PLEASE NOTE this is a 2013 reading list—the precise content may change in future years.
Term 1, Week 1
Introduction: Locating East Asia
This session provides an overview of the structure of the module and introduces students to some of
the key themes and concepts that will be explored throughout this course. It considers different
possible definitions of the East Asia region in terms of geography, political and economic interaction,
culture, religion and ethnicity.

What/where is East Asia?

What are the most important ways of delineating and sub-dividing the region, in terms of its
politics, economics and culture?

Are there common themes in the shaping of the political economy of the region?
Core reading

Beeson, introduction and ch. 1

Pempel, T. J. (2006) ‘The Race to Connect East Asia: An Unending Steeplechase’, Asian
Economic Policy Review 1(2), pp. 239-254
Further reading

Arrighi, G., et al. (2003) The Resurgence of East Asia: 500, 150 and 50 year perspective,
London: Routledge

Breslin, S. (2010) ‘Comparative theory, China, and the future of East Asian regionalism(s)’,
Review of International Studies 36(3), pp. 709-729

Dirlik, A. (1992) ‘The Asia-Pacific idea: reality and representation in the invention of regional
structure’, Journal of World History 3(1), pp. 55-79

Duara, P. (2010) ‘Asia Redux: Conceptualising a Region for our Times’, Journal of Asian
Studies 69(4), pp. 963-983

Duara, P. (2001) ‘The Discourse of Civilisation and Pan-Asianism’, Journal of World History
12(1), pp. 99-130

Emmerson, D. (1984) ‘Southeast Asia: What’s in a Name?’, Journal of Southeast Asian
Studies 15(1), pp. 1-21

Fairbank, J. K., et al. (1965) East Asia: The Modern Transformation, London: Allen & Unwin

Glassman, J. (2005) ‘On the Borders of Southeast Asia: Cold War geography and the
construction of the other’, Political Geography 24, pp. 784-807

Godement, F. (1997) The New Asian Renaissance: From Colonialism To The Post-Cold War,
London: Routledge, introduction

Henderson, J. (2011) East Asian Transformation, London: Routledge, chapters 1 and 2

Karl, R. E. (1998) ‘Creating Asia: China in the World at the Beginning of the Twentieth
Century’, American Historical Review 103(4), pp. 1096-1118

Korhonen, P. (1997) ‘Monopolising Asia: the politics of metaphor’, The Pacific Review 10(3),
pp. 347-365

Oga, T. (2004) ‘Rediscovering Asianness: the role of institutional discourses in APEC, 1989–
1997’, International Relations of the Asia Pacific 4(2), pp. 287-317

Rajah, A. (1999) ‘Southeast Asia: Comparatist Errors and the Construction of a Region’,
Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science 27(1), pp. 41-53

Snitwongse, K. (2003) ‘A New World Order in East Asia?’, Asia-Pacific Review 10(2), pp. 36-51

Van Schendel, W. (2002) ‘Geographies of Knowing, Geographies of Ignorance: jumping scale
in Southeast Asia’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 20(20), pp. 647-668

Wang, H. (2007) ‘The politics of imagining Asia: a genealogical analysis’, Inter-Asia Cultural
Studies 8(1), pp. 1-33