Course Date: Saturday, May 1, 2021 (All day) to Tuesday, August 31, 2021 (All day)
Course Name: Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Course ID: 02.114DH
Registrar Course ID: Digital Humanities
Instructor: Nazry Bahrawi

This course provides a general view of multicultural experiences in the SE Asian archipelago (including peninsular Malaysia) through historical and literary lenses.  Starting with a concept of multiculturalism developed for this region in particular, the course introduces the long-term historical tendency of Malayo-Indonesian civilization to absorb foreign ideas and persons, and goes on to considers both (1) how the pluralistic culture of the region was affected in the modern period by increasing immigration (by both indigenous groups moving within  the archipelago and non-indigenous groups  moving into the archipelago), as well as by European colonization and the introduction of modernization; and (2) how the lives of colonial subjects protested against both native norms and colonial governance. Important literary works by Javanese, Malay, English, Dutch, and Chinese authors dating from the 19th and 20th centuries are informed by recent histories of these same groups by contemporary scholars of the SE Asian archipelago. Overall, the course examines the multiplicity of cultures within the archipelago as fluid groupings shaped through human effort both from the top and the bottom of the social and political structures.

Week 1
Robert W. Hefner, “Introduction: Multiculturalism and Citizenship in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia.” In Robert W. Hefner, ed., The Politics of Multiculturalism: Pluralism and Citizenship in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia (University of Hawaii Press, 2009), pp. 1-19.
Anthony Milner, Race or Civilization: The Localizing of ‘The Malays’ (IKMAS, 2010), pp. 9-31.
Week 2
George Coedes, The Indianized States of Southeast Asia (University of Hawaii Press, 1968).
Chapter II: Indianization (pp. 14-35).

Barbara Watson Andaya and Leonard Y. Andaya, A History of Malaysia, 2nd ed. (Palgrave, 2001).
Ch. 1: ‘The Heritage of the Past’ (pp. 7-38).
Week 3
A. C. Milner, Kerajaan: Malay Political Culture on the Eve of Colonial Rule (The University of Arizona Press, 1982).
Ch. 6: ‘The Malay Raja’, pp. 94-111.
Anthony Reid, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450-1680: Volume Two (Yale University Press, 1993).
Ch. 1: ‘The Age of Commerce, 1400-1650’ (pp. 1-24).
Ch. 3: ‘A Religious Revolution’ (pp. 132-151; 169-186).

Barbara Watson Andaya and Leonard Y. Andaya, A History of Malaysia, 2nd ed. (Palgrave, 2001).
Ch. 2. ‘Melaka and Its Heirs’ (pp. 39-78).
Week 4
Serat Centhini (1814).
Week 5
Barbara Watson Andaya and Leonard Y. Andaya, A History of Malaysia, 2nd ed. (Palgrave, 2001).
Ch. 3. ‘The Demise of the Malay Entrepot State, 1699-1819’ (pp. 79-116).

Timothy P. Bernard, ‘Texts, Raja Ismail, and Violence: Siak and the Transformation of Malay Identity in the Eighteenth Century.” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Sep 2001, 32:2 (pp. 331-342).
Week 6
Munshi Abdullah, Hikayat Abdullah (1849).
Week 7 - NIL
Week 8
Norman G. Owen, ed. The Emergence of Modern Southeast Asia (University of Hawaii Press, 2005).
Ch. 9: ‘Realignments: The Making of the Netherlands East Indies, 1750-1914’ (pp. 171-186).
Ch. 10: ‘The Malay Negeri of the Peninsula and Borneo, 1775-1900’ (pp. 188-201).

Margaret J. Wiener, ‘Dangerous Liaisons and other Tales from the Twilight Zone: Sex, Race, and Sorcery in Colonial Java,’ Comparative Studies in Society and History, 2007; 49(3): pp. 495-526.

Sandra Khor Manickam, ‘Common Ground: Race and the Colonial Universe in British Malaya,’ Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Vol. 40, No. 3 (Oct. 2009), pp. 593-612.
Week 9
Thomas Stamford Raffles, The History of Java, Volume 1 (1817).
Ch. 2: ‘Origin of the Natives’ (pp. 62-116).

Multatuli, Max Havelaar (1860).
Ch. V: (pp. 52-73).
Week 10
Charles A. Coppel, ‘Historical Impediments to the Acceptance of Ethnic Chinese in a Multicultural Indonesia’, in Chinese Indonesians: State Policy, Monoculture and Multiculture, ed., Leo Suryadinata (Eastern Universities Press, 2004), pp. 17-28.
Lian and Koh, ‘Chinese Enterprise in Colonial Malaya: The Case of Eu Tong Sen,’ Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Vol. 35, No. 3 (Oct., 2004), pp. 415-432.
Week 11
Kwee Tek Hoay, The Rose of Cikembang (1927).
Week 12
Raden Adjeng Kartini, Letters of a Javanese Princess (1912).
Week 13
Alfian Sa’at, Malay Sketches (Ethos, 2012).
Norman G. Owen, ed. The Emergence of Modern Southeast Asia (University of Hawaii Press, 2005).
Ch. 20: ‘Becoming Indonesia, 1900-1959’ (pp. 290-310).
Ch. 31: ‘Indonesia: The First Fifty Years’ (pp. 471-495).
Ch. 21: ‘British Malaya’ (pp. 311-324).
Ch. 29: ‘Malaysia since 1957’ (pp. 447-458).
Ch. 30: ‘Singapore and Brunei’ (pp. 459-470).
Week 14 - NIL
Gopal Baratham, A Candle or the Sun (1991).