Asia and Asians at Harvard: Professor Sugata Bose Discusses New Fall 2025 Course

Q: What was the catalyst behind the course Asia and Asians at Harvard and how have your goals for the course evolved?
A: Last year I published the book Asia After Europe: Imagining a Continent in the Long 20th Century. Prior to that I had been teaching seminars on the theme of that book titled Asia in the Modern World. It struck me after the book had come out that I might now teach a course on Asia–America relations in the long 20th century through the microcosm of Harvard’s long and deep engagement with Asia and the study of Asia. That was one of the catalysts for the course. But I should also add that I have had students who have inspired me to formulate the course in this fashion. Last year I advised a senior thesis by an undergraduate, Eleanor Wickstrom, on the U.S. and the Philippines in the first two decades of the 20th century, and she was able to find a lot of good material in the Harvard archives. Another student a number of years ago wrote a paper for my seminar on the poet Rabindranath Tagore’s visit to Harvard in 1913, when he gave five lectures in Emerson Hall. All of that led me to think: why not try out a new course in which students would learn both about the history of Asia and about Harvard and its multifaceted global engagements.

Q: What do you feel is timely about this course and