Almost all my syllabi are structured in a way to highlight historiographical debates. I compose a debate question for each week and select corresponding readings that represent oppositional views on the same issue. For 3000-level and 4000-level seminars, students are given more autonomy. Each week. a group of 3-4 students will work together as “debate moderators” and are responsible for preparing a Debate Moderator Sheet containing pitchy quotations from the week’s required readings and questions they formulate independently in response to these readings. This group of debate moderators are also in charge of leading a 50-minute in-class discussion. The rest of the class will bring to class a “Position Paper” summarizing his or her position on the week’s debate topic.

Sample Debate Questions:

1. Western colonialism be exploitative in design but beneficial to the colonies in outcome? (HH1003 Asia-Pacific in Global History: From 1800)
2. History is closer to science than to art. (HH3001 Historiography: Theory and Methods).
3. The Japanese occupation was probably a historical necessity in Singapore’s political and subsequent economic development. (HH3022 World War II and Southeast Asia)
4. How Korean was the Korean War? How do we understand local conflicts against the broader context of the Cold War? (HH4007 An International History of the Cold War)

The very term “Asia” originates from Greek and Latin, which was gradually appropriated by Asians as a collective identity. What does “Asian” mean in the time of global pandemic? Does Asia stand for wired, disgusting eating habits or more effective disease control in collectivist societies with disciplined people? This course will provide you with an insight into the historical processes that shaped the modern Asia-Pacific, how these processes were connected to global developments such as colonialism, capitalism and migration. It is intended to introduce students to the history in modern times and to the Asia-Pacific as a region, not just as a collection of disparate nation-states. In addition to familiarizing students with the broader historical processes behind the formation of modern Asia and the impact of historical narratives on how we perceive events, the course also trains students in basic primary source analysis skills. To this end, we engage with different types of sources throughout the course, such as policy documents, images, memoirs, personal letters and oral history accounts.

Links to useful sources:

1. MIT visualizing Cultures Curriculum https://visualizingcultures.mit.edu/home/index.html
2. Maritime Asia: War and Trade: https://maritime-asia.org/
3. Virtual Angkor: https://www.virtualangkor.com/
4. Grassroots Operation of the Japanese Empire: https://www.japaneseempire.info/
5. Everyday Life in Mao’s China https://everydaylifeinmaoistchina.org/
6. The Mao Era in Objects  https://maoeraobjects.ac.uk/

In August 1945 the US dropped atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, bringing to an end the Second World War (or WWII). Yet in Southeast Asia, the end of the three year, 9 month and 1 day occupation by Japan marked only the beginning of another round of intense conflicts. Events of 1941-45 led to destabilization of every country in the region and dramatically affected the ability of Western colonial powers to regain their colonial territories. Japan presented to Southeast Asian countries renewed hope and renewed fear but changed the way the people in the region thought of themselves in any event. As a result, revolutions of national independence were waged in nearly every Southeast Asian country after WWII ended. Was Japanese occupation of Southeast Asia the same as Western colonization, only on a more intense scale time-wise? Or were Japan’s “crowbar” effects crucial for the development of postwar independence movements? How do we understand WWII in relation to the birth and rise of a new Asian world?

In this class, we seek to answer these questions by studying WWII in Southeast Asia through a country-by-country approach. For each country or group of countries, the following aspects will be discussed: Situations before the outbreak of the war, especially with regards to Western colonial powers; the timeline of Japanese invasion and involvement; the economic, political and cultural changes that occurred during the Japanese occupation; the end of the war and post-war repercussions.

Links to useful sources:

1. National Library Resource Guide to WWII and Southeast Asia https://blogs.ntu.edu.sg/taomozhou/files/2018/09/WWII-Southeast-Asia-Source-Guide.pdf
2. Outstanding student research papers featured in the exhibition “Witness to War: Remembering 1942” at the National Museum, Singapore https://www.nhb.gov.sg/nationalmuseum/our-exhibitions/exhibition-list/witness-to-war-remembering-1942

History of Global Capitalism introduces you to the discipline of economic history. Beginning with the rise of capitalism in the West, the module tracks the development of capitalism, its spread throughout the world, and the challenges it has faced. The module also introduces the major themes and debates in the new field of the history of capitalism, including the Industrial Revolution, the East-West divide, the entanglement of economics and geopolitics during the two world wars and the Cold War, and the increasingly important roles of gender and technology in our discussions on capitalism. We will also look at case studies of post-WWII America and China’s Economic Reforms starting from the late 1970s.

This course also helps you to develop the skills to turn textual as well as numerical data into analytical historical writings. Through this course, you will become familiar with the different approaches to economic history and the methodological developments in the field, and learn what kinds of sources economic historians use and how they use them.

Links to useful sources:

Ho Rui An, Asia the Unmiraculous http://horuian.com/asia-the-unmiraculous/