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Cold War Cultures in Asia (HIST30066)
Undergraduate level 3Points: 12.5On Campus (Parkville)
Overview
Availability | Semester 1 |
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This subject examines one of the defining contexts of Asia’s post-Second World War history: the Cold War. The Cold War was a total conflict that shaped all aspects of societies, including in states across Asia. Employing a broad definition of “cultures”, the subject considers the Cold War’s influence on cultural forms such as music, sports, the performing arts, and material culture, but also on cultures of protest, consumption, and political radicalism, to name just some examples. Through these varied lenses, the subject explores how the Cold War was put to powerfully transformative ends in Asia, encouraging competing states within national boundaries to attempt to mobilise their populations and remake the societies over which they ruled to serve the exigencies of the conflict. The subject benefits from the insights of the new Cold War historiography to show that culture and the Cold War had a mutually constitutive relationship in Asia: the conflict influenced cultural representations, while local cultures and traditions also shaped how the Cold War struggle was waged. Students are expected to engage critically with this historiography and to draw connections between Asian cultures and societies, thus exploring how states and people in Asia embraced, resisted, and ultimately redefined the logic of the global Cold War.
Intended learning outcomes
Students who successfully complete this subject should be able to:
- Illustrate how the Cold War impacted on cultural and ideological expression in Asia, and how Asian culture and ideology shaped the Cold War
- Compare the global, regional, and national factors that helped produce Cold War cultures in Asia
- Examine scholarship in the field of New Cold War history, which seek to de-centre studies of the Cold War
- Analyse secondary sources in constructing historical arguments.
Generic skills
Students who successfully complete this subject should be able to:
- Apply research skills through competent use of the library and other information sources
- Communicate effectively (written and oral)
- Construct an evidence-based argument or narrative through competent use of the library and other information sources
- Develop problem-solving and analytical skills
- Engage with new ideas and perspectives
- Show critical thinking and analysis through recommended reading, essay writing, and tutorial discussion, and by determining the strength of an argument.
Last updated: 20 November 2024