Asian Modernities

(4 Credits)

Asian societies have consistently broken new ground in the dynamic emergence of global modernity. This course engages the innovative life of Asian societies to develop skills and tools for talking about emergent forms of creativity, cultural differences, and specificities of practice. What’s distinctive about East Asian capitalism or South Asian cinema? Is modernity a force for cultural homogeneity, and how are cultural differences - and nonmarket cultures - subsumed within national and global processes? Does Asia emulate the west or is Asian modernity doing something different? By unpacking the dimensions of historical and cultural specificity, we will cultivate curiosity for understanding sociocultural logics. Through ethnographic texts we identify emerging practices and situate them within colonial and postcolonial developments essential to assessing Asian modernities. Drawing on anthropology, urban studies and media studies, the seminar problematizes the language of “Asia” as a singular place, a continent or a coherent idea, noting its construction within colonial and orientalist formations of power. At the same time, it shows how art and aesthetics, media practices, Asian urbanism and transnational capitalism have increasingly been exciting forces of global change. The seminar addresses topics such as Asian cinema, queer cultures, urban citizenship in Mumbai and Bangkok, elite Chinese transnationalism, Islamic and Japanese financial cultures, efforts to restore peace on the Korean peninsula, and media, revolt and counter-revolution in Indonesia and Thailand.