Eastern Encounters with Modernity

Catalog description

This course explores how Asian civilizations in China, Japan, Korea, and Thailand reconceived their own history, geography, and identity in their encounters with modernity, and how those encounters brought about new thinking regarding race, gender and class. It will also address how historical narratives shape the present, how geographical mapping affects belonging, and how constructs of individuality emerge as both products and markers of modernity. As this course will demonstrate, modernity is as much a construct shaped by colonialism, Western imperialism, and social movements as it is an objective phenomenon. In so doing, this course will provide frameworks for analyzing modernization globally, and thus encourage critical engagement with its impact on identities and power dynamics globally.