Global Asia Studies

This course introduces Global Asia Studies through studying historical and political perspectives on Asia. Students will learn how to critically analyze major historical texts and events to better understand important cultural, political, and social phenomena involving Asia and the world. They will engage in intensive reading and writing for humanities.
Same as HISA06H3

This course introduces Global Asia Studies through the study of cultural and social institutions in Asia. Students will critically study important elements of culture and society over different periods of history and in different parts of Asia. They will engage in intensive reading and writing for humanities.

This course examines the role of technological and cultural networks in mediating and facilitating the social, economic and political processes of globalization. Key themes include imperialism, militarization, global political economy, activism, and emerging media technologies. Particular attention is paid to cultures of media production and reception outside of North America.
Same as MDSB05H3

The course will provide students with an introduction to the arts of South Asia, from classical to modern, and from local to global. Fields of study may include music, dance, drama, literature, film, graphic arts, decorative arts, magic, yoga, athletics, and cuisine, fields viewed as important arts for this society.

This course examines the role of gender in shaping social institutions in Asia.

This course examines the close relationship between religions and cultures, and the role they play in shaping the worldviews, aesthetics, ethical norms, and other social ideals in Asian countries and societies.

This course examines the global spread of different versions of Buddhism across historical and contemporary societies.

Why does Southern Asia’s pre-colonial history matter? Using materials that illustrate the connected worlds of Central Asia, South Asia and the Indian Ocean rim, we will query conventional histories of Asia in the time of European expansion.
Same as HISB53H3

A survey of South Asian history. The course explores diverse and exciting elements of this long history, such as politics, religion, trade, literature, and the arts, keeping in mind South Asia's global and diasporic connections.
Same as HISB57H3

This course provides an overview of the historical changes and continuities of the major cultural, economic, political, and social institutions and practices in modern Chinese history.
Same as HISB58H3

A survey of the art of China, Japan, Korea, India, and Southeast Asia. We will examine a wide range of artistic production, including ritual objects, painting, calligraphy, architectural monuments, textile, and prints. Special attention will be given to social contexts, belief systems, and interregional exchanges.
Same as VPHB73H3

This course explores the social circulation of Asian-identified foods and beverages using research from geographers, anthropologists, sociologists, and historians to understand their changing roles in ethnic entrepreneur-dominated cityscapes of London, Toronto, Singapore, Hong Kong, and New York. Foods under study include biryani, curry, coffee, dumplings, hoppers, roti, and tea.
Same as HISB74H3

An introduction to modern Asian art through domestic, regional, and international exhibitions. Students will study the multilayered new developments of art and art institutions in China, Japan, Korea, India, Thailand, and Vietnam, as well as explore key issues such as colonial modernity, translingual practices, and multiple modernism.
Same as VPHB77H3

This course offers students a critical and analytical perspective on issues of gender history, equity, discrimination, resistance, and struggle facing societies in East and South Asia and their diasporas.

This course critically examines different aspects of Buddhism in global context.

This course examines the complex and dynamic interplay of media and politics in contemporary China, and the role of the government in this process.
Same as MDSC40H3

This course introduces students to media industries and commercial popular cultural forms in East Asia. Topics include reality TV, TV dramas, anime, and manga as well as issues such as regional cultural flows, global impact of Asian popular culture, and the localization of global media in East Asia. 
Same as MDSC41H3

This course offers students a critical perspective on film and popular cultures in South Asia. Topics include Bombay, Tamil, and other regional filmic industries, their history, production, and distribution strategies, their themes and musical genres, and a critical look at the larger social and political meanings of these filmic cultures.

This course explores the development of colonialism, modernity, and nationalism in modern Japan, Korea, China, and Taiwan. Key issues include sexuality, race, medicine, mass media, and consumption.

This course offers students a critical perspective on film and popular cultures in East Asia. The course examines East Asian filmic industries, and the role they play in shaping worldviews, aesthetics, ethical norms, folk beliefs, and other socio-cultural aspects in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan.

An introduction to the distinctive East Asian legal tradition shared by China, Japan, and Korea through readings about selected thematic issues. Students will learn to appreciate critically the cultural, political, social, and economic causes and effects of East Asian legal cultures and practices.
Same as HISC56H3

This course addresses literary, historical, ethnographic, and filmic representations of the political economy of China and the Indian subcontinent from the early 19th century to the present day. We will look at such topics as the role and imagination of the colonial-era opium trade that bound together India, China and Britain in the 19th century, anticolonial conceptions of the Indian and Chinese economies, representations of national physical health, as well as critiques of mass-consumption and capitalism in the era of the ‘liberalization’ and India and China’s rise as major world economies. Students will acquire a grounding in these subjects from a range of interdisciplinary perspectives.

