Lecture by Professor Lance Nolde (History, CSU Channel Islands)

Tuesday, June 18, 2019
10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
10383 Bunche Hall
UCLA Campus
11282 Portola Plaza
Los Angeles, CA 90095

From early in the Common Era, maritime trade brought Southeast Asian societies into sustained contact with a diversity of peoples and states in the Indian Ocean and South China Sea. Coastal states benefited most from this complex trading system that linked Southeast Asia with Persia, the Middle East, the East African littoral, South Asia, and East Asia. The kingdom of Srivijaya, with its center in Eastern Sumatra, came to dominate the trade of the Straits of Melaka and the Indonesian archipelago, and positioned itself as a major hub of the India-China trade between the late 7th and 13th centuries. Benefiting from its strategic location, Srivijaya grew to become not only an important trading entrepot for the region but it also became a center of religious learning for Buddhists across the Indian Ocean world. This lecture will offer an overview of the history of Srivijaya in its wider regional context and recent historiographical developments. The primary focus will be the ways in which connections forged through trade facilitated the spread of South Asian religious ideas, art, and cultural practices into Southeast Asia, and how these cultural exchanges manifested in Southeast Asian societies such as Srivijaya.

Lance Nolde is Assistant Professor of History at CSU Channel Islands.

Sponsor(s): Center for Near Eastern Studies, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, UCLA International Institute, UCLA History-Geography Project