Instructor: Matthew D. Linton Olin-Sang 104 MW 3:30-4:50 PMlinton@brandeis.edu Office Hours: MW 2-3 PM or by appointment

HIST 115B - The Great Ocean: An International History of the Pacific, 1860-2016

Map of the Pacific World circa 1589

Course Description and Learning Goals:

The Pacific Ocean is the largest geographical feature on earth. At 63.8 million square miles, the Pacific is larger than the earth’s entire land area combined. The Pacific’s size and diffuse population have allowed it to defy easy historical understanding. The challenges presented by the Ocean’s size and population have been compounded by its linguistic, cultural, and social diversity. New historical techniques, which have sought to transcend historical scholarship’s national focus, have made an international history of the Pacific Ocean possible for the first time. Like recent movements towards big data in other social science fields, this course’s approach is what Harvard University’s David Armitage has called ‘big history.’ Big history seeks to capture large narratives by focusing on expansive questions and large geographic areas, linking diverse fields of historical inquiry to tell stories with relevance to contemporary political, cultural, and social interests. This course will provide an overview of these methods including economic, immigration, cultural, epidemiological, and environmental history, which will be used as lenses to trace the history of the Pacific Ocean from 1860 to the present. Particular attention will be

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paid to American empire, cultural exchange, and tensions between state control and globalization.

Aside from exposing students to new historical methods, this course will challenge students’ critical reading, oral presentation, and academic writing skills. This four-credit course is designed with the belief that group discussion and independent work are necessary to foster a well-rounded understanding of ‘big history.’ Reading and lectures are this course’s primary modes of instruction. Readings will provide background for the lectures and expose students to methodologically innovative recent publications in a variety of historical subdisciplines. Two written assignments will give students the opportunity to synthesize course readings and lectures with materials not covered in class. Combining course materials with independent research will allow students to build their own critical thinking skills from a foundation of materials covered in the classroom. Students are encouraged to express their ideas both during the instructor’s lectures and sessions devoted to discussion. The course will facilitate various learning styles, integrating listening, speaking, reading, and writing. This integration will allow students to show strength in particular mediums while not disadvantaging students who are still working to improve their public speaking, critical thinking, or writing skills.

Required Books:

Chang, Kornel. Pacific Connections: The Making of the US-Canadian Borderlands. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012.

Igler, David. The Great Ocean: Pacific Worlds from Captain Cook to the Gold Rush. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Imada, Adria L. Aloha America: Hula Circuits Through the U.S. Empire. Durham: Duke University Press, 2012.

Klein, Christina. Cold War Orientalism: Asia in the Middlebrow Imagination, 1945-61. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.

Matsuda, Matt K. Pacific Worlds: A History of Seas, Peoples, and Cultures. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Platt, Stephen. Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War. New York City: Vintage, 2012.

Course Requirements and Evaluation:

1) Class Attendance and Participation (30%)This course is divided between lectures and class discussions. For the student to get the most out of the course, class attendance is necessary. This course meets twice weekly and I expect students to come to all classes unless explicitly stated on the syllabus. I will not post lecture Powerpoints online. Each student is allotted TWO EXCUSED ABSENCES per semester without penalty. Further absences or chronic lateness will result in point deductions. Unpreparedness will also be penalized, particularly for class discussions. Discussions are ineffective if students do not read the assigned materials, so please be prepared to discuss readings during our discussion sections. The night before each discussion students will be required to submit ONE QUESTION VIA LATTE for the next day’s discussion. Failure to do so will result in losing points from your participation

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grade.

Classroom behavior and decorum will also be a component of your participation grade. Be respectful of others and their beliefs during class discussion and group work. Classroom bullying is against both university policy and the spirit of the class and will not be tolerated.

