This course aims to introduce students to the diverse ways of defining Asia from various perspectives and help them develop a critical awareness to think about “Asia” as a problematic under the global structure of the contemporary world. Though the traditional notion of Asia is a Eurocentric fabrication, Asia is not necessarily grasped as the other in opposition to the West. Emphasis will be placed on how historically Asia is a position without identity, a continent so much de-regionalized, and a place that keeps searching for its definition. Its developments have been intertwined with capitalist globalization, transforming the world as well as being transformed at the same time.
