This course explores the transnational connections and contexts that shaped ideas in modern Asia such as secularism, modernity, and pan Asianism. Through the intensive study of secondary sources and primary sources in translation, the course will introduce Asian thought during the long nineteenth-century in relation to the social, political, cultural, and technological changes. Using the methods of studying transnational history the course will explore inter-Asian connections in the world of ideas and their relation to the new connectivity afforded by steamships and the printing press. We will also explore how this method can help understand the history of modern Asia as a region of intellectual ferment rather than a passive recipient of European modernity.
