HY4B7 One Unit
Asian Borderlands
This information is for the 2025/26 session.
Course Convenor
Dr Qingfei Yin
Availability
This course is available on the MA in Asian and International History (LSE and NUS), MA in Modern History, MSc in China in Comparative Perspective, MSc in Empires, Colonialism and Globalisation, MSc in History of International Relations, MSc in International Affairs (LSE and Peking University), MSc in International and Asian History, MSc in International and World History (LSE & Columbia) and MSc in Theory and History of International Relations. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit. This course uses controlled access as part of the course selection process.
How to apply: Students should write a short statement supporting their application to take a course. The Teacher Responsible will assign places on the course and their decision is final.
Deadline for application: Please apply as soon as possible. Applications close at 5pm on 10th October 2025, however spaces are likely to fill before this time.
For queries contact: The teacher responsible for the course, as indicated on the course guide. Staff e-mail addresses are listed at https://www.lse.ac.uk/International-History/People.
Course content
This seminar takes a borderland perspective to Modern Asian History, challenging the practice of treating national territories as the building blocks of academic enquiry. Through a wide range of readings, the participants examine the transformation of modern Asia by centring on the historically marginal societies and come to better understand a borderlands approach to the studies of history. The first part of the course follows a chronological scheme, tracing the changing political, social, and cultural landscapes of Asian borderlands in the eras of imperial encounters, decolonization, and the Cold War. The second part of the seminar focuses on a series of analytical lenses commonly applied in the study of borderlands history, such as state power, state resistance, identity, gender, ethnicity, and environment. Through the course of the seminar, students will critically analyse “space,” “frontiers,” “geo-body,” “Zomia,” and other important concepts that have informed the historiography of Asian borderlands. Through the assigned readings, discussion, and written assignments, students will also learn about how historians synthesize contributions originating from different regional historiographical literatures.
Teaching
20 hours of seminars in the Winter Term.
20 hours of seminars in the Autumn Term.
This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn and Winter Term.
Formative assessment
One essay (2000-2500 words) in the Autumn Term.
Indicative reading
• Gavrilis, George. The Dynamics of Interstate Boundaries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
• Guyot-Réchard, Bérénice. Shadow States: India, China and the Himalayas, 1910-1962. Cambridge University Press, 2016.
• Ishikawa, Noboru. Between Frontiers: Nation and Identity in a Southeast Asian Borderland. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2010.
• Khan, Sulman Wasif. Muslim, Trader, Nomad, Spy: China’s Cold War and the People of the Tibetan Borderlands. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2015.
• Marsden, Magnus, and Benjamin Hopkins. Fragments of the Afghan Frontier. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
• Scott, James. The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009.
• Song, Nianshen. Making Borders in Modern East Asia: The Tumen River Demarcation, 1881-1919. Cambridge: Cambridge University press, 2018.
• Sunderland, Willard. Taming the Wild Field: Colonization and Empire on the Russian Steppe. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University press, 2004.
• Szonyi, Michael. Cold War Island: Quemoy on the Front Line. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
• Winichakul, Tongchai. Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-Body of a Nation. Honululu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 1994.
Assessment
Course participation (25%)
Essay (75%, 4000 words)
Key facts
Department: International History
Course Study Period: Autumn, Winter and Spring Term
Unit value: One unit
FHEQ Level: Level 7
CEFR Level: Null
Total students 2024/25: 15
Average class size 2024/25: 15
Controlled access 2024/25: YesCourse selection videos
Some departments have produced short videos to introduce their courses. Please refer to the course selection videos index page for further information.
Personal development skills
- Leadership
- Self-management
- Team working
- Problem solving
- Application of information skills
- Communication
- Specialist skills