Same as HISC51H3

The Silk Routes were a lacing of highways connecting Central, South and East Asia and Europe. Utilizing the Royal Ontario Museum's collections, classes held at the Museum and U of T Scarborough will focus on the art produced along the Silk Routes in 7th to 9th century Afghanistan, India, China and the Taklamakhan regions.
Same as VPHC53H3

Students examine historical themes for local and regional cuisines across Global Asia, including but not limited to Anglo-Indian, Arab, Bengali, Chinese, Himalayan, Goan, Punjabi, Japanese, Persian, Tamil, and Indo-Caribbean. Themes include religious rituals, indigenous foodways; colonialism, industrialization, labour, gender, class, migration, globalization, and media. Tutorials are in the Culinaria Kitchen Lab.

Same as FSTC54H3 and HISC54H3

A study of the history of China's relationship with the rest of the world in the modern era. The readings focus on China's role in the global economy, politics, religious movements, transnational diasporas, scientific/technological exchanges, and cultural encounters and conflicts in the ages of empire and globalization.
Same as HISC57H3

This course explores the transnational history of Tamil worlds. In addition to exploring modern Tamil identities, the course will cover themes such as mass migration, ecology, social and economic life, and literary history.

Same as HISC59H3

An introduction to Chinese contemporary art focusing on three cities: Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. Increasing globalization and China's persistent self-renovation has brought radical changes to cities, a subject of fascination for contemporary artists. The art works will be analyzed in relation to critical issues such as globalization and urban change.
Same as VPHC74H3

This course offers an in-depth and historicized study of important cultural issues in historical and contemporary Asian, diasporic and borderland societies, including migration, mobility, and circulation. It is conducted in seminar format with emphasis on discussion, critical reading and writing, digital skills, and primary research.

Same as HISD09H3

This course offers a capstone experience of issues which confront Asian and diasporic societies. Themes include gender, environment, human rights, equity, religion, politics, law, migration, labour, nationalism, post-colonialism, and new social movements. It is conducted in seminar format with emphasis on discussion, critical reading, and writing of research papers.

The course offers an in-depth, special study of important topics in the study of Global Asia. Special topics will vary from year to year depending on the expertise of the visiting professor. It is conducted in seminar format with emphasis on discussion, critical reading, and writing of research papers.

An exploration of the global problem of crime and punishment. The course investigates how the global processes of colonialism, industrialization, capitalism and liberalization affected modern criminal justice and thus the state-society relationship and modern citizenry in different cultures across time and space.
Same as HISD06H3

This seminar examines the transformation and perpetuation of gender relations in contemporary Chinese societies. It pays specific attention to gender politics at the micro level and structural changes at the macro level through in-depth readings and research.
Same as SOCD20H3

This course examines how popular culture projects its fantasies and fears about the future onto Asia through sexualized and racialized technology. Through the lens of techno-Orientalism this course explores questions of colonialism, imperialism and globalization in relation to cyborgs, digital industry, high-tech labor, and internet/media economics. Topics include the hyper-sexuality of Asian women, racialized and sexualized trauma and disability. This course requires student engagement and participation. Students are required to watch films in class, and creative assignments such as filmmaking and digital projects are encouraged.
Same as WSTD30H3

The Chinese government has played a central role in the development of print, electronic and digital media. Recent changes in the political economy of Chinese media have had strong political and cultural implications. This senior seminar course examines the complex and dynamic interplay of media and politics in contemporary China.

This seminar course examines the First World War in its imperial and colonial context in Africa and Asia. Topics include forgotten fronts in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific, colonial armies and civilians, imperial economies and resources, the collapse of empires and the remaking of the colonial world.

Same as AFSD53H3 and HISD53H3

This upper-level seminar will explore how water has shaped human experience. It will explore water landscapes, the representation of water in legal and political thought, slave narratives, and water management in urban development from the 16th century. Using case studies from South Asia and North America we will understand how affective, political and social relations to water bodies are made and remade over time.

Same as HISD54H3

'Coolie' labourers formed an imperial diaspora linking South Asia and China to the Caribbean, Africa, the Indian Ocean, South-east Asia, and North America. The long-lasting results of this history are evident in the cultural and ethnic diversity of today's Caribbean nations and Commonwealth countries such as Great Britain and Canada.
Same as HISD56H3

A study of major cultural trends, political practices, social customs, and economic developments in late imperial China (1400-1911) as well as their relevance to modern and contemporary China. Students will read the most recent literature and write a substantive research paper.
Same as HISD58H3

A seminar course on Chinese legal tradition and its role in shaping social, political, economic, and cultural developments, especially in late imperial and modern China. Topics include the foundations of legal culture, regulations on sexuality, women's property rights, crime fictions, private/state violence, laws of ethnicities, prison reforms and modernization.
Same as HISD59H3

Examines the central place of cuisine to families, societies, and cultures across Global Asian societies and their diasporas, using tastes, culinary work techniques, community-based research, oral histories, digital humanities and multi-media experiential learning, as well as critical reading and writing.