FWS: Connected Cities in Asia, 16th-18th Centuries

Catalog description

What can a tour of Asian cities teach us about early modern globalization? We will learn the fundamentals of good writing by learning about the key port cities of the Indo-Pacific in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Our exploration will trace the bustling activities, scandals, and diplomatic endeavors in cities such as Nagasaki, Macau, Manila, Batavia, Acapulco, and beyond. We will write about the people and peoples in motion who encountered one another in these contact zones, including multi-ethnic pirates; Asian merchants in the Americas; samurai in Southeast Asia; and exiled Japanese Christians. By the end of the course, you will have deepened your understanding of the course material and the writing process through weekly Quite Writes and five formal essays.