On 20 May 1498 a Portuguese fleet under the command of Vasco da Gama reached Calicut on the southwest coast of India, initiating what is sometimes called the age of European expansion in Asia and laying the foundation for Portugal's emergence as a world power. By 1572, when Luis de Camoes published his epic poem "The Lusiads," Vasco da Gama had established himself as one of the principal heroes of the national myth. The quingentenary of his voyage was celebrated in Portugal with festive commemorations and academic conferences in which guests from the entire world participated. Intrepidity and persistence, ingeniousness and pertinacity remain common themes in discussions of the Portuguese explorers. Evidently, scholars are still reluctant to abandon the old paradigm of defiance of the elements and discovery of the unknown, even if some of the Asian civilizations "discovered" by the Portuguese were more ancient than their own and anything but unknown to each other. They occupied social spheres tied together, from one end of Asia to another, by well-developed commercial networks. To be sure, the Portuguese penetrated this world by a novel route. At issue, however, is not so much exploration and discovery but the confluence and conflict of cultures, commercial interests, and imperial ambitions. To be explored in this seminar are the mythmaking of empire as well as the actual stages of European expansion into Asia. The tentative terminal date, 1641, was chosen because it is the year when the Portuguese (two years after being expelled from Japan, the farthest point in the arc of their reach from Europe) lost their base at Malacca to the Dutch. This event signalled the decline of one European colonial power and the ascendancy of another in maritime Asia. Students will write a position paper as a final project. Enrollment limited. Groups C and D

Hour: ELISONAS