2) Book Review (25%)Each student will be required to read and write a review of one additional book chosen from a list compiled by the instructor. The review will be between 4-5 PAGES, DOUBLE-SPACED IN 12-POINT TIMES NEW ROMAN FONT WITH 1 INCH MARGINS and must be given to the instructor at the course roundup for that book’s particular section. The review books are listed on the final pages of this syllabus and are available in the Brandeis University library. Lateness will be penalized by a half-grade per day. The review should both give a brief overview of the book’s argument and evidence and critically assess if it was persuasive. Consult the journal Reviews in American History for examples of the book review format. Students should be prepared to discuss the book they review as part of class discussion on the day they hand in the written review.

3) Research Paper Prospectus (10%)Each student must submit a two-page prospectus outlining their research paper topic and containing a tentative list of sources. The paper description should be between 500-700 words. The source list must contain at least 5 primary sources and demonstrate a familiarity with published secondary literature. The prospectus is due on April 6. Lateness will be penalized a half-grade per day.

4) Research Paper (35%)During the course’s final unit, students will be asked to write a 10-12 page research paper on a topic of their choice. All topics must be approved by the instructor and a single page prospectus outlining the paper’s preliminary argument and evidence will be due on March 29. The paper must use a minimum of five (5) primary sources. Students will have the option of submitting a rough draft to the instructor on April 19 via email. Rough drafts will be assessed for content and structure, but not grammar. The final draft is due on May 6. Lateness will be penalized by a half-grade per day.

Academic Integrity:

You are expected to be familiar with and to follow the University’s policies on academic integrity (see http://www.brandeis.edu/studentlife/sdc/ai). Faculty may refer any suspected instances of alleged dishonesty to the Office of Student Development and Conduct. Instances of academic dishonesty may result in sanctions including but not limited to, failing grades being issued, educational programs, and other consequences.

Students With Disabilities:

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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.

Introduction: Contours and Contact

January 13

Hand out syllabus and course introduction (no reading)

January 18

No Class

January 20 (Peopling the Pacific)

Required Reading:

David Igler, The Great Ocean: Pacific Worlds from Captain Cook to the Gold Rush (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).

The Pacific Web: Trade, Immigration, and Empire, 1860-1918

January 25 (An Ocean Framed by Conflict)

Required Reading:

Stephen Platt, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom (New York City: Knopf, 2012). Parts I and II.

January 27 (Trading Goods, Exchanging Ideas)

Required Reading:

Matsuda, Chapters 13-15.

February 1 (Immigration and Its Discontents)

Required Reading:

1882 Chinese Exclusion Act (LATTE)*

Erika Lee, “The ‘Yellow Peril’ and Asian Exclusion in the Americas”, The Pacific Historical Review 76, No. 4 (November 2007): 537-562. (LATTE)

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Joanna Poblete, “The S.S. Mongolia Incident: Medical Politics and Filipino Colonial Migration in Hawai’i”, Pacific Historical Review 82, No. 2 (May 2013): 248-278. (LATTE)

February 3 (The Race to Colonize the Pacific)

Required Reading:

Matsuda, Pacific Worlds, Chapter 16

John Hay to Andrew D. White, “First Open Door Note”, September 6, 1899. (LATTE)

Stuart Banner, Possessing the Pacific: Land, Settlers, and Indigenous Peoples from Australia to Alaska (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007). Intro, Chapters 1-4, 8. (eBrary version available)

February 8 (Unit 1 Roundup – Class Discussion)

Required Reading:

None.

Assignments Due:

All Section 1 Book Reviews Due!

An Ocean on Fire: War in the Pacific, 1918-1945

February 10 (The International Moment and Frustrated Ambitions)

Required Reading:

The Stimson Doctrine and the Japanese Response (LATTE)*

Micah Muscolino, “The Yellow Croaker War: Fishery Disputes Between China and Japan, 1925-1935”, Environmental History 13, No. 2 (Apr., 2008): 306-324. (LATTE)

Matsuda, Pacific Worlds, Chapter 17

February 15 & 17 (No Class)

February 22 (Responses to Colonialism)

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Required Reading:

Kornel Chang, Pacific Connections: The Making of the U.S.-Canadian Borderlands (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012).

