New York University
Draper Master’s Program in Humanities and Social Thought
G65.2121 The 'Cradle' of Globalisation ? History, Economy, Society and Diaspora in the Indian Ocean
Fall 2006
Tuesdays 6.20-8.20pm; Silver Centre 721
Dr Pedro Machado 14 University Place, # 113 Email: [email protected] Tel: 212-992 9637 Office Hours: TBA
Scope and Aim of the course:
The Indian Ocean encompasses a vast area (third of all the countries of the world, and one-third of the world’s population are located around its shores) linking a diversity of societies to its west, north, and south. These are scattered from Australia, to Southeast Asia, to South Asia, to the Arabian Peninsula, to the East African coast. The aim of the course is to explore some of the history of the people and societies who have ‘made’ the world of the Indian Ocean over more than 5,000 years. Emphasis is placed on the western Indian Ocean, in particular India, ‘Arabia’ and East Africa. The Indian Ocean has a unique history of intensive indigenous shipping and commerce before the arrival of the Europeans, and in the coexistence of European and indigenous trade during the so-called modern era. Despite its tremendous global importance, the Indian Ocean has been neglected by scholars and students alike as a unit of historical inquiry. We will pay particular attention in this course to the interactions between regions and powers, on trade, exchange and the movement of peoples around the Ocean from ancient to modern times. Some of the themes which we will consider, therefore, are the nature of littoral or coastal societies, factors of unity and disunity (is there such a thing as an Indian Ocean ‘world’?), and the effect of colonialism on zones of intercommunication.
Course Requirements:
This course is designed as a graduate seminar. As such, the classes will revolve around discussion of the weekly texts and the issues they raise. This discussion will spring, in part, from the questions and commentaries on the readings submitted weekly by all students in the class. These written critiques should be no longer than 500-800 words, and are to be made available to all members of the seminar through Blackboard. They should highlight the key arguments of the author(s), the importance of such arguments, and any critiques you might have
of the work(s)—particularly in relation to the other material covered in the course. Critiques have to be sent to everyone in the seminar class – including the Professor – by 9 am of the morning of the class. Failure to do so will affect the final grade.
Participation in class discussion is important and will contribute significantly toward the final grade. This is important to show that you have read and understood the readings. The seminar structure of the classes requires discussion and interaction to facilitate effective learning. I will be keeping track of who is participating regularly and constructively to the class discussions throughout the semester. Students may speak with me if they are having difficulty with this, or any other part of their assessment.
There will be 2 pieces of written work for this seminar course: 1 long research paper (6,000 – 8,000 words) based on independent research, and a 2,000 word review of a piece (or pieces) you found most challenging, engaging or thought-provoking. The topics for the research papers must be chosen by each student in consultation with me. The deadlines for these will be given to you later in the semester. The final grade will be determined by the weekly critiques (20%), class participation (10%), the review (20%) and the research paper (50%).
Guidelines to written work are provided below.
Weekly readings: You will need to purchase two books from the NYU Bookstore (or from elsewhere): Amitav Ghosh, In an Antique Land (London: Granta Books, 1992); and Sugata Bose, A Hundred Horizons: The Indian Ocean in the Age of Global Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006). The rest of the readings are to be found as PDFs on Blackboard. It is accessible through NYU Home. You will need to familiarize yourself with Blackboard as soon as possible. Note that, where readings are accessible via an online academic journals site like JSTOR, you will need to download the article yourself (i.e. it will NOT be provided for you in Blackboard). These are clearly marked on the syllabus as ‘available online’.
Guidelines to Written Work:
Written work should be typed, with double or 1.5 spacing and with page numbers. Be sure to reference your work thoroughly, in footnotes (or endnotes). Citations should be consistent and follow a recognised style (I have provided a recommended style below). All cited texts should be listed in a bibliography at the end of your essay. A good essay of 6,000 – 8,000 words should consult at least ten to twelve sources. I expect to see that at least half the sources do not appear on the course reading list. I would be happy to speak with students about any aspect of referencing and researching sources.
Students will be expected to demonstrate a clear understanding of the empirical and theoretical issues relating to their topic, through presentation of a well structured and defined argument. I do not want a mere expression of your opinions, but rather, a well supported argument and systematic and reasoned discussion.
