Conference: Maritime Frontiers in Asia: Indigenous Communities and State Control in South China and Southeast Asia, 2000 BCE - 1800 CE

This conference provides a platform for discussing maritime frontier zones in pre-modern China and Southeast Asia.

Pennsylvania State University
Two-day international conference: April 12-13, 2013
Organizers: Kate Baldanza and Erica Brindley

Funded by the American Council of Learned Society/Chiang Ching-kuo "Comparative Perspectives on Chinese Society" conference grant; Penn State Asian Studies, and Penn State's Center for Global Studies

This conference provides a platform for discussing maritime frontier zones in premodern China and Southeast Asia.  Specialists from around the globe will convene to examine the historical and archaeological records of South China and Southeast Asia as part of a single cosmopolitan trade network since ancient times, referred to by recent scholars as the "maritime silk road," or the "Jiaozhi Ocean trade network."

In particular, this conference highlights techniques of state control in conjunction with local ways of avoiding, inverting, or adapting to such techniques in the regional cultures of the South China Sea. The main mega-group under examination will be the various peoples who inhabited the frontier zones of what is now China and Vietnam. Other peoples, such as Taiwanese (aboriginals and Min-nan), Japanese, Cham, Khmer, Indian, Muslim, and European peoples will also enter into our discussions, adding an even greater comparative, transnational perspective and demonstrating the strategic importance of this region throughout history.

Presenters: Francis Allard, Wu Chunming, Jiao Tianlong, Erica Brindley, Michael Puett, Eric Henry, Hugh Clark, James Anderson, Niu Junkai, Sean Marsh, Tansen Sen, Robert Antony, Greg Smits, Michele Thompson, Kate Baldanza, Liam Kelly, John Whitmore, Wing-Sheung Cheng, Billy So

Keynote Speaker: Eric Taggliacozzo

Roundtable: Kate Baldanza, Erica Brindley, Magnus Fiskej, Ronnie Hsia, Victor Mair, Stephen O'Harrow

Please contact Erica Brindley, efb12@psu.edu; or Kate Baldanza, ktb3@psu.edu for more information.