HISTORY OF SOUTHEAST ASIA 1

The course is part of the B.A. program in "Languages, Cultures, and Societies of Asia and Mediterranean Africa" (South-East Asia Curriculum).
Its educational objectives fall within the area of historical, cultural, and humanistic skills learning.

Knowledge and understanding:
- identify and understand key cultural, linguistic, socio-political, and religious transformations of South-East Asia, from its origins to contemporary times
- gain awareness of archival and anthropological research methodologies in the historical study of South-East Asia

Ability to apply knowledge and understanding:
- Ability to read and discuss critically the historiography of Southeast Asia
- Develop analytical tools to discuss, interpret, and deconstruct historical sources
- Analyse religious and cultural changes in two or more Southeast Asian societies

Historical interest in the societies, cultures, and peoples of South-East Asia

Southeast Asia is an incredibly diverse region, which features a plurality of cultures, languages, societies, and peoples. Its history is both distinctive and deeply connected with that of the great empires to the west (India, the Middle East, and Europe) and to the east (Japan) and north (China). Southeast Asia is, historically, a major crossroad of cultural exchange, regional and global trade, and religious beliefs. This course will serve as an introduction to the long history of this diverse region.

Key historical and anthropological transformations of South-East Asia, in the pre-modern, colonial and post-colonial period, will be examined along the following axes of comparison:
- mainland and insular South-East Asia
- lowland state or state-like societies and upland 'stateless peoples'
- primary and secondary sources: natural, material, written, and oral

Osborne, M. (2016) Southeast Asia: An Introductory History, 12th edition. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin.
Geertz, C. (1980), Negara: The Theatre State In Nineteenth-Century Bali. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Reid, A. (2010), Imperial Alchemy: Nationalism and Political Identity in Southeast Asia. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp.1-48.

Additional required readings will be announced in class and provided through Moodle.

Written exam: multiple-choice test (Mod. 1); test with open-ended questions (Mod. 2)

Lectures (interspersed with presentations of films and materials), group discussions, exercises in small groups.

Italian

written