HIS283Y1

History of Southeast Asia: How the Lands Below the Winds Reshaped the World

This course examines how the cultural, economic, religious, and social histories of "Southeast Asia" [Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar (Burma), the Philippines, Thailand, & Vietnam] shaped the world as we see it today. Lectures will demonstrate how the millennia-long cultural and material exchanges Southeast Asians engaged via water across the Indian and Pacific Oceans and the lands across Eurasia affected the lives of its inhabitants and the proximal and distant regions with which it had contact. In Tutorials, students will be trained to read primary sources. Themes to be explored include economic exchange, colonialism and its impact, gender and sexual diversity, and religion and society.