INTRO EA CIV: VIETNAM

Catalog description

Corequisites: ASCE UN1377 Corequisites: ASCE UN1377 This course provides a survey of Vietnamese civilization from prehistoric origins to the French colonization in the 19th century, with special emphasis on the rise and development of independent kingship over the 2nd millennium CE. We begin by exploring ethnolinguistic diversity of the Red River plain over the first millenium BCE, culminating in the material bronze culture known as the Dong Son. We then turn towards the introduction of high sinitic culture, and the region's long membership within successive Chinese empires. We pay special attention to the rise of an independent state out of the crumbling Tang Dynasty, and the specific nation-building effects of war with the Mongols and the Ming Dynasty, in the 14th and 15th centuries respectively. Our class ends with the French colonization of the region, and the dramatic cultural and intellectual transformations that were triggered as a result. Our course will interrogate Vietnamese culture as a protean object, one that is defined and redefined at virtually every level, throughout a history marked by foreign interest, influence, and invasion