NELC189 - Worlds of Indian Ocean

Do oceans serve to divide and demarcate district cultures and regions? Or do they facilitate exchange, connection and cosmopolitanism? This course will explore the manner in which the Indian Ocean has played both roles throughout history, and how the nature of those divisions and connections has changed over time from the ancient to the modern world. We will reconstruct the intertwined mercantile, religious and kinship networks that spanned the Indian Ocean world, across the Middle East, East Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia and China, illuminating the histories of Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam, while also considering the role of successive imperial political formations, from Rome to Britain. Throughout the semester we will seek to understand the Indian Ocean through the people who lived and worked in its milieu - from consuls and military commanders, to traders, brokers, sailors, prisoners and slaves. Course materials will draw on a variety of disciplines (anthropology, archaeology, and material culture, religious studies) to construct the cultural, economic, and environmental history of the Indian Ocean. By the end of the course, students will also have a good understanding of the historical geography of the Indian Ocean region; the shifting nature of cross-regional interactions over time in that region; and the way this region contributes to continuing change in global political economy