Asia Redux: Conceptualizing a Region for Our TimesPrasenjit Duara "In the erudite essay that opens this forum, Prasenjit Duara turns to both indigenous thinkers and the premodern past for tools with which to think about Asia in a global age. Contemporary modalities of regional exchange – ‘weakly bounded, network-oriented, pluralistic, multitemporal’ – chime with earlier patterns of cultural circulation without state domination, giving rise to a prophetic vision of ‘Asia Redux’. This attempt to capture the contours of a (re)-emergent region was calculated to provide. And what a debate it kicks off. Wang Hui resolutely reframe imagining Asia as a political project on a world-historical canvas. Tansen Sen greatly complicates the map of intra-Asian commercial exchange in earlier times; Amitav Acharya outlines five competing conceptions of Asia in the domain of international relations alone.; Barbara Watson Andaya teases out the paradoxical way in which regional religions make clashing claims about Asian unity; and Rudolf Mrazek asks, what of the Asia that bleeds? what of exploitation and its spawn, the inglorious ‘built-ends’ of the global economy? The reward for those who read this collection straight through is a thrillingly cacophonous conversation about how to grasp Asia in our time.” —Karen E. Wigen, Stanford University “Will a re-emergent Asia extend the violent rivalries and inequalities of Western-dominated empires, nations and capital? Or can Asia somehow draw on a relatively more peaceful past of maritime trade, interlinked religions and circulations beyond states to think and make a very different sort of region and world? Prasenjit Duara and his interlocutors define this vital debate on Asia’s future through illuminating reflections on its recent and deep past. A touchstone for anyone concerned with a future shape of an inter-connected Asia newly possessed of wealth and power” —Engseng Ho, Duke University |
Contents
| 1 | |
Conceptualizinga Region for Our Times by Prasenjit Duara | 5 |
The Idea of Asia and Its Ambiguities by Wang Hui | 33 |
The Intricacies of Premodern Asian Connections by Tansen Sen | 40 |
Asia Is Not One by Amitav Acharya | 52 |
Response to Prasenjit Duara Asia Redux by Barbara Watson Andaya | 69 |
Common terms and phrases
Amitav Acharya ASEAN Asia Redux Asia-Pacific Asia’s Asian cultural Asian Development Bank Asian nations Asian Networks Asian regionalism Asian Relations Conference Asian societies Asian values Aung San autarky Bandung Buddhism capitalist Chinese Chola colonial conception of Asia contemporary continent domination Duara’s paper East Asian economic emerged empire Europe European exceptionalist Asia exchange flows idea of Asia identity imperial regionalism imperialist India India and China Indian Ocean Indonesia institutions integration interdependence Islam Japan Japanese Korea labour linkages linked Manchukuo maritime networks markets migrants military Ming Minh movement Muslim nationalist Asia Nehru nineteenth numbers Okakura Okakura Kakuzo Okakura Tenshin pan-Asianism political Prasenjit Duara precolonial proponents Rabindranath Tagore region and regionalization regionalist Asia relationship religious role Rudolf Mrázek scholars Singapore social South Southeast Asia space Sriwijayan subregional Tagore’s Taiwan Tansen Thailand twentieth century universalist Asia university Press Vietnamese Wang Hui Western world history Zhang Zhang Taiyan Zheng