Instructor:  Vijay Pinch
Class Hours: Tues and Thurs, 9:00-10:20 a.m.
Office Hours: Wednesday 2:00-3:30, or by appointment (x2399; wpinch@wesleyan.edu)

This course surveys the history of southern Asia with a focus on the sea, especially between 1400 and 1700. The format is both discussion and lecture.  The main goals of the course are to expose students to the south Asian past, especially insofar as that past intersects with events on water, and to introduce students to the historian's craft.  Topics to be examined include Iberian and Turko-Mongol expansion, travel and exploration, religion, military and maritime technologies, trade, and state formation. Readings will combine historical analysis with primary sources.  The course is divided into four sections:

1. Overview of Indian Ocean History
2. Becoming a Historian
3. Major Themes in Indian Ocean History
4. Student Research Projects

The Grade:

• Short Prose Comment (10%):  Amitav Ghosh paper:  500 words, due Sep 13

• Research Paper (30%):  Divided into the following components
 
[5%]   Project statement: 250 words, plus list of main primary sources.  Due Oct 11
[10%] Project statement revised:  500 words plus bibliography of primary and secondary sources.  Due Nov 20
[15%] Final paper:  15 pages [approx. 3700 words].  Due Dec 6
• Primary Source Discussion (10%):
 
Students will be assigned to a specific primary source in part III of the course, and will be responsible for leading discussion.  The discussion should begin with a brief introduction to the author.  All students should reflect (for purposes of discussion) on why the author chose to record his thoughts on paper (his motives), what overt or subtle strategies the author employed to convey his meanings, what presuppositions the author brings to his task, and how his own place in the past informs his judgements and observations (his "subject position").  The discussion should also focus on specific points of interest in the primary source, of the students' choosing.  Visual aids are welcome.  Students will submit grades.
• Student Project Presentation (10%):
 
In Part IV of the course students will learn about one another's projects.  Students will be responsible for assigning readings (and making those readings available), after consultation with the instructor.  The entire group will also read each student's revised project statement, which should both describe the topic and identify the main historiographical context of the topic.  Author's will be given the opportunity to introduce the topic for discussion. The goals are to learn more about the period, and to assist authors in advancing their projects.
• Midterm Exam (20%):  Oct 1, in class

 
• Final Exam (20%):  TBA, scheduled session

Readings:

The only book required for purchase is Amitav Ghosh, In an Antique Land, available at Atticus.  Begin reading this book immediately.  Amitav Ghosh is visiting Wesleyan in the second week of the semester, and will join our class on Sep 12th.  In addition, in Part III of the course we will be using a Photocopy Packet of primary sources.  This must be purchased at the Mail Center on College Avenue near Main Street (address:  400 Plaza Middlesex, Middletown CT 06457; phone:  344-9339; email:  coursepacket@aol.com).   Many additional readings are available online (underlined with a link in the syllabus below).  The best way to read online material is to download and print to hard copy.  We will also be drawing heavily upon the The Historical Atlas of South Asia [HASA], two editions of which are located in the atlas cases in the reference section of Olin Library.

Part I:  What is History?  What and when is the Indian Ocean?

Sep 3:  Introduction

Start reading Amitav Ghosh, In an Antique Land

Cross-Cultural Interaction and Periodization in World History
Jerry H. Bentley
The American Historical Review, Vol. 101, No. 3. (Jun., 1996), pp. 749-770.

The Changing Shape of World History
William H. McNeill
History and Theory, Vol. 34, No. 2 (May, 1995), pp. 8-26.

Keep reading Amitav Ghosh, In an Antique Land

Some useful websites:

Indus Valley Civilization and Culture
Becoming Human
Continental Drift

Keep reading Amitav Ghosh, In an Antique Land
Amitav Ghosh's website

• Special Event, Sep 10:  Amitav Ghosh will read from his recent novel, The Glass Palace, at the World Music Hall, 5 p.m.

• Special Event, Sep 11:  Amitav Ghosh will deliver a lecture entitled, "Wordless Pasts:  The Long March of 1942," at the Russell House, 8 p.m.

• Finish In an Antique Land, and bring questions.

• How does In an Antique Land help us think about the Indian Ocean as a subject of study?
• How does Amitav Ghosh help us understand the discipline of history, the study of the past?

