Workshop on Southeast Asia in the 15th Century: The Ming Factor
1-2 May 2003
Singapore
Je vous signale un colloque (workshop) sur l'Asie du Sud-Est et les Ming pendant le 15ème siècle.
FYI, this is information on a workshop on SEAsia and the Ming in the 15th century.
Workshop Website: www.ari.nus.edu.sg/Ming_Factor.htm
The arbitrary date 1500 was long used as a shorthand for the beginning
of the modern age in Asia, primarily because the European arrival in
Asian waters was thought to have created a Vasco da Gama epoch. The
recent fascination with the Early Modern has sought to dethrone both
the date and the importance of the Portuguese as harbingers of change.
The question has come to be asked, though not yet systematically
addressed, whether modernity did not come to Southeast Asia, in particular,
in the 15th Century. Did not the Zheng He voyages and early Ming expansionism
more generally have a greater impact than the few ships of the Portuguese
a century later? The murky beginnings of Anthony Reid's Age of Commerce
in the 15th Century had been much less discussed than its end, until
Sun Laichen's dissertation pointed to echnological changes which transformed
the states of northern Southeast Asia in the early fifteenth century.
The 15th Century nevertheless remains an enigma, too late for inscriptions, too early for indigenous texts or European observations. Chinese sources were relatively abundant in the first half of the century, but scarce thereafter. Hence it has fallen between the cracks of earlier conferences, despite its pivotal position. Early Southeast Asia was discussed at SOAS in September 1973; Southeast Asia in the 9th to 14th Centuries at the Australian National University in 1984, and Early Modern Southeast Asia in Lisbon in 1989 each with a subsequent book. This symposium will focus the attention of a number of specialist scholars on the extraordinary changes of the period, and how far common elements can be sought in the strong showing of new states around a wide swathe of Asia.
Yet the modernity appearing in the crucible of intense interaction
with China were many: firearms, more intensive rice agriculture, Tai
and Viet ceramic exports, Korean and Ryukyu contacts with Southeast
Asia, the retreat of Champa, the apogee of Viet and northern Tai statecraft,
the birth of Malayo-Muslim kingship in Melaka and the creation of a
new Muslim Javanese civilization on the north coast. Were these phenomena
causally linked to the early Ming expansionism by land and sea? Can
we de-centre the European narrative of modernity by exploring some of
the interactions and cultural borrowings that preceded the European
impact?
Sun Laichen argues that we should locate the start of early modernity
in Asia, and points to Le Vietnam, Ming China and Choson Korea as the
first gunpowder empires made possible by revolutionary military technology.
On the other hand, if there was a kind of crisis in the middle of the
fifteenth century (Atwell) which stopped the interactions, should we
see these spectacular developments as a false start rather than the
beginnings of a period?
These are some of the issues this symposium will address. The aim of
The symposium is to bring together a range of scholars pioneering new
work on:
* the Ming impact on Southeast Asian societies in this period, and its
relevance to periodization;
* the causation for the rise of new states in the period, and the nature
of these states;
* broader trends occurring throughout Southeast Asia including the borderlands
of southern China, eastern India, and Korea and Ryukyu as instructive
parallels to Southeast Asia;
* Asian or global systems, technological, demographic, economic and
disease regimes, where these have particular relevance to Southeast
Asia
By bringing together such a range of scholars, and notably those who
master Chinese sources on the one hand and the great range of other
sources (archaeological and literary) on the other, this workshop will
move forward our understanding of historical dynamics.
Committed Papers
Anthony Reid, Sino-Southeast Asian Hybridities in the 15th Century Malay World
Geoff Wade, The Zheng He Voyages and Southeast Asia: A Reappraisal
John Miksic, Before and After Zheng He: Comparing Some Archaeological Sites of the 14th and 15th Centuries
Kong Yuanzhi, The Zheng He Voyages and Their Influence in Southeast Asia
Momoki Shiro, Memories of Hoang Phuc, Nation and Geo-body of Early-Modern Vietnam
Okamoto Hiromichi, Ryukyu China and Southeast Asia
Pierre-Yves Manguin, Ship and Shippers in the South China Sea in the Mid-2nd Millennium A.D.
Roxanna Brown, The Ming Gap in Southeast Asian History
Sun Laichen, Ming China, Korea, Ryukyu and Northern Mainland Southeast Asia, c. 1368-1527
Wang Gungwu, TBA
The Asia Research Institute (ARI) at the National University of Singapore
will be holding a workshop on the above topic on 1 & 2 May 2003.
A conference call is below. We hope you will be interested in presenting
a paper to this workshop, or if not that you may know of others who
are doing innovative new work on the topic and can present a paper in
English. New doctoral work is especially encouraged. We now invite submissions
of titles of proposed papers, with a 250-word abstract, by 10 December
2002 to:
Ms Valerie Yeo,
Asia Research Institute
National University of Singapore
AS7, Level 4, 5 Arts Link
Singapore 117570
Email: ariyeov@nus.edu.sg
The Committee will review the papers submitted and inform you of its decision by 10 January 2003. Those selected for the workshop will be funded for travel and accommodation in Singapore.
Please feel free to contact any of the undersigned should you have any queries. Thank you and we look forward to your support and participation!
Best regards,
Anthony Reid, John Miksic, Geoff Wade, Sun Laichen
Asia Research Institute
National University of Singapore
Tel: (65) 6874 3801 / 6874 8784
Fax: (65) 6779 1428
Email: ariyeov@nus.edu.sg