Course Description:
Southeast Asia has been called anything, from a colonial construction to a cold war residual category, an economic miracle without precedence or merely a backyard of its more successful neighbors to the East and the North. This class will focus on the Southeast Asian region in its own right dealing with the ways both Southeast Asia as well as the nations being part of it have been imagined and shaped by various actors in present times; from powerful capitals to its often porous borders, from dominant ethnicities to those living at the margins, and from local nationalist histories to pan regional initiatives such as ASEAN. We will scrutinize ideas of nation, state and citizenship by comparing examples from among others Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines.
Topics dealt with in this 12 week course include labor regimes and social inequalities, the new Asian middle class and its patterns of consumption, technonationalist state projects such as the national car and telecom industries, migration, popular religion, cultural heritage tourism, human rights, new sexual identities and the fate of Southeast Asia’s indigenous people in the 21st century.
What is the place of Southeast Asia in today’s world, and what is its place in the mind of a colorful and widely divergent range of communities, people and citizens? While constantly questioning the merits of a comparative approach this course will strongly emphasize the ways Southeast Asians themselves perceive of their region, as our weekly sessions will include discussion of actual essays, poetry and newspaper clipping on actual issues as well as scholarly analyses of regional experts.
N.B. Besides the classes we are planning a non-compulsory evening program in which we will regularly screen relevant feature movies, documentaries and short films of and dealing with Southeast Asian people and nations. These films will be briefly introduced and are ideally followed by a group discussion.
Coordinator
Dr. Bart Barendregt and Dr. Ratna Saptari
Methods of instruction
To be announced
Study material
To be announced
Examination
To be announced
Time table
Wednesdays February 10 – May 19 2010, 13-16 h in room 5A29; (Pieter de la Court Building).
No class on May 5th and May 12th.
Exam: 1 June 2010, 10-13 h, room SA41
Retake: 23 June 2010, 10-13 h, room 5A42
Application
Students enrolled for the BA programme “Culturele antropologie en ontwikkelingssociologie” :
Inschrijving mogelijk via het secretariaat CA-OS, kamer 3A19, tel. 5273469, e-mail: secrcaos@fsw.leidenuniv.nl, tussen 30 november 2009 en 22 januari 2010.International exchange students:
For application please follow regular procedure through International Office, or contact the departmental coordinator N. Osterhaus-Simic.A la carte students need to follow the procedure as described on the website of the Institute CA-OS