Lecture TimeMonday 4:30pm - 6:15pm
VenueWMY 407
LanguageEnglish
Lecturer Ian MORLEY (Tel.: 39437116 / ianmorley@arts.cuhk.edu.hk)
Teaching Assistant Claudia Isabelle Violeta MONTERO (claudia.montero@link.cuhk.edu.hk)
The course surveys the role and effects of empire upon the historical evolution of cities and culture in Asia. To do this the course asks a number of fundamental questions: What made empires occur, grow, and fall? Why did cities have a crucial role in the development of empires? How did empires and their cities operate? And, how did Asian urban culture evolve under the dynamics of imperialism, and what legacies exist in cities today?
Using case studies from selected European empires, plus the Japanese Empire and American Empire, the course will introduce students to the construction of imperial rule in different regions of Asia. Encouraging learners to embrace concepts in Imperial Studies alongside the urban historical methods of culture and biography, students thus via focusing upon selected Asian colonies and cities will be able to not only appreciate why urban communities and civilizations in different territories evolved in distinct ways, but they will additionally assess counter-narratives to foreign hegemony. Consequently learners will deeply comprehend how and why political, cultural, legal, economic, and environmental matters interwove during the past and, as a result, shaped what is today ‘Modern Asia’.
During the course, learners will come face-to-face with various concepts, perspectives, and tools used by urban and imperial historians to explain the story of colonization in Asia, and will engage too with a range of textual and visual materials. As a result, students are afforded the opportunity to cultivate historical skills associated with the use of primary and secondary sources and, significantly, as members of a former colonial society more deeply recognize how the colonial past and postcolonial present interlink. Such awareness will assist students to possess a more comprehensive insight into the idea and framing of modern, independent nation-states in Asia during the early-21st century.
Course Aims
The course is designed with particular learning outcomes. Upon successful completion of the program students will have the know-how to:
Lectures and Student Responsibilities
Students are required to attend all class functions and to arrive prepared for lectures. This includes arriving on time, having paper on which to record notes, listening attentively to the Lecturer, and, where possible, joining in any Lecturer-led discussions.
Week 1 | Course Introduction: From Past to Present – Comprehending Life in Asia via Empires and Cities |
Week 2 | Overview Lecture of (1) Key Concepts, Ideologies, and Theories, and (2) Empires in Asia Pre-European Contact |
Week 3 | The Arrival of Europeans and the (re)Building of Asian Society on Western Civilization Models |
Week 4 | Spanish Imperialism and the Tying of Asia to the Americas: The Laws of the Indies, Religion, and the Transformation of Urban Culture |
Week 5 | European Colonization and Chinese Encounters |
Week 6 | The British and India: Introducing New Cultural Spaces and Practices |
Week 7 | Evaluating Urban Life (1): Architecture, Identity, and Power (case studies Calcutta and New Delhi) |
Week 8 | Evaluating Urban Life (2): Public Health, Housing, and the Indian Diaspora in Burma (case study Rangoon) |
Week 9 | The Metropole and the Colonial Outpost: Interactions and Impacts (1) (case study Bombay and Manchester) |
Week 10 | Imaginaries and Modernity (case studies Indonesia, the Philippines, and Russia and Asia) |
Week 11 | The Metropole and Colonial Outpost: Interactions and Impacts (2) (case study Manchukuo and Japan) |
Week 12 | Decolonization: Concept and Practice – Taking Steps to National Independence |
Week 13 | Post-Colonial Legacies: Plurality of Place, Culture, and Heritage in the Frame of the Globalized World |
Discussion | 10% |
Essay Test or Exam | 40% |
Essay | 30% |
Participation and Attendance | 20% |
The tutorials (4 in total) give students the chance to discuss in some detail the topics introduced in the lectures, and to help them sort out any problems in understanding that they may have. Time is also set aside to consider how industrialization has corresponded with changes in the broader world. Group activities shall be integrated into tutorial classes so that students can ‘do History’ but for tutorials to run effectively all students will be expected to have prepared beforehand, e.g. by reading and by thinking about the class topic in question. Materials to read shall be given by your lecturer each week and by consulting this course book. You also need to be prepared to join in the discussions within the tutorials: active learning is a basic of HIST4305IM But do not be afraid to ask questions if you are in doubt: by asking a question you may help others get a better grasp of the topic as well as well as helping yourself!
Required Readings
Recommended Readings
Examples of texts to be used by the students pertinent to particular classes as the course unfolds include:
Papers published in a host of journals are also to be utilized as are primary sources available online, e.g. censuses, government reports, maps, photo archives, etc. These can be found at websites such as
Attention is drawn to University policy and regulations on honesty in academic work, and to the disciplinary guidelines and procedures applicable to breaches of such policy and regulations. Details may be found at http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/policy/academichonesty/.
With each assignment, students will be required to submit a signed declaration that they are aware of these policies, regulations, guidelines and procedures.
Assignments without the properly signed declaration will not be graded by teachers.
Only the final version of the assignment should be submitted via VeriGuide.
The submission of a piece of work, or a part of a piece of work, for more than one purpose (e.g. to satisfy the requirements in two different courses) without declaration to this effect shall be regarded as having committed undeclared multiple submissions. It is common and acceptable to reuse a turn of phrase or a sentence or two from one’s own work; but wholesale reuse is problematic. In any case, agreement from the course teacher(s) concerned should be obtained prior to the submission of the piece of work.