Historicizing Globalization: Using the Silk Roads to Teach Modern Global History

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Historicizing Globalization Using the Silk Roads
to Teach Modern Global History

• Robin Kietlinski
• CUNY-Baruch College

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Global History Course Description

• The objective of this course is fundamentally to
  understand global history from 1500 to the
  present day. You will be using a concise history
  textbook along with a few supplemental sources in
  order to construct this understanding. The
  textbook we will be using, Traditions
  Encounters, focuses on the origins and spread of
  global interdependence from 1500 to the present,
  so the central focus and recurring theme of the
  course will be globalization. In other words, how
  has cross-cultural interaction over the past five
  centuries shaped individual societies and the
  world as a whole? We will be doing exercises in
  critical reading and short writing assignments
  throughout the semester in order to engage with
  the discipline of history.

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Bentley Zieglers 3 Units
The REAL Origins of Global Interdependence
mini unit
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?
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The Real Origins of Global Interdependence
non-Western

• Goal To understand globalization as a
  pre-modern phenomenon
• Challenge To present material in both a concise
  and nuanced manner

• Ideas
• Transmission of religions
• Accounts by/about pre-modern historians/travelers
• E.g., Rashid Al-Din, Marco Polo, Ibn Battuta,
  Zheng He
• Museum activity

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Museum Activity (part of the historicizing
globalization mini-unit)
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New York City Silk Roads Resources

• The China Institute (http//www.china360online.org
  /)
• Columbia University Weatherhead East Asian
  Institute (http//www.columbia.edu/cu/weai/)

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New York City Silk Roads Resources

• Metropolitan Museum of Art (http//www.metmuseum.o
  rg/)
• Current Exhibits
• Mastering the Art of Chinese Painting Xie Zhiliu
  (until 8/1/10)
• Celebration The Birthday in Chinese Art (until
  11/28/10)
• Upcoming Exhibit
• The World of Khubilai Khan Chinese Art in the
  Yuan Dynasty (9/28/10 1/2/11)
• Asia Society (http//www.asiasociety.org/)
• Korea Society (http//www.koreasociety.org/)
• Japan Society (http//www.japansociety.org/)
• Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art (http//www.rmanyc.o
  rg/)