February 25 (Exhausted Dragon, Rising Sun, Circling Eagle)

Required Reading:

Gregory Dvorak, “Who Closed the Sea? Archipelagos of Amnesia Between the United States and Japan”, Pacific Historical Review 83, No. 2 (May 2014): 350-372. (LATTE)

February 29 (The Pacific Ablaze)

Required Reading:

Matsuda, Pacific Worlds, Chapter 18

Radiolab, “Fu-Go”, Podcast (LATTE)

March 2 (Unit 2 Roundup – Class Discussion)

Required Reading:

None.

Assignments Due:

All Section 2 Book Reviews Due!

Pax Americana?: American Cultural Hegemony, 1946-1980

March 7 (Rebuilding Japan As America)

Required Reading:

Eleanor Lattimore, “Pacific Ocean or American Lake?” Far Eastern Survey 14, No. 22 (November 7, 1945): 313-316. (LATTE)*

John Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (New York City: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999): Chapters 1 & 4 (LATTE)

March 9 (The Velvet Empire: Making An American Lake)

Required Reading:

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Klein, Cold War Orientalism, Chapters 1, 3, and 4.

Henry R. Luce, “The American Century”, Life Magazine (February 17, 1941): (LATTE)

March 14 (Building Cultural Hegemony During the Cold War)

Required Reading:

Imada, Aloha America, Introduction & Chapter 1

March 16 (An Empire for Whom? Appropriating American Empire)

Required Reading:

Imada, Aloha America, Chapter 2-3

Ann K. Ziker, “Segregationists Confront American Empire: The Conservative White South and the Question of Hawaiian Statehood”, Pacific Historical Review 76, No. 3 (August 2007): 439-466. (LATTE)

March 21 (Power and Protest in the American Lake)

Required Reading:

Matsuda, Pacific Worlds, Chapter 19

Megan M. Ferry, “China as Utopia: Visions of the Chinese Cultural Revolution in Latin America”, Modern Chinese Literature and Culture 12, Vol. 2 (Fall 2000): 236-269. (LATTE)

Robeson Taj P. Frazier, “Thunder in the East: China, Exiled Crusaders, and the Unevenness of Black Internationalism”, American Quarterly 63, Vol. 4 (Dec., 2011): 929-953. (LATTE)

March 23 (Unit 3 Roundup – Class Discussion)

Required Reading:

None.

Assignments Due:

All Unit 3 Book Reviews Due!

March 28

No Class

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April 4 (Advanced History Research Methods)

Required Reading:

None.

Assignments Due:

Research prospectus handed in to me (hard copy required) at the beginning of class. Bring a computer or tablet if possible.

Rising China, Sinking World: The Pacific’s Political and Environmental Future, 1980-Present

April 6 (The Pacific and the Global Community)

Required Reading:

Karen Nero, “The End of Insularity” in The Cambridge History of the Pacific Islanders (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998): 439-467.

April 11 (Crumbling American Hegemony)

Required Reading:

None.

Assignment Due:

Research paper prospectus due at the beginning of class (HARD COPY REQUIRED).

April 13 (Globalization as Panacea and Globalization as Threat)

Required Reading:

Katherine F. Smith et al., “Globalization of Human Infectious Disease”, Ecology 88, No. 8 (August 2007): 1903-1910. (LATTE)

“Pacific Islanders Pay Heavy Price For Abandoning Traditional Diet”, World Health Organization Bulletin 88, No. 7 (July 2010): 481-560 (LATTE)

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Nick Squires, “Spam at the Heart of South Pacific Obesity Crisis”, The Telegraph (April 12, 2008): http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1578329/Spam-at-heart-of-South-Pacific-obesity-crisis.html

April 18 (The Emergence of Asian Economic and Cultural Might)

Required Reading:

Andrew McKevitt, “You Are Not Alone!: Anime and the Globalizing of America”, Diplomatic History 34, No. 5 (Nov., 2010): 893-921. (LATTE)

Ted Genoways, “Corn Wars: The Farm-by-Farm Fight Between China and the United States to Dominate the Global Food Supply”, The New Republic (August 16, 2015): http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122441/corn-wars

April 20 (East Asian Conflict and the Pacific’s Political Future)

Required Reading:

Alexis Dudden, “Japan’s Island Problem”, Dissent Magazine (Fall 2014) (LATTE).

