ASIA 3355/ANTH 3355: Capitalisms and Cultures in Asia
Instructor: Dr. Sarasij Majumder
Office: SO 2011
Phone: 770 423 6234
Course Description This course compares and contrasts various forms of capitalisms and
cultures in Asia to understand the dynamics of society and political life. This course enables
students to develop a global perspective on critical issues that concern policymakers,
business-strategists, development-workers, and academics from an anthropological
perspective. Students compare and contrast various forms of capitalism in Asia from an
anthropological vantage point for understanding dynamics of society and political life in
Asia.
Course Objective: This course will be extremely useful for students graduating in variety of
courses, such as Sociology, Geography, Anthropology, Business Management or Conflict
Management because this course will enable students to develop a global perspective on
critical issues that concern policymakers, business-strategists, development-workers and
academics.
Course Requirements:
25%
Term paper 12-15 pages, 12 point font, double-spaced
25%
In class midterm exam (6 Short answer questions – 1 paragraph each)
25%
Ethnography of an Asian establishment in Atlanta, Georgia
10% Attendance and Class participation: in order to facilitate class discussion, active
participation is expected from each student
15%. Leading Class Discussion: Each week, starting with the week on Capitalism and
Culture, each student will be assigned one of the weekly topics. The student responsible will
present a summary of the main arguments made in each of the readings assigned and prepare
questions to lead class discussion for that session.
Grading
A: 100-90 percent
B: 70-89 percent
C: 60-69
D: 50-59
E: 40-49
F: Fail.
Texts: All texts for this course will be available online
Academic Integrity Statement
Every KSU student is responsible for upholding the provisions of the Student Code of
Conduct, as published in the Undergraduate and Graduate Catalogs. Section II of the
Student Code of Conduct addresses the University’s policy on academic honesty, including
provisions regarding plagiarism and cheating, unauthorized access to University materials,
misrepresentation/falsification of University records or academic work, malicious removal,
retention, or destruction of library materials, malicious/ intentional misuse of computer
facilities and/or services, and misuse of student identification cards. Incidents of alleged
academic misconduct will be handled through the established procedures of the University
Judiciary Program, which includes either an“informal”resolution by a faculty member, resulting in a grade adjustment, or a formal hearing procedure, which may subject a student to the
Code of Conduct’s minimum one semester suspension requirement.
Course Structure
A. Introduction
B. Capitalism and Culture
C. Histories of Capitalism in Asia
D. Cultures of Production
E. Asian Modernities and Globalization
F. Cultures of Governance
G. Cultures of Accumulation
H. Cultures of Distribution, Developments and Democracy.
I. Cultures of Consumption
J. Urbanity, Identity and Consumption of Space and Place.
K. Asia in Africa: Perspectives on Soft Power and Economic Influence
Course Schedule (Subject to change at any point during the semester):
Day 1
A. Introduction
Day 2 and Day 3
B. Capitalism and Culture
1. Weber, Max 2008. Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Digireads.com Publishing
(excerpts)
2. Campbell, Colin 1987. Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism, Blackwell,
London (Excerpts)
3. Arrighi, Giovanni 2009. “Winding Paths of Capital” (Interviewed by David Harvey) in
New Left Review, March-April 2009. p.69-93
Day 4 and Day 5
C. Histories of Capitalism in Asia
1. Gunder Franke, Andre 1998 ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age, University of
California Press, Berkeley. Parts 1 and 2
2. Ludden, David. 2004 Capitalism in Asia: Readings from the Journal of Asian Studies. Edited by
David Ludden. Ann Arbor: Association of Asian Studies, 2004. Introduction and Selected
Chapters)
3. Dirlik, Arif 1982. Chinese Historians and the Marxist Concept of Capitalism: A Critical
Examination in Modern China, Vol. 8, No. 1, 105-132.
