Terms offered: Fall 2020, Summer 2020 Second 6 Week Session, Fall 2019
This course is devoted to a study of selected literary texts set in various regions of Southeast Asia. The readings will include works by foreign authors who lived and traveled in Southeast Asia and translations of works by Southeast Asian writers. These texts will be used to make comparisons and observations with which to characterize coloniality, nationalism, and postcoloniality. This course satisfies the first half of the Reading and Composition requirement.
Self, Representation, and Nation: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2020, Spring 2019
In this course, the student will read selections from the large body of scholarly texts that have been written about Southeast Asia. Expository and argumentative essays by premier scholars such as Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, Margaret Mead, Clifford Geertz, and Benedict Anderson will be examined. Discussions will cover a broad range of theoretical issues including power, gender, and space. This course satisfies the second half of the Reading and Composition requirement.
Under Western Eyes: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2020, Fall 2019, Fall 2018
Readings, lectures, and discussion of the culture and civilization of Southeast Asia. Mainland Southeast Asia: Covers the modern-day nations of Burma, Cambodia, Thailand, etc., with special emphasis on the impact of Hinduism and Buddhism. (F,SP) Staff
Introduction to the Civilization of Southeast Asia: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2020, Spring 2019, Summer 2018 Second 6 Week Session
Readings, lectures, and discussion of the culture and civilization of Southeast Asia. Insular Southeast Asia: Covers the modern-day nations of Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Special emphasis on the arts and their social and political context, with discussions on the impact of the colonial experience and the question of modernization vs. tradition.
Introduction to the Civilization of Southeast Asia: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2014, Fall 2011, Fall 2009
This course will examine the role of contemporary literature in Indonesian/Malaysian society. Emphasis on the socio-political aspects of this literature in historical context. Genres discussed will include poetry, the novel, the short story, and drama.
Introduction to Modern Indonesian and Malaysian Literature in Translation: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2020, Spring 2018, Spring 2015
Readings and lectures focus on Thailand, Vietnam and Burma; Cambodian and Laotian materials as available. After brief attention to the influence of oral tradition, classical poetry, and dance drama, emphasis will be on modern novels, short stories, film, and television in their cultural/historical context.
Mainland Southeast Asian Literature: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2016, Spring 2014, Fall 2012
This course examines the impact of the history of literacy and literature upon the ways in which perceptions and roles of women are constructed and reinforced in a developing non-Western society. Course material includes literature, oral and manuscript narratives, ritual performance.
Articulations of the Female in Indonesia: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2016, Fall 2014, Fall 2013
This undergraduate seminar will be an investigation into key discourses on Islam in Southeast Asia, focusing on history, literature, and culture. We will trace the processes through which Islam entered the Malay world in the 13th century, and explore the European colonial encounters with Islam in Southeast Asia and the ways that Islam interacted with and resisted colonialism. We will discuss the role of mysticism and of reformists and will also explore the struggles of Islam as a minority religion in the Philippines and Thailand. Readings will include primary sources in translation, literary texts, ethnographic works, and writings by colonial and local scholars.
Islam and Society in Southeast Asia: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2010, Fall 2008, Fall 2006
This seminar will focus on the late colonial and national periods in Southeast Asia. Through literary and political texts as well as classical anthropological sources, we will explore different approaches to reading and analyzing Southeast Asian source material. There will be extensive readings of works of fiction and primary source material in translation, as well as occasional screenings of films. We will tackle broader themes and theoretical approaches to Southeast Asian sources and literatures and will discuss different approaches to reading modern Southeast Asian texts. The course is open to advanced undergraduates and graduate students.
Southeast Asian Cultures, Texts, and Politics: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Summer 2020 First 6 Week Session, Spring 2020, Summer 2019 First 6 Week Session
The course focuses on Philippine history through literature and performance. Among the texts to be discussed are: traditional forms (rituals, poetry, songs, dances) that give insights to belief systems and economic, political, and social life during the indigenous or precolonial period; performance and literary forms that were instruments both of colonial conquest and anti-colonial movements; and theater and literature that participated in discourse on agrarian issues, labor, martial law and militarism, gender rights, academic freedom, and human rights.
Philippines: History, Literature, Performance: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2019
An introduction to the mythologies of Southeast Asia, providing a comparative overview of key myths. We will focus on indigenous narrative traditions encompassing myths of creation and origin, agricultural and maritime myths and practices, the founding of kingdoms, and indigenous geographies. We will further explore the role of myth in the contemporary world.
Southeast Asian Mythology: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Summer 2020 First 6 Week Session, Summer 2019 Second 6 Week Session
We will be reading Philippine myths, legends, indigenous poetry and epics. This
includes traditional narrative forms such as the alamat (legends) and the kuwentong-bayan
(folktales) and poetic forms such as the ambahan, diona, and tanaga. Among the
questions the course explores are: How can we understand the way of life and belief
systems of the ethnolinguistic groups of the Philippines through their literatures? How do
the dynamics between orality and literacy come into play in these Filipino literary texts?
How have traditional forms been revitalized and transformed by writers to articulate
contemporary concerns such as poverty, land reform, women’s issues, and human rights?
Filipino Mythology: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Summer 2019
The course brings students on a research trip to the Philippines to learn through interviews and interactions with Filipino people, selected lectures by
the Philippines’ leading scholars and interactive activities with the Philippines’ artists and
writers.

Philippines: Narratives of Tradition and Resistance: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Summer 2020 First 6 Week Session, Summer 2019 First 6 Week Session
Can a song inspire a revolution? The course focuses on literary, visual, and performance texts that participated in political discourses in the Philippines. What strategies did the writers and artists employ? How did writers and artists face issues of censorship and persecution? How did social movements influence these texts, and in turn, how did these texts contribute to these social movements?
Philippine Cultural Politics: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2018, Spring 2014, Spring 2010
This course deals with the Dutch colonial history of Indonesia, the former Dutch East Indies. After studying the importance of the East India Company in Southeast Asia and the history of Indonesia under colonial rule, we analyze a number of works in Dutch literature and film with a focus on post-colonialism and interculturality. This course intends to give an opportunity to those who do not have a command of Dutch language, but wish to complete their knowledge of Southeast-Asian history and culture. All materials will be in English, no knowledge of Dutch is required.
DUTCH C164 The Indonesian Connection: Dutch (Post)colonial History and Culture in Southeast Asia: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2020
This course uses biographies to narrate the history of modern Southeast Asia. It will not only examine prominent individuals who have shaped history, but also ordinary lives that reflect this history. This course will also investigate life writing as a non-fiction genre. For the final requirement, students will write a short biography of a Southeast Asian of their choice.
Southeast Asian Life Writing: Biography and the History of the Everyday: Read More [+]