Core Curriculum: Area Studies
10 Sept. Lesson 1 - Introduction
Orientalism (also Africa) is ‘other’, as in the people have other ways of doing things and cultures, in
aspect to Eurocentrism
Discipline: a field of study
Area Studies: looking at people in areas and the aspects of their lives, languages etc. (multi
disciplinary). Looking at places and what happens there. To be able to understand the world
17 Sept. Lesson 2 - I: Speaking about areas
Area language
- We talk about areas all the time → towns, neighbourhoods, Leiden, etc.
- Helps with area making, or area creating, area maintaining, area changing and area ending
- Similar forms of symbolic representation (flags, maps, etc.)
Performative use of language opposed to denotative use of language
- To a certain extent all language is performative → creates understandings
- Such as “The Netherlands” for a young child, they know it's an area, because they have
heard people talk about the area, yet have they not even experienced it
- The performativity of language underlies one of the main kinds of areamaking
For example: Prefecture in Japan and state in the USA
Definition on ‘area’
- Is a space with a centre (a core, a heart)
- Has characteristics, an identity
- Is subject to power, ownership, jurisdiction; some form of control (such as territory)
- Geometrics (shapes) of areas, borders and centres → may involve human and cultural
shapes, or even movements and actions
Names of areas
- Area names can identify certain characteristics or signify identity
- Sometimes they are dominant ethnic groups (political tools)
- Sometimes established long ago, their etymology forgotten or irrelevant
Area-related “-isms” → political ideologies linked to kinds of areas
- Nationalism
- Regionalism
- Globalism
- pan-Asianism or pan-Africanism
, Discourse → “language and related means of symbolic representation”
Area discourse is dynamic → differences from one language to another, may have significant
consequences, has variety within languages and cultures and can change overtime
24 Sept. Lesson 3 - I: Speaking about areas (study and critique)
Challenges to Area Studies
- Orientalism → perspectivity and openness to the world (critical awareness)
- Globalisation → deterritorialization or territoriality, glocalization (localization as part of
globalisation, stimulated by it)
Epistemology is the theory of knowledge
- episteme → a set of (unconscious) rules for thinking and understanding (epistemic;
adjective)
In Area Studies “area” means things that people do, think and feel in areas
What are the main disciplines that study discursive area-making?
- human/cultural geography
- concerned with AS —> multidisciplinary and very diverse
- linguistics and sociolinguistics (national language, dialectology, areal linguistics, etc.)
- linguistic anthropology
- philology (history of art) or archeology
- history (historiography)
- international relations, political science
- religious studies, theology
New models of area-making, new ways to talk about areas?
- through social media, in games, in virtual world, heritage (heritage industry, heritage
tourism); since 1990s
10 Sept. Lesson 1 - Introduction
Orientalism (also Africa) is ‘other’, as in the people have other ways of doing things and cultures, in
aspect to Eurocentrism
Discipline: a field of study
Area Studies: looking at people in areas and the aspects of their lives, languages etc. (multi
disciplinary). Looking at places and what happens there. To be able to understand the world
17 Sept. Lesson 2 - I: Speaking about areas
Area language
- We talk about areas all the time → towns, neighbourhoods, Leiden, etc.
- Helps with area making, or area creating, area maintaining, area changing and area ending
- Similar forms of symbolic representation (flags, maps, etc.)
Performative use of language opposed to denotative use of language
- To a certain extent all language is performative → creates understandings
- Such as “The Netherlands” for a young child, they know it's an area, because they have
heard people talk about the area, yet have they not even experienced it
- The performativity of language underlies one of the main kinds of areamaking
For example: Prefecture in Japan and state in the USA
Definition on ‘area’
- Is a space with a centre (a core, a heart)
- Has characteristics, an identity
- Is subject to power, ownership, jurisdiction; some form of control (such as territory)
- Geometrics (shapes) of areas, borders and centres → may involve human and cultural
shapes, or even movements and actions
Names of areas
- Area names can identify certain characteristics or signify identity
- Sometimes they are dominant ethnic groups (political tools)
- Sometimes established long ago, their etymology forgotten or irrelevant
Area-related “-isms” → political ideologies linked to kinds of areas
- Nationalism
- Regionalism
- Globalism
- pan-Asianism or pan-Africanism
, Discourse → “language and related means of symbolic representation”
Area discourse is dynamic → differences from one language to another, may have significant
consequences, has variety within languages and cultures and can change overtime
24 Sept. Lesson 3 - I: Speaking about areas (study and critique)
Challenges to Area Studies
- Orientalism → perspectivity and openness to the world (critical awareness)
- Globalisation → deterritorialization or territoriality, glocalization (localization as part of
globalisation, stimulated by it)
Epistemology is the theory of knowledge
- episteme → a set of (unconscious) rules for thinking and understanding (epistemic;
adjective)
In Area Studies “area” means things that people do, think and feel in areas
What are the main disciplines that study discursive area-making?
- human/cultural geography
- concerned with AS —> multidisciplinary and very diverse
- linguistics and sociolinguistics (national language, dialectology, areal linguistics, etc.)
- linguistic anthropology
- philology (history of art) or archeology
- history (historiography)
- international relations, political science
- religious studies, theology
New models of area-making, new ways to talk about areas?
- through social media, in games, in virtual world, heritage (heritage industry, heritage
tourism); since 1990s