Your conclusions are not expected to be original but must be the result of your own critical examination of the material and weighing of the evidence.
Students are encouraged to make an appointment to speak with me at any time about any aspect of their assessment.
Recommended citation style: Book - first citation:
Amitav Ghosh, In an Antique Land (London: Granta Books, 1992): 76 Book – subsequent citations:
Ghosh, Antique Land: 121.
Magazine or Journal Article – first citation:
K. N. Chaudhuri, ‘The Unity and Disunity of Indian Ocean History from the Rise of Islam to 1750: The Outline of a Theory and Historical Discourse,’ in the Journal of World History 4 (1993): 1-21
Magazine or Journal Articles – subsequent citations: Chaudhuri, ‘Unity and Disunity:’ 19.
Article in a Book – first citation:
Sugata Bose, ‘Space and Time on the Indian Ocean Rim: Theory and History,’ in Leila Tarazi Fawaz & C. A. Bayly (eds.), Modernity & Culture: From the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002): 365-388.
Article in a Book – Subsequent citations: Bose, ‘Space and Time:’ 370.
Week 1 – 09/05/06 : Introduction and Overview of topics
Week 2 – 09/12/06 : Imaging the Indian Ocean World
• Amitav Ghosh, In an Antique Land (London: Granta Books, 1992)
• Edward A. Alpers, ‘Imagining the Indian Ocean World,’ Opening Address to the International Conference on Cultural Exchange and Transformation in the Indian Ocean World,
UCLA, April 5-6, 2002 [available online at
http://www.accd.edu/sac/history/keller/IndianO/Alpers_IOWorld.pdf]
Week 3 – 09/19/06 : Theory and Structure in the Indian Ocean
• Michael Naylor Pearson, The Indian Ocean (London: Routledge, 2003): 1-61
• Sugata Bose, ‘Space and Time on the Indian Ocean Rim,’ in Bose, A Hundred Horizons: The Indian Ocean in the Age of Global Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006): 1-35
• Janet Abu Lughod, Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250-1350 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989): 251-351
• Janet Abu-Lughod, “The World System in the Thirteenth Century: Dead-End or Precursor?” in Adas (ed.), Islamic & European Expansion: The Forging of a Global Order (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993): 75-102
• K. N. Chaudhuri, ‘The Unity and Disunity of Indian Ocean History from the Rise of Islam to 1750: The Outline of a Theory and Historical Discourse,’ in the Journal of World History 4 (1993): 1-21
Week 4 – 09/26/06 : A Diverse Ocean: Diasporas and Trade in the Early Indian Ocean • Andre Wink, Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World, vol. I: Early Medieval India and
the Expansion of Islam 7th-11th Centuries ( Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999): 1-108
• Lionel Casson, The Periplus Maris Erythraei: Text with Introduction, Translation, and Commentary (Princenton: Princeton University Press, 1989): 5-47
• The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea: travel and trade in the Indian Ocean by a merchant of the first century, translated from the Greek and annotated by Wilfred H. Schoff (New Delhi : Munshiram Monoharlal Publishers, 1995) selections
• S. D. Goitein, ‘The India Traders,’ in Letters of Medieval Jewish Traders (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973): 175-229
Week 5 – 10/03/06 : A Globalising Religion: Islam in the Indian Ocean
• Patricia Risso, Merchants & Faith: Muslim Culture and Commerce in the Indian Ocean (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995)
• John Voll, ‘Islam as a Special World System,’ Journal of World History, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Fall 1994): 213-226
• John Voll, ‘Sufi Brotherhoods: TransCultural/Transstate Networks in the Muslim World,’ in Jerry H. Bentley, Renate Bridenthal & Anand A. Yang (eds.), Interactions: Transregional Perspectives on World History (Honolulu: University of Hawai’I Press, 2005): 30-47
• M. N. Pearson, ‘The Indian Ocean and the Red Sea,’ in Nehemia Levtzion & Randall L. Pouwels (eds.), The History of Islam in Africa (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2000): 37-59
Week 6 – 10/10/06 : The Swahili Coast: An Indian Ocean Community?
