Cities in Motion: A History of Urban Southeast Asia

This capstone seminar explores how Southeast Asia became urban, from the commerce of early-modern entrepots such as Ayutthaya to the crisis of today’s sinking megacities like Manila, Bangkok, and Jakarta (the planet’s most populous: 42 million). Spanning fields and disciplines, it examines the arc and diversity of Southeast Asian urban history: asking why and in what ways has the rise of the city shaped the story of the region—and how has the story of the region shaped the life of the city. In working through these questions (and ecologies), the seminar draws on a mix of primary sources, visual archives, and scholarly analyses.