Hist 10a--Not Even Past: History for the Global Citizen Fall 2015--Monday/Wednesday 2:00-3:20--Mandel G11
Course Instructors:
Prof. Naghmeh Sohrabi Prof. Xing Hang Office: Lemberg Hall, 224 Office: Olin-Sang 118 Email: [email protected] Email:[email protected] Office hours: Tues. 10:30-12:30 Office hours: Mon.11-12 and Wed. 3:30-4:30 Course Description and Objectives
Why should we study history? What relevance does it have to our present lives? How can we piece together a coherent understanding of the past? Is it even possible to understand the present without knowing its past?
At its heart, this course aims to show that history is pervasive in our everyday lives. Throughout the semester, we explore four case studies of hot button issues in the news today, namely, Hong Kong’s Occupy Central, the Iran nuclear deal, Lee Kuan Yew and overseas Chinese state- building in Southeast Asia, and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). We will examine the historical antecedents for these recent events, and why the past provides the platform, context, and backdrop upon which they play out.
Concurrently, students will become familiar with the newest tools and methodologies in digital technology and employ them to approach the past from the present. They will further understand how to create the past by opening and maintaining their own archival collections. Success in this four-credit course is based on the expectation that students will spend a minimum of nine hours of study time per week in preparation for class.
Course Requirements
Attendance and Participation 25%: Attendance will be taken at each class. More than one unexcused absence will lead to a half grade reduction of your final grade per each absence. For an absence to be excused, you need to inform us and get our approval before your absence. Samples of unacceptable reasons for absence: “I had an exam in another class,” “My alarm clock didn’t go off,” and our all time favorite “My parents bought my ticket for Thanksgiving a week before Thanksgiving and I just have to miss class that entire week.” The only exception is emergency situations for which proper documentation is required.
Student participation is the heart of History 10a, and has three distinct components:
1. Each student is expected to attend and participate actively in every class. Students must be intellectually ‘responsible’ for their postings, that is, they should be prepared to present and explain them in class. 2. You must bring the readings for each meeting to class in either paper or electronic form. While you are allowed to bring electronics to the classroom, you are required to turn off its wifi/data capabilities. If we see you using your devices for any non-class related purposes, we will first give you a warning. After that we will deduct half a grade per violation from your final grade. 3. For each section, you will be asked to post newspaper articles and primary documents to the course’s LATTE forum on the dates indicated on the syllabus. Please note that a newspaper article is not a tweet, a facebook status, or a blog post. If in doubt, ask.
Assignments-Total 50%: The assignments for the course are carefully designed to give you the necessary tools for your final project. Their due date is indicated on the syllabus.
Assignment 1-15%: Choose two primary sources related to Occupy Central using the archives identified in your syllabus. For each primary source, answer the following questions: 1. Who wrote it? 2. When was the source created? 3. Why was it created? 4. What is the significance of the source in the context of the history of Occupy Central? 5. What makes this document a primary source?
Assignment 2-15%: Make a timeline/chronology of the events that led to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action between Iran and the P5+1 on July 14, 2015. Your timeline should include a clear starting point, a clear endpoint and eight other dates in between. Answer the following questions:
1. Explain your thinking in choosing your starting point for the timeline. Why did you begin where you did? 2. For each point on the timeline, in one paragraph per date, explain the significance of the date for understanding the nuclear deal. 3. What were some dates you considered but excluded from the timeline? Why did you leave those events out? How would your timeline had changed if you had included them?
Assignment 3-20%: In 2-3 pages, analyze the two newspaper articles you posted to LATTE for section three using the primary sources available for this section. A handout with details of the assignment will be handed out a week before it’s due.
Field Trip: We will have an outing to a local archive during the semester. Details to be announced.
Final Project-25%: For your final project, you will be divided into four groups and assigned one of the four topics explored in the course. You will work as a group to create an online digital archive of your topic. Details of the project will be handed out in class in October.
Additional Important Information Readings: All the assigned readings for this course are on LATTE.
Extensions:
Absolutely NO EXTENSIONS will be given on any of the assignments for any reason so please don’t ask. The only exception is an unexpected and legitimate emergency, which will require proper documentation. BACK UP YOUR WORK. As painful as computer crashes are (and we know they are painful), it does not count as a legitimate excuse as we fully expect you to make backups of your work continuously.
Should you decide to grant yourself an extension, please keep in mind that your assignment grade will be docked by half a grade for every 24 hours that it is late.
Plagiarism: Any type of plagiarism for any reason will result in an automatic F for the assignment and will be reported to Brandeis’ “Department of Student Development and Conduct.” If it occurs more than once in the semester, you will receive an automatic F for the course. If you have any doubts what plagiarism is, read through the sources offered at http://lts.brandeis.edu/teachlearn/support/academic-integrity/index.html and or discuss the matter with us.
University Statement on Documented Disability: If you are a student with a documented disability on record at Brandeis University and wish to have a reasonable accommodation made for you in this class, please see me immediately. Please keep in mind that reasonable accommodations are not provided retroactively.
Plan of Classes
August 31: Introduction to the Course.
