ROADS OF SILK, STREETS OF

WATER

Pre-Modern Eurasian Trade and Culture

J.L. WelshNEH Summer InstituteUH Manoa 2010

Purpose of Course

Trade and Cultural Exchange

Main Texts

Abu-Lughod, Janet L. Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250-1350. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.

  Allsen, Thomas T. Commodity and Exchange in the Mongol

Empire: A Cultural History of Islamic Textiles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Finlay, Robert. The Pilgrim Art: Cultures of Porcelain in World History. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2010.

Freedman, Paul. Out of the East: Spices and the Medieval Imagination. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2008.

Why Start with Abu-Lughod?

Introduce concept of “World Systems”

Give students larger overview of geography, cultures, and the movement of goods between East and West

Provide theories students can later re-evaluate in light of other readings and their own research.

Structural Outline

Geographic Abu-Lughod Discussion of China Discussion of Southeast

Asian routes Thematic

Silk and textiles Porcelain Spices

Assignments

Discussion questions for in-class use

Short response papers on specific themes or primary materials

Primary-source focused short paper

In-class presentation focused on specific commodity

Research paper