• Mark Horton & John Middleton, The Swahili: The Social Landscape of a Mercantile Society (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2000)
Week 7 – 10/17/06 : New Voyagers: A European Maritime Empire
• Sanjay Subrahmanyam, The Portuguese Empire in Asia 1500-1700: A Political and Economic History (London& New York: Longman, 1993)
• Pearson, Indian Ocean: 113-58
Week 8 – 10/26/06 : India, the Indian Ocean and the World Economy
• Andre Gunder Frank, ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age (Berkeley & Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1998): 52-104
• Niels Steensgaard, ‘The Indian Ocean Network and the Emerging World-Economy, c. 1500-1750,’ in Satish Chandra (ed.), The Indian Ocean: Explorations in History, Commerce, and Politics (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1987): 125-150
• André Wink, ‘Al-Hind: India and Indonesia in the Islamic World Economy, c. 700-1800 A.D.,’ Itinerario 12 (1988): 33-72
• Immanuel Wallerstein, ‘The Incorporation of the Indian Subcontinent into the Capitalist World-Economy,’ in Chandra (ed.), Indian Ocean: 222-253
• Pearson, Indian Ocean: 159-89
Week 9 – 10/31/06 : African Diaspora, Slavery and Slave Trades in the Indian Ocean • Y. Talib, ‘The African Diaspora in Asia,’ in M. Elfasi (ed.), General History of Africa III:
African from the Seventh to the Eleventh Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988): 704-33
• Edward A. Alpers, ‘The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean: A Comparative Perspective,’ in Shihan de S. Jayasuriya & Richard Pankhurst (eds.), The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean (Trenton & Asmara: African World Press, 2003): 19-50
• Alpers, ‘Recollecting Africa: Diasporic Memory in the Indian Ocean World’, African Studies Review, vol. 43, no. 1 (April 2000): 83-99
• Gwyn Campbell, ‘Introduction” Slavery and other forms of Unfree Labour in the Indian Ocean World,’ in Campbell (ed.), The Structure of Slavery in Indian Ocean Africa and Asia (London: Routledge, 2004): vii-xxxii
• Markus Vink, ‘The World’s Oldest Trade: Dutch Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Indian Ocean in the Seventeenth Century,’ Journal of World History, 14, 2 (2003): 131-77 • Janet J. Ewald, ‘Crossers of the Sea: Slaves, Freedmen, and Other Migrants in the
Northwestern Indian Ocean, c. 1750-1914’, American Historical Review, vol. 105, no. 1 (February 2000) [available online]
Week 10 – 11/07/06 : South Asian Networks and Diaspora
• M.D. North-Coombes, ‘Indentured Labour in the Sugar Industries of Natal and Mauritius,’ in Surendra Bhana (ed.), Essays on Indentured Indians in Natal (Leeds: Peepal Tress Press, 1988): 12-87
• Claude Markovits, ‘Indian Merchant Networks outside India in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: A Preliminary Survey,’ Modern Asian Studies, vol. 33, no. 4 (October 1999): 883-911 [available online]
• Karen Leonard, ‘South Asians in the Indian Ocean World: Language, Policing, and Gender Practices in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates,’ Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, vol. 25, no. 3 (2005): 677-86 [available online]
• Colin Clarke, Ceri Peach and Steven Vertovec (eds.), South Asians Overseas: Migration and Ethnicity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990): 1-29
Week 11 – 11/14/06 : India: Transition to British Colonialism
• C. A. Bayly, Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988)
• Pearson, Indian Ocean: 190-248
Week 12 – 11/21/06 : The Indian Ocean in the Age of Empire • Bose, A Hundred Horizons
• T.N. Harper, ‘Empire, Diaspora and the Languages of Globalism, 1850-1914,’ in A. G. Hopkins (ed.), Globalization in World History (London: Pimlico, 2002): 141-166
• Engseng Ho, ‘Empire through Diasporic Eyes: A View from the Other Boat,’ Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 46, issue 02 (2004): 210-246 [available online]
Week 13 – 11/28/06: The Place of the Indian Ocean in the Contemporary World: Politics & Security
• Pearson, The Indian Ocean: 249-88
• Milo Kearney, The Indian Ocean in World History (London: Routledge, 2004): 37-77
• P. V. Rao (ed.), India and the Indian Ocean: In the Twilight of the Millennium. Essays in Honour of Professor Satish Chandra (Hyderabad & New Delhi: Centre for Indian Ocean Studies & South Asian Publishers, 2003): 1-35
