Prospectus

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Premodern History of South and Southeast Asia

Course
2024-2025

Admission requirements

No restrictions

Description

This course provides a long-term History of South and Southeast Asia from 3500 BCE to 1800 CE. After a historiographical (sources & concepts) and geopolitical (la longue durée) introduction the lectures engage (in chronological sequence) with themes that connect the various regions of South and Southeast Asia. We will compare the most prominent regional developments of settlement, state-formation and cultural developments and connect them through various trans-regional processes of migration, trade and conquest. The course will also reflect on the unity and diversity of the SSEA region as a whole by discussing three regional varieties of globalization: Indianization, Islamization and Colonization. Insight in these longue durée develpments in South and Southeast Asia will be sharpened by comparisons with either Europe or East Asia.

Course objectives

General learning objectives

The student can:

  1. organise and use relatively large amounts of information
  2. reflect critically on knowledge and understanding as presented in academic literature

Learning objectives, pertaining to the specialisation

  1. The student has knowledge of a specialisation, more specifically

-in the specialisation General History the place of European history from 1500 in a worldwide perspective; with a focus on the development and role of political institutions;

-in the track History of European Expansion and Globalisation the development of global networks which facilitate an ever growing circulation of people, animals, plants, goods and ideas, and the central role of European expansion in this from around 1500.

Learning objectives, pertaining to this specific lecture course

The student:

  1. will gain basic knowledge of the main historiographical concept and discussions and of the developments of the pre-modern history of South and Southeast Asian history. They will be able to understand what long-term conditions and historical processes unified and divided the SSEA macro-region. Students will gain a sense that history itself is not somewhere out there but part of an ongoing process.
  2. will gain insight about how to set up comparative research between macro-regions.

Timetable

The timetables are avalable through MyTimetable.

Mode of instruction

  • lecture

  • seminar

  • self-study

Assessment method

Assessment

All learning objectives are covered by the following assessment methods:

  • written paper: a comparative essay of 2000 words (incl. bibliography and footnotes) about the premodern history of SSEA and that of either Europe or East Asia. This assignment will be explained in a separate class during the course and the deadline for submitting is the date of the written exam (deadline for resit is the same as the resit for the written exam). The essay needs to be uploaded on Brightspace; teacher will also provide feedback via Brightspace.

Weighing

  • written paper: 100 %

Resit

Revision of written paper before resit deadline (student scores one point less due to extra time for writing)

Inspection and feedback

How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organised.

Reading list

  • Herman Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund, A History of India (London & New York: Routledge, 2016 – sixth edition; NOT Chapters 6-7-8) – needs to be purchased

  • Anthony Reid, A History of Southeast Asia: Critical Crossroads (Oxford: Blackwell, 2015; NOT Chapters 6-20). Available online at UB

  • Jos Gommans, “Chapter 3: Space and Time in the Making of Monsoon Asia”, in David Henley and Nira Wikramasinghe (eds), Monsoon Asia: A Reader on South and Southeast Asia (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2023): 97-117. Available online at UB

  • Students will make their own selection of basic textbooks for either Europe or East Asia

Registration

Enrolment through My Studymap is mandatory.

General information about course and exam enrolment is available on the website

Registration Studeren à la carte en Contractonderwijs

Registration Studeren à la carte.
Registration Contractonderwijs.

Contact

  • For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the right information bar.

  • For questions about enrolment, admission, etc, contact the Education Administration Office: Huizinga.

Remarks

None