Peoples and Cultures of Island Southeast Asia

This course is an introduction to the cultures, histories, and literatures of Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and East Timor, nations that comprise an area known traditionally as the Malay World. Grounding ourselves in the classical kingdoms of Southeast Asia through the coming of Islam and the early modern era, we will pay particular attention to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: the entrenchment of European and American imperialism, the rise of Southeast Asian nationalism, and developments in modern Southeast Asia up through the aftermath of the fall of Marcos, Soeharto, and Mahathir. We will analyze the role that history, and especially “classical” history, plays in modern Southeast Asia. We will discuss the place of religion, of Islam and Roman Catholicism, in private and political life, situating insular Southeast Asia both within a global and a regional Southeast Asian context. These themes will be introduced, as much as possible, through works of fiction and primary source materials in translation. The course has a research component—methods for conducting original research and use of library collections will lead to a focused research paper. Readings will include fiction by Jose Rizal, Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Lat, Sonny Liew, Muhammad Radjab, Eka Kurniawan, and Carlos Bulosan, and scholarly writings by Clifford Geertz, James Scott, and Benedict Anderson.