Lecture with Hai-Linh Phan (Vietnam National University)

Friday, April 18, 2025
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM (Pacific Time)
Royce Hall, Rm 243

In the history of the exchange between Southeast Asia and Japan, the question of "development" is particularly important. Especially in the 20th century, from Japan's imperial expansion to the economic relationship in the postwar era, the history of Southeast Asia and Japan has been examined frequently in terms of how those relationships "developed" and whether such development was mutually beneficial. In this narrative of developmental modernization, the transfer of knowledge and technology is often politicized and imagined as a one-way flow. However, this lecture attempts to re-consider that narrative, by going back to the early modern period and shedding light on the presence of Japanese settlements in Vietnam from the 17th through to the 19th century, as well as some specific cases of expertise exchange such as bell-casting technology, architecture knowledge, agricultural and fishing tools, fabric-dying technologies, and elephant training techniques.

Sponsor(s): Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Yanai Initiative for Globalizing Japanese Humanities