Section One: Occupy Central
Occupy Central, also known as the Umbrella Revolution or Umbrella Movement, was an attempt by activists in Hong Kong to disrupt normal operations in the Chinese territory so as to force the authorities to grant its citizens universal suffrage. The protests, which started in September 2014 and lasted for three months, reflects the uneasy position of the city as a crossroads between East and West, its troubled past as a British colony, along with the ambiguous identity of its residents toward mainland China. It all began in 1839 with a struggle between Britain and China over illicit drugs...
September 2: Hong Kong: A Special City in Special Times
Readings: Basic Law of Hong Kong, 1-52;
Check out this website fom the BBC http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-29408476, for an introduction to the key players in Occupy Central
September 9: The Unfolding of the Umbrella Movement
Please post between 2-4 newspaper articles to the relevant LATTE forum by 5 pm on September 8.
Readings: Basic Law, 133-153;
Occupy Central archives from three major international news outlets. Browse over the contents and also pay attention to the comments section (if available). Think about the different ways each media group selects information to present to the reader, as well as the underlying agendas behind their narrative of events.
South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) http://www.scmp.com/news/hong- kong/article/1602958/live-occupy-central-kicks-hundreds-classroom-boycott-students-leave? page=all (click on “Click here for the latest live coverage” to browse through each day of the movement) Global Times (Chinese mainland): http://www.globaltimes.cn//lazy-pack/occupy- central/index.html Time (US) http://time.com/3439242/hong-kong-democracy-china-ocuppy-central/ (keep scrolling down to read more articles)
September 10 (Brandeis Monday): The Handover
Readings: John Carroll, A Concise History of Hong Kong (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007), 190-238;
Hong Kong: What's Changed, What Hasn't, http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1630322,00.html
Video: Hong Kong Handover 1997, https://youtu.be/H4QpP7ofwa8
September 16: Between the Dragon and John Bull
Readings: Carroll, 135-189;
A Documentary History of Hong Kong: Society, ed. David Faure (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1997), 390-392;
A Documentary History of Hong Kong: Government and Politics, ed. Steve Tsang (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1997), 50-53.
Videos: City of Imagination: Kowloon Walled City 20 Years Later https://youtu.be/dj_8ucS3lMY
Please post two primary documents on this topic to the relevant LATTE forum by 5 pm on September 15.
September 21: The Bastard Child of Opium
Readings: Carroll, 15-46;
Faure, 15-22, 29-33, 118-121, 133-146;
Tsang, 15-18, 30-33, 34-35, 45-47.
Assignment 1 due in class on September 21.
Section Two: The Iran Nuclear Deal
Ever since the Vienna agreement on July 14, 2015 between Iran and the P5+1, an intense debate has occurred in the United States over whether this is a good or bad deal with the US and its allies. At the heart of this debate lies the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran and that of US- Iran relations. This section examines these issues.
September 29 and September 30 (No class on September 28 and September 29 is Brandeis Monday): What is the Islamic Republic of Iran?
Ervand Abrahamian, “Structural Causes of the Iranian Revolution,” MERIP Reports, No. 87, (May, 1980), pp. 21-26. Mohsen Milani, “Political Participation in Revolutionary Iran”, in John Esposito, ed., Political Islam: Revolution, Radicalism, or Reform? (Boulder, Col.: Lynne Rienner, 1997), 77-93. http://www.merip.org/mer/mer88/irans-revolution-first-year http://www.merip.org/mer/mer104/year-three-iranian-revolution http://www.merip.org/mer/mer156/revolutions-first-decade http://www.merip.org/mer/mer250/why-islamic-republic-has-survived
Primary Sources: Selections from the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and “The Temptation of Democracy: Interview with Morad Saqafi,” available at: http://www.merip.org/mer/mer212/temptation-democracy
October 7 (No class October 5): Iran’s Nuclear Program
Please post between 2-4 newspaper articles to the relevant LATTE forum by 5 pm October 6.
Seyyed Hossein Mousavian, The Iranian Nuclear Crisis: A Memeoir, Chapter 1. Tytti Erästö, “Learning from the Past in the Iranian Nuclear Dispute,” MERIP, April 16, 2014 available at: http://www.merip.org/mero/mero041614 Chen Kane, “Nuclear Decision Making in Iran,” MEB No. 5 available at http://www.brandeis.edu/crown/publications/meb/MEB5.pdf
Primary Sources: Documents from Iran Matters: http://iranmatters.belfercenter.org
October 12: The 1953 Coup
Mark Gasiorowski, “The 1953 Coup in Iran,” IJMES, 19 (1987). Primary Source: “Clandestine Service History: Overthrow of Premier Mossadegh of Iran” available at: http://cryptome.org/iran-cia/cia-iran-pdf.htm. Please read along with this explanation: http://www.merip.org/mer/mer216/cia-looks-back-1953-coup-iran
Oct 14: The 1979 Hostage Crisis
Please post two primary documents on US-Iran relations or the nuclear issue to the relevant LATTE forum by 5 pm on October 13.
Watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WugWIyNd8Dw
“The Iranian Revolution 25 years Later: An Oral History with Henry Precht, then State Department Desk Officer,” Middle East Journal 58, no. 1 (Winter 2004): 9-31.
Primary Source: Sayyed Ruhollah Khomeini, “The granting of capitulatory rights to the U.S.” in Islam and Revolution. Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini, translated and annotated by H. Algar (Berkeley: Mizan Press, 1981), 181-188 [Originally: speech held in Qom, Iran, October 27, 1964];
October 19: Guest Lecturer TBA Assignment 2 due in class on October 19.
Section Three: Lee Kuan Yew and Overseas Chinese State-building in Southeast Asia
The lifetime struggle of the late statesman Lee Kwan Yew to come to terms with his Chineseness is fairly representative of the experiences of many Chinese living overseas. Singapore, the famed city-state that he founded and came to be widely associated with, reflects his inner tension. Although it is the only country where overseas Chinese form a majority of the population, it is not officially “Chinese” but multicultural. At the same time, Singapore reflects the successful culmination of many previous attempts by Chinese abroad to establish their own polities, including immigrants on the Mekong River Delta in southern Vietnam and Cambodia and the republics on Borneo in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
October 21: In Search of Roots
Readings: Lynn Pan, Sons of the Yellow Emperor: The Story of Overseas Chinese (New York: Kodansha America, 1994), 257-274;
Check out the Remembering Lee Kuan Yew website, http://www.rememberingleekuanyew.sg/ for the official Singaporean view of the man and his times. October 26: Singapore: A Reluctant Independence
Please post between 2-4 newspaper articles to the relevant LATTE forum by 5 pm October 25.
Readings: Mark Ravinder Frost and Yu-Mei Blasingamchow, Singapore: A Biography (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2009), 382-423.
October 28 and November 2: The Chinese Republics in Borneo
Please post two primary documents to the relevant LATTE forum by 5 pm on November 1.
Readings: Yuan Bingling, Chinese Democracies: A Study of the Kongsis of West Borneo (1776- 1884) (Leiden, The Netherlands: Leiden University Press, 2000), 56-102, 291-310.
November 4: The Ming Loyalists of the Mekong River Delta
Readings: Anthony Reid, “Chinese Trade and Southeast Asian Economic Expansion in the Later Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries: An Overview”;
Yumio Sakurai, “Eighteenth-Century Chinese Pioneers on the Water Frontiers of Indochina”;
Puangthong Rungswasdisab, “Siam and the Contest for Control of the Trans-Mekong Trading Network from the Late Eighteenth to the Mid-Nineteenth Centuries,” in Water Frontiers: Commerce and the Chinese in the Lower Mekong Region, 1735-1880, ed. Nola Cooke and Li Tana (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004), 21-34, 35-52, 101-118.
November 9: Guest Lecturer (details TBA)--Assignment 3 due in class on November 9.
Section Four: ISIS and the Changing Borders of the Middle East
On June 29, 2014, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (da’esh in Arabic, also known as IS and ISIL) declared itself an Islamic caliphate. The group has dominated global media due to the unprecedented speed with which it took control over Iraqi and Syrian territory, its presence in Libya and Nigeria, its brutal footage of beheadings and other forms of violence, and its destruction of ancient cultural sites. In this section we will examine ISIS in terms of its political rise, the revival of the caliphate, and the ways in which their rule is questioning century old borders of the Middle East.
November 11: ISIS and its History Patrick Cockburn, The Rise of Islamic State, Chapter 1 Aaron Zelin, “The War Between ISIS and al-Qaeda for Supremacy of the Global Jihadist Movement” available at http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/uploads/Documents/pubs/ResearchNote_20_Zelin.pdf
November 16 and 18: The revival of the Caliphate?
Reza Pankhurst, The Inevitable Caliphate? A History of the Struggle for Global Islamic Union, 1924 to the Present, Chapters 2 and 7.
Primary Source: “The abolition of the Caliphate,” Mar 8th 1924, The Economist and video of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMvKneiNwMc.
Week 13: November 23 (No class on November 25):
Class discussion: Is ISIS essentially a religious phenomenon or a political one? For the class discussion (part of your participation grade), find either newspaper articles or primary documents to back up both sides of the argument and post to LATTE by 5 pm November 22.
November 30 and December 2: ISIS and the end of Sykes Picot
Jim Gelvin, The Modern Middle East, Chapters 11 and 12. Itamar Rabinovich, “The End of Sykes-Picot? Reflections on the Prospects of the Arab State System,” available at http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2014/02/sykes %20picot%20rabinovich/sykes_picot_rabinovich.pdf Yezid Sayigh, “Are the Sykes-Picot Borders Being Redrawn?” available at http://carnegie- mec.org/publications/?fa=56007
Primary Source: The Sykes-Picot agreemen available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/middle_east/2001/israel_and_the_palestinians/key_documen ts/1681362.stmt; ISIS video: The End of Sykes-Picot; article contextualizing the video: http://muftah.org/the-sykes-picot-agreement-isis/#.VeOE57xViko
December 7 and 9: Final Project Presentations and Course Wrap Up.