Course Title: Culture and Society in Southeast Asia

Course Description: This course examines the socio-cultural characteristics

of Southeast Asian communities and the role that culture plays in defining
contemporary society.

TOPIC OUTLINE

I. Introduction to Culture

II. Geography of Southeast Asia

A. Climate (equatorial and monsoon)
B. Topography
C. Soils and forests
D. Mainland and insular regions
E. Present-day countries and adjacent regions

III. Making a Living and Organizing Society

A. Pre-history
B. The Peoples of Southeast Asia: “Races and Ethnicities”
C. Subsistence strategies
1. Foraging and fishing
2. Swidden
3. Traditional wet rice cultivation
4. Mechanized farming
D. Varieties of Polities
1. Bands, autonomous villages, chiefdoms, states
2. The pre-nineteenth century “theater” state
3. Bureaucracies vs. Oligarchies
4. Democratic states versus authoritarian states

IV. Indigenous Communities

A. A common language tree

1. The Austronesian, the Austro-asiatics, and the Tai: Originally one family?
2. Language and culture
3. Origins and diffusion
B. Kinship and gender
1. Was the bilateral kinship system the norm before the coming of the great
traditions?
2. The relatively high position of women
3. “Paradise is to lie at mother’s feet”
C. Building and dress customs
1. Waterways and houses on stilts
2. Similarities in dress
3. The recurring importance of seas and rivers
4. Fields and gardens
D. Spirit beliefs
E. Food practices
F. The bird movement in dance

4TH YEAR NA TAYO PADAYON, FUTURE LPT

V. The Entry of the Four Great Traditions
A. The Chinese: Vietnam, Chinese enclaves in the SEA
1. The pillars of Chinese tradition and sinicecumene
2. The colonization of North Vietnam
3. Chinese trade and migration in SEA
4. The Chinese and the Manila Galleon Trade
B. The Indian: Cambodia, Thailand, Java, Laos, Myanmar
1. The Pillars of Indian tradition and the Indic ecumene
2. The formation of states in SEA in response to Indian examples
3. Indian trade and migration in SEA
4. The Indians and the Manila Galleon Trade
C. The Islamic Tradition: Mindanao, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia
D. The Western Tradition: The Philippines and Singapore

VI. Encounters between multiple traditions in a particular country

A. Re-interpreting identity: “The Nation as Imagined Community”
B. The Indonesian Case: Animism, Hindu-Buddhism and Islam in Central
Java
C. The Vietnamese Case: Chinese Hegemony and local responses
D. The Philippine Case: Spanish Colonialism and Local Response
E. The Thai Case: Several, Distinct Religious Traditions in Interplay

VII. In Quest of a Regional Identity through ASEAN

A. History of ASEAN establishment
B. ASEAN member states
C. Community Pillars
D. Structure of ASEAN
E. ASEAN Regional Identity

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that
whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have an everlasting life.”
John 3:16

GOD BLESS EVERYONE

4TH YEAR NA TAYO PADAYON, FUTURE LPT