Courses

What kind of historical actors were outlaws? How did they interact with and in turn shape their societies, governments, and politics? In what ways did the outlaws’ transgressions destabilize ideas about national boundary, state sovereignty, political legitimacy, and legality? Over the course of the semester, students will engage with debates over the characterization of outlaws as well as case studies delving into particular places and times. The case studies, which span much of Asia, focus on multiethnic smugglers in island Southeast Asia, bandits on the Sino-Vietnamese border, revolutionary gangsters in Indonesia, nationalist yakuza in Japan, among others. In the process, we will compare and assess the theoretical and methodological approaches scholars have taken to study figures that often reside in the shadows.