NEW! History of Southeast Asia Course for Spring 16

This is the only course on the history of Southeast Asia currently taught at Penn.  If this region is of interest to you, don't miss the opportunity!

New course! Spices, Gunpowder, and Pagodas: A History of Southeast Asia

SAST 012 301

meets MW 2-3:30 PM

Co-taught by Professors Teren Sevea and Daud Ali

This undergraduate course introduces students to the history of Southeast Asia from the earliest centuries of the Common Era to c.1950. It introduces students to Southeast Asia as region, constituent historical societies of the region, and to the major academic literature and debates pertaining to the historical development of Southeast Asian societies and the region. Key themes explored include the origins and character of early civilizations, ideas and ideology about power and prowess, material culture, the transformation of ethnic, class, and gender relations, the impact of the arrival of world religions and early European expansion, and the nature of indigenous responses to the diffusion of new beliefs and ideas and intercultural contact.