for Southeast Asia,” The World of
Southeast Asia (1967), 219-223, and 2. Pramoedya Ananta Toer, “Death in a Time of
Change” and “Working for the Japanese,” in The Mute’s Soliloquy (1999), 153–191.
Week 12
Lecture 1. The “Cold” War in Southeast Asia: a violent birth of nations
READ: Robert Cribb, “The Mass Killings of 1965-66,” R. Slamet Iman Santoso,
“Student Demonstrations,” and Republican Democratica de Timor Leste, “Our Struggle
5
against Indonesian Aggression,” in Tineke Hellwig and Eric Tagliacozzo, eds., The
Indonesia Reader: History, Culture, Politics (Duke University Press, 2009), 346-351,
356-358, and 361-364, and 2. Sophie Quinn-Judge, “The Search for a Third Force in
Vietnam: From the Quiet American to the Paris Peace Agreement,” in Wynn Wilcox, ed.,
Vietnam and the West: New Approaches (SEAP, Cornell University, 2010), 155-171.
Lecture 2. US military interventions: economic growth and the commercialization of sex
FILM: Saint Jack (1979)
READ: Sue Sun, “Where the Girls Are: The Management of Venereal Disease by United
States Military Forces in Vietnam,” Literature and Medicine 23.1 (Spring 2004), 66 – 87.
Week 13
Lecture 1. Modernization and the rise of “illiberal” governments
READ: 1. Lockard, Southeast Asia in World History, Chapter 10, and 2. Michael AungThwin, “Parochial Universalism, Democracy Jihad and the Orientalist Image of Burma:
The New Evangelism,” Pacific Affairs 74.4 (Winter 2001-2002), 483 – 505.
Lecture 2. Islamic fundamentalism? Veiling and polygamy in Malaysia and Indonesia
READ: Suzanne Brenner, “Reconstructing Self and Society: Javanese Muslim Women
and ‘The Veil,’” American Ethnologist 23.4 (November 1996), 673 – 697.
Week 14
Lecture 1. Labor migration and trafficking
FILM: B.A.T.A.M (2006)
READ: Jason DeParle, “A Good Provider is One Who Leaves,” New York Times
Magazine (April 22, 2007), 50 – 57, 72, 122 – 123.
VISIT: the website www.thephotoessay.com
Lecture 2. Illicit trade
READ: Kevin Woods, “Conflict Timber along the China-Burma Border: Connecting the
Global Timber Consumer with Violent Extraction Sites,” in Eric Tagliacozzo and Wen–
Chin Chang, Chinese Circulations: Capital, Commodities, and Networks in Southeast
Asia (Duke University Press, 2011), 480-506.
Indira Permanasari, “Saving the Komodo Dragons,” in Tineke Hellwig and Eric
Tagliacozzo, eds., The Indonesia Reader: History, Culture, Politics (Duke University
Press, 2009), 435-439.
Week 15
Lecture 1. Review
6