Day 6, Day 7 and Day 8
D. Cultures of Production
1. Gates, Hill. 1996. China’s Motor: A Thousand Years of Petty Capitalism, Cornell University
Press, New York (Selected Chapters)
2. Harris-White, Barbara. 1998. India Working Cambridge
(Selected Chapters)
University
Press,
Cambridge.
3. “Cultures of Labor” section from Timothy Brook, Hy V. Luong ed. Culture and Economy:
The Shaping of Capitalism in Eastern Asia, Michigan University Press, Michigan
4. Janelli, L. Roger. 1993. Making Capitalism : The Social and Cultural Construction of a
South Korean Conglomerate (Excerpts)
Day 9, Day 10, Day 11
E. Asian Modernities and Globalization
1. Ong, Aihwa 1996. Anthropology, China and Modernities: The Geopolitics of Cultural
Knowledge in Henrietta Moore ed. The Future of Anthropological Knowledge, 60-92.
2. Stern, Robert 2003. Changing India: bourgeois revolution on the subcontinent, Cambridge
University Press. (Excerpts)
3. Chopra, Rohit 2008. Technology and nationalism in India: cultural negotiations from colonialism to
cyberspace, Cambria Press. (Excerpts)
Recommended Readings
Chapters from Nevins, Joseph and Nancy Lee Peluso 2008 Taking South-East Asia to the
Market, Cornell University, Cornell.
Ong, Aihwa 1997 A Momentary Glow of Fraternity: Narratives of Chinese Nationalism and
Capitalism, Identities 3 no. 3, 331-66.
Film: Through the Chinese Women’s Eyes.
Day 12, Day 13, Day 14
F. Cultures of Governance
1. Ong, Aihwa 2006 Neoliberalism as exception: mutations in citizenship and sovereignty, Duke
University Press (excerpts)
2. Brooke, Timothy 1999 Profit and Righteousness in Chinese Economic Culture in Timothy
Brook, Hy V. Luong ed. Culture and Economy: The Shaping of Capitalism in Eastern Asia,
University of Michigan Press, Michigan, Ann Arbor.
3. Woodside, Alexander 1999. Struggle to Rethink the Vietnamese State in the Era of Market
Economics in Timothy Brook, Hy V. Luong ed. Culture and Economy: The Shaping of Capitalism
in Eastern Asia, University of Michigan Press, Michigan, Ann Arbor.
4. Wong, R. B. 1999 Chinese Understandings of Economic Change: From Agrarian Empire
to Industrial Society in Timothy Brook, Hy V. Luong ed. Culture and Economy: The Shaping of
Capitalism in Eastern Asia, University of Michigan Press, Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Recommended Readings
Nagata, J. 1999. Religious Correctness and Place of Islam in Malaysia’s Economic Policies in
in Timothy Brook, Hy V. Luong ed. Culture and Economy: The Shaping of Capitalism in Eastern
Asia, University of Michigan Press, Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt 2000.
Inside the Economy of Appearances
Public Culture, Volume
12, Number 1, Winter 2000, pp. 115-144
Day 15, Day 16
G. Cultures of Accumulation
1. Hertz, Ellen. 1998. The trading crowd: an ethnography of the Shanghai stock market, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge (Excerpts)
2. Ong, Aihwa. guanxi
3. Harish Damodaran. 2008 India's new capitalists: caste, business, and industry in a modern nation,
Palgrave Macmillan (Excerpts)
Day 17, Day 18, Day 19
H. Cultures of Distribution, Developments and Democracy.
1. Chen, Nancy. 2006. Health, Wealth and Good Life in Nancy Chen et. al. ed. China Urban,
Duke University Press, Durham
2. Jughans, Lida 2006. Railway Workers between Plan and Market in Nancy Chen et. al. ed.
China Urban, Duke University Press, Durham
3. Stephan Feuchtwang 2003. Peasants, Democracy and Anthropology: Questions of Local
Loyalty in Critique of Anthropology Vol 23(1) 93–120
4. Subramanian, Ajantha 2003 Mukkuvar Modernity: Development as Cultural Identity in K.
Sivaramakrishnan and Arun Agrawal ed. Regional Modernities, Oxford University Press,
Oxford.