Tamara Renee Shie, “Rising Chinese Influence in the South Pacific: Beijing’s ‘Island Fever’”, Asian Survey 47, No. 2 (March/April 2007): 307-326. (LATTE)

April 21, 26, 28 (NO CLASS)

May 2 (The Coming Environmental Catastrophe)

Required Reading:

Jocelyn Kaiser, “The Dirt on Ocean Garbage Patches”, Science 328 (June 18, 2010): 1506. (LATTE)

Megan Rowling, “Solomons Town First in the Pacific to Relocate Because of Climate Change”, Reuters (August 15, 2014): http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/15/us-foundation-climatechange-solomons-idUSKBN0GF1AB20140815

Kathryn Schultz, “The Earthquake that Will Devastate Seattle”, New Yorker (July 20, 2015): http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one

Assignment Due:

Last day to submit rough drafts in person or by email! (OPTIONAL)

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May 2 (Unit 4 Roundup – Class Discussion)

Required Reading:

None.

Assignment Due:

All unit 4 book reviews due in class! Everyone should have submitted a book review by this date.

May 6 (RESEARCH PAPER FINAL DRAFT DUE VIA EMAIL)

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“The Great Ocean” Book Review List:

Unit 1:

Anderson, Warwick. Colonial Pathologies: American Tropical Medicine, Race, and Hygiene in the Philippines. Durham: Duke University Press, 2006.

Cushman, Gregory T. Guano and the Opening of the Pacific World: A Global Ecological History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Moran, Michelle T. Colonizing Leprosy: Imperialism and the Politics of Public Health in the United States. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007.

Newell, Jennifer. Trading Nature: Tahitians, Europeans, and Ecological Exchange. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2010.

Thomas, Nicholas. Islanders: The Pacific in the Age of Empire. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012.

Unit 2:

Bailey, Beth L. and David Farber. The First Strange Place: Race and Sex in World War II Hawaii. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.

Dower, John. War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific World. New York City: Pantheon, 1986.

Guthrie-Shimizu, Sayuri. Transpacific Field of Dreams: How Baseball Linked the United States and Japan in Peace and War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012.

Manela, Erez. The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anti-Colonial Nationalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Rafael, Vincente L. White Love and Other Events in Filipino History. Durham: Duke University Press, 2000.

Unit 3:

Atkins, E. Taylor. Blue Nippon: Authenticating Jazz in Japan. Durham: Duke University Press, 2001.

Green, Michael Cullen. Black Yanks in the Pacific: Race in the Making of American Military Empire After World War II. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2010.

Hamblin, Jacob Darwin. Oceanographers and the Cold War: Disciples of Marine Science. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005.

Prashad, Vijay. Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting: Afro-Asian Connections and the Myth of Cultural Purity. New York City: Beacon Press, 2002.

Shibusawa, Naoko. America’s Geisha Ally: Reimagining the Japanese Enemy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010.

Wu, Judy Tzu-Chun. Radicals on the Road: Internationalism, Orientalism, and Feminism During the Vietnam Era. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013.

Unit 4:

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Hong, Euny. The Birth of Korean Cool: How One Nation Conquered the World Through Pop Culture. New York City: Picador, 2014.

Kaplan, Robert D. Asia’s Cauldron: The South China Sea and the End of a Stable Pacific. New York City: Random House, 2014.

Manalansan IV, Martin F. Global Divas: Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspora. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003.

Yep, Kathleen S. Outside the Paint: When Basketball Ruled the Chinese Playground. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2009.

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