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100-183 Understanding Asia

The last lecture put emphasis on readings from week 1, 2, 3 and 12 for the exam. (defining Asia, Mapping China, Hinduism/Buddhism and Asian values)

Week 1 - Introduction/historical overview

 * Asia
 * Western Asia / Southwest Asia / Middle East
 * South Asia
 * Northern Asia / Central Asia
 * East Asia
 * Southeast Asia
 * Asia as everything east of Europe / east of the Phoenicians
 * Asia as different from the West
 * the Occident (the west) VS the Orient (the east) - east of the Roman Empire

Vocabulary
 * Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere
 * Charles Darwin
 * Civilizing mission
 * Marco Polo
 * Nihonjinron
 * Opium Wars
 * Orientalism
 * Race
 * Social Darwinism / Social evolution
 * Zheng He

Week 2 - Chinese World View
Vocabulary
 * Cartography
 * GIS
 * Geomantic (prophecies/oracle)
 * Geomatic (land surveying)
 * Orientalism - especially Said's book Orientalism (book)
 * discourse
 * Imperialism
 * Intertextuality
 * Mercator projection
 * Gall–Peters projection
 * ASEAN
 * Dutch East Indies
 * Batavia
 * Persia
 * Middle Kingdom (= China)
 * Han Dynasty (206 BCE - 220 CE)
 * Tang Dynasty (581 - 907 CE)
 * Song Dynasty (907 - 1276 CE)
 * Yuan Dynasty (1215/1276 - 1368 CE)
 * Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644 CE)
 * Qing Dynasty (1644 - 1900 CE)

Week 3 - Hinduism and Buddhism

 * Hinduism
 * Buddhism

Vocabulary
 * Arhat
 * Bodhisattva
 * Buddha / Siddharta Gautama
 * Dharma
 * Eightfold Noble Path
 * Five Precepts
 * Four Noble Truths
 * Heterodox (= unorthodox)
 * Hinayana
 * Karma
 * Menander (King Milanda) / Nagasena
 * Mahayana
 * Pali
 * Sangha
 * Sanskrit
 * Upanisads
 * Vajrayana
 * Vedas

Week 4 - Chinese Philosophy

 * Confucianism
 * Daoism - Tao
 * Chinese Buddhism
 * I Ching

Vocabulary
 * Analects
 * Ch'an
 * Confucius
 * ethics
 * Mencius
 * metaphysics
 * Neo-Confucianism
 * oracle bones
 * rectification of names
 * Sage emperors of Yao and Shun
 * Tien-ming
 * utilitarian
 * Patriarchy

Week 5 - The first Emperor of China and contemporary interpretations
The first emperor Qin Shi Huang and the Qin Dynasty

Movies

 * The Emperor and the Assassin (1999)
 * Hero (2002)

Week 6 - Buddhist practice in China and Japan

 * Guan Yin - see here for male/female representation.

Week 7 - Islam

 * Sharia
 * Qu'ran
 * Prophet Muhammad, born in Makkah, later was forced to migrate to Medina. 622AD: Islamic calendar begins with migration of Muhammad. Community in Medina as a model of an Islamic state.
 * Islamic calendar: Ramadan
 * Muslim countries VS Islamic countries (=follows Islamic law and Islamic calendar)


 * Muhammad died suddenly without appointing a successor.


 * Islamic world view
 * Monotheism - see especially Tawhid
 * God cannot be described, you cannot depict God
 * No images of Muhammad, since it would give him divinity - but only God is divine. - Wahhabism (predominant in Saudi Arabia)
 * Unity of God: no other being is glorified; there is only one God who has created the universe out of nothing


 * Three concepts of God:
 * (predominant view:) God is a personal (= a person, self-conscious), transcendental being (= beyond space and time, because if God was not transcendental then he would be subject to change and limited - but God is unlimited - so God cannot be physical/material)
 * maybe God is impersonal (maybe God is not aware of individual beings, because God does not have perception, because perception requires a physical body and God does not have a body)
 * maybe God is not separated from the universe/nature - just as we cannot separate our souls from our bodies -> the whole universe is the body of God


 * Unity of the prophethood: all prophets are considered to be true messengers from God (a Muslim has to accept all prophets)
 * Unity of the scripture: 3 divine texts: Old Testament, New Testament, Qu'ran (they are not written by human beings but revealed by God)


 * Day of Judgement: Divine Justice (God will judge people according to their actions), Divine Retribution (and punish people accordingly) - so there has to be free will. How can God fairly punish someone if he "made" that person bad.


 * causa sui and causa immanence
 * Creation ex nihilo: God created everything out of nothing (supported by some Qu'ranic verses), time, labor is not involved
 * however, God needed 6 days to create the universe, so since time is involved, so is labor


 * Rituals in Islam
 * Profession of faith
 * Prayers (5 times per day) facing (kaaba temple in Makkah/Saudi Arabia (Muslims believe it was built by Abraham)
 * Hajj: pilgrimage to Makkah (only needed if you can afford it)
 * Zakat - Muslim alms giving - 2-2.5% of earnings
 * fasting during Ramadan from sunrise to sunset


 * Sharia - means "the way"
 * more than a law; in civic society a law regulates public life - but Sharia regulates more than that (what to eat, what to wear, how to behave)
 * family law has become a matter of debate nowadays: women's rights, structure of the family, status of family members, custody of children; e.g. polygamy - read it as it is written or interpret it historically?


 * Session 2 - Philosophy
 * Muhammad died in 632 without appointing successors
 * disagreement about successor
 * one group wanted to have an election/consensus - they later became the Sunnis - a successor should be elected, and should be from the same tribe as Muhammad.
 * another group believed Muhammad nominated his first cousin (and son-in-law) Ali, and that the successor should be from the same house as Muhammad - they later became the Shi'ites
 * a number of successors, then a revolt against the Caliph, the rebels appointed Ali
 * a committee was set up to see which group was right; they ruled against Ali
 * a split-group of Ali's group, Kharijis revolted against Ali; most of them were killed, as a backlash Ali was killed; end of Medina period
 * Muslims defeated other empires, moved around, came in contact with other cultures - philosophical exchange


 * Theological/philosophical search for the truth
 * who is responsible for moral corruption? is it the will of God?
 * Traditionalists believe in predestination
 * Mu'tazilites - rationalist school; Free will? Predetermination? how to resolve contradictions in the Qu'ran on this matter? Argue for free will. Another problem: if God's attributes are eternal and different from God, it would be polytheism. How can the Qu'ran be eternal?
 * Ash'arites - moderate school; believe God is beyond human understanding


 * religion VS philosophy: belief versus questioning


 * Christian and Jewish thinkers translated philosophical works into Arabic - foundation of Muslim (not Islamic!) philosophy
 * conflicting view: Islam promulgates creation ex nihilo, but Aristotle argues that is not possible and that God is not a creator but more like an "engineer"
 * solution: Platinus (??) argued that like the sun emanates rays, God emanates (emits?) the universe. But if we all emanate from God, how can there be evil?


 * Vocabulary:
 * abrogation
 * Arian controversy
 * Caliph
 * Five pillars of Islam
 * Haddith
 * Hajj
 * Manichaeism
 * Midrash
 * Peripatetic philosophy
 * Shi'ites and Sunnis
 * Sirah Rasul Allah
 * Sufism
 * sura
 * Tawhid

Week 8 - Japan and WW2

 * Comfort Women