5. Pigg, Stacy 1997. “Found in All Traditional Societies”: Traditional Medical Practitioners
between Culture and Development in Fredrick Cooper and Randall Packard ed.
International Development and Social Sciences, University of California Press, Berkeley.
Day 20, Day 21, Day 22, Day 23
I. CULTURES OF CONSUMPTION
1. Cambell, Colin 2004 Romantic Ethic and Spirit of Modern Consumerism,
WritersPrintShop. (Selected chapters)
2. Griffiths, Michael B., M. Chapman F. Christiansen 2010. Chinese Consumers: The
Romantic Reappraisal, Ethnography 2010 11: 331
3. Leichty, Mark 2003 Suitably Modern: making middle-class culture in a new consumer society,
Princeton University Press, Princeton (Selected chapters)
4. Schein, Louisa “Market Mentalities, Iron Satellite Dishes, and Contested Cultural
Developmentalism.” 2002. Provincial China 7(1):57-72. Reprinted in: The Anthropology of
Development and Globalization: From Classical Political Economy to Contemporary
Neoliberalism. Marc Edelman and Angelique Haugerud, eds. Pp. 216-223. Oxford: Blackwell
Publishers.
5. Gottschang, S. 2001 The Consuming Mother: Infant Feeding and Feminine Body in
Urban China in Nancy Chen et. al. ed. China Urban, Duke University Press, Durham
6. Hanser, Amy 2010. Sales floor trajectories: Distinction and service in postsocialist China
in Ethnography 2006; 7; 461
7. Birajpurkar, Rama. 2007. We Are Like That Only: Understanding the Logic of Consumer
India, Penguin India, New Delhi (Selected Chapters)
8. Jaffrelot,C and Peter Van der Veer 2008. Patterns of middle class consumption in India
and China, Sage (selected chapters)
9. Ramamurthy, Preeti. 2004. "Why is buying a 'madras' cotton shirt a political act?: A
feminist commodity chain Analysis" Feminist Studies, 30, no. 3, Fall 2004
Day 24, Day 25, Day 26
J. Urbanity, Identity and Consumption of Space and Place.
1. Ballew, Tad 2006. Xiaxiang for the ‘90s: The Shanghai TV Rural Channel and Post-Mao
Urbanity amid Global Swirl in Nancy Chen et. al. ed. China Urban, Duke University Press,
Durham
2. Hertz, Ellen. 2006. Face in the Crowd: The Cultural Construction of Anonymity in Urban
China.
3. Schein, Louisa 2001. "Chinese Consumerism and the Politics of Envy: Cargo in the
1990s?" 2001. In Whither China? Intellectual Politics in Contemporary China. Xudong
Zhang, ed. Pp. 285-314. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
4. Schein, Louisa 1999 "Of Cargo and Satellites: Imagined Cosmopolitanism." 1999.
Postcolonial Studies 2(3): 345-375.
5. Gidwani, V. and K. Sivaramakrishnan. 2003. “Circular Migration and Rural
Cosmopolitanism in India” Contributions to Indian Sociology, 2003; 37; 339-367.
Recommended Readings
Liu,Xin 2002. The otherness of self: a genealogy of the self in contemporary China,
University of Michigan Press.
Rofel, Lisa 2007. Desiring China: experiments in neoliberalism, sexuality, and public culture,
Duke University Press
Day 27, Day 28
K. Asia in Africa: Perspectives on Soft Power and Economic Influence
1. Brautigam, Deborah. 2009. The Dragon's Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa, Oxford
University Press.
2. Barry Sautman and Yan Hairong. 2010 Trade, Investment, Power and the China-in-Africa
Discourse, http://www.japanfocus.org/-Barry-Sautman/3278
Day 29, Day 30, Day 31, Day 32.
Paper Presentations, Discussions and Wrap-up