What unifies the Indian Ocean as a region?  What are the internal regional dimensions/factors that divide it?  What are the major temporal divisions in the Indian Ocean past?  What are the different ways of classifying time in historical understanding?  Read:

• A Historical Atlas of South Asia

Joseph E. Schwartzberg
Review author[s]: David Ludden
Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 55, No. 3. (Aug., 1996), pp. 767-770
 
• Communications to the Editor

Joseph E. Schwartzberg, David Ludden
Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 55, No. 3. (Aug., 1996), pp. 692-696
 
• HASA:
I.A.1 - I.C.2 (pp. 1-6, with accompanying text on pp. 151-154)
III.C.5 (p. 24, with text on pp. 177-178)
IV.3 (p. 33, with text on p. 191)
• U.S. Navy:  Indian Ocean Surface Streamline Pattern

Why were central Asians able to dominate continental southern Asia after 1526?

• Amitav Ghosh, The Man Behind the Mosque [on Babur]
• HASA:  VI.A.1 - VI.A.5 (pp. 44-48, with text on pp. 203-208

Why were Europeans able to dominate Indian Ocean waters after 1498?

• HASA:  VI.B.1 - VI.B.5 (49-53; with text on p. 208-209)
• Some additional websites:

PBS/NovaOnline:  Secrets of Ancient navigation
PBS/NovaOnline:  Play the Longitude game
Philadelphia Museum of Art:  Pythons wreck Manohar's ship
Royal Observatory at Greenwhich:  The Longitude Problem

• The Nature of History (Trachtenberg and Banner debate in The Wall Street Journal and H-Net)
• Why Study History? (Peter Stearns, AHA pamphlet)

Part II:  Becoming a Historian

Oct 3:  Individual meetings on research paper ideas [no group session]

Oct 7:  Special event

• Lecture by Joseph C. Miller, T. Cary Johnson, Jr. Professor of History, University of Virginia, and past president of the American Historical Association.  Monday, 8 p.m., Russell House.  Title:  "The Problem of Slavery as History"

• A Sense of History (Gerald Schlabach, University of St. Thomas (Minn.))
• Source Criticism  (Internet History Sourcebook Project, Paul Halsall, editor)
• How to read a primary source (Patrick Rael, Dep. of History, Bowdoin College)

Part III:   Major Themes in Indian Ocean History

• [In this section of the course we oscillate between exemplary scholarly articles and primary sources]

Indigenous Assistance in the Establishment of Portuguese Power in Asia in the Sixteenth Century
G. V. Scammell
Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1980), pp. 1-11.

The Pillars of Empire: Indigenous Assistance and the Survival of the 'Estado da India' c.1600-1700
G. V. Scammell
Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3 (1988), pp. 473-489.

Oct 17:  Primary Sources on Seafaring in the Indian Ocean

• Vasco da Gama, Round Africa to India, 1497-1498 CE [entire]
• Sidi Ali Reis, Mirat ul Memalik (The Mirror of Countries) 1557 CE [entire]

• From The Voyage of Pedro Alvarez Cabral to Brazil and India:  "The Anonymous Narrative," 53-94; "Account of the Priest Joseph," 95-113; "Letter of Amerigo Vespucci to Lorenzo de Medici," 151-61; and "Official Documents," 162-190; and maps.

Inscribing the Other, Inscribing the Self: Hindu-Muslim Identities in Pre-Colonial India
Cynthia Talbot
Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 37, No. 4. (Oct., 1995), pp. 692-722.

• "Narrative of Domingo Paes," ca. 1520-1522
• Abu’l Fazl and Badaoni on Akbar's Religion, 170-219

The Patrimonial-Bureaucratic Empire of the Mughals
Stephen P. Blake
Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 39, No. 1. (Nov., 1979), pp. 77-94.

• The Commentary of Father Monserrate, S.J., 1-154

Of Imarat and Tijarat: Asian Merchants and State Power in the Western Indian Ocean, 1400 to 1750
Sanjay Subrahmanyam
Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 37, No. 4. (Oct., 1995), pp. 750-780.

Indian Merchants and the Western Indian Ocean: The Early Seventeenth Century
Ashin Das Gupta
Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 19, No. 3 (1985), pp. 481-499.

• Peter Mundy, Travels in Asia, 21-142

Symposium:  Decline of the Mughal Empire

Shivaji and the Decline of the Mughal Empire
M. N. Pearson
Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 35, No. 2. (Feb., 1976), pp. 221-235.

The Imperial Crisis in the Deccan
J. F. Richards
Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 35, No. 2. (Feb., 1976), pp. 237-256.

Commentary and Critique
P. Hardy
Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 35, No. 2. (Feb., 1976), pp. 257-263.

• Mannucci, Storia do Mogor, Vol II, 1-157

Part IV:  Student projects

Nov 21 Thursday [possible individual meeting day]

Nov 26   Tuesday

Thanksgiving is Thursday Nov 28

Dec 3

Dec 5

Final Exam date/time TBA