Sophomore Seminar

This course is a sophomore seminar in history; topics vary per semester. Prerequisite: sophomore standing. This course sails through eight hundred years on Asian waters stretching between the Japanese archipelago and the Indian subcontinent. Along the way, we encounter merchants who weaved overseas trading networks, pirates wavering between being outlaws and regulators of maritime order, fishermen who made the sea their home and produced distinctive cultures, and states trying to assert their presence through a variety of political and technological sinews. Their stories and experiences from the 13th century to the 20th century allow us to probe into several major questions: What sustained the Chinese dominance in the formation of Maritime Asia? What drove European empires to the region from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries and how did they reconfigure the seascape? What were the strategies employed by different nations in the pursuit of maritime power and resources during more recent decades?
Course Attributes: EN H; BU BA; BU IS; AS HUM; FA HUM; AR HUM

Sophomore Seminar

HISTORY 2062

Section 02

Section 01