ENROLL

Seungjoo Yoon

This course tackles an evolving meaning of democracy and sovereignty in postwar Japan shaped by the transformative power of its social movements. We will place the anti-nuclear movement and anti-base struggles of the 1950s, the protest movements against revision of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty of the 1960s, and environmentalist movements against the U.S. Cold War projects in Asia to see how they intersect with the worldwide “New Left” movements of the 1960s. Topics include student activism, labor unionism, Marxist movements, and gangsterism (yakuza). Students will engage with political art, photographs, manga, films, reportage, memoirs, autobiographies, interview records, novels, and detective stories.

Seungjoo Yoon

How are rumors generated and transmitted in a period of high anxiety like disaster? Do rumors and anxiety reciprocate? How do rumors enhance existing stereotypes and prejudices of people? Why do rumors arise in a society that suffers from inadequate information or the complete cutoff in communication? This course classifies the types and nature of rumors at the time of making modern East Asia. Thematically, it examines the interplay between wartime science, environmental conditions, and societal capacities in modern Japan, Korea, and China. Topics include rumor panics generated by epidemic, water pollution, atomic bomb, famine politics, industrial toxins, and lab leaks. 

Brendan LaRocque

While Islam in popular thought is often associated solely with the Arab world, in reality eighty percent of the world’s Muslim population is not of Arab ethnicity.  The countries of South Asia--particularly India, Pakistan and Bangladesh--are collectively home to the largest number of Muslims. After examining the early background of the appearance and growth of Islamic societies and governments, we will explore the rich history of the expansion of Islam into the Indian subcontinent. We will take account of the role of trade and conquest in the early centuries of Islamic expansion and study the development of specifically Indian forms of Islam. The nature and impact of the Indo-Islamic empires will receive our attention, as will the interaction of Muslims with non-Muslim communities in medieval and early modern India. This will be followed by a look at the period of colonial rule, and an analysis of the specific historical contexts that gave rise to specific religious nationalist movements. We will then trace out how, once established, these movements developed according to their changing relationships to national liberation movements, secularism, state administrative systems, global economic shifts, and changing social demands. 

Adeeb Khalid

Through readings in primary sources in translation, we will discuss the major intellectual and cultural movements that have influenced Muslim thinkers from the nineteenth century on. Topics include modernism, nationalism, socialism, and fundamentalism.

Prerequisite: At least one prior course in the history of the Middle East or Central Asia or Islam

Not open to first year students. First year students should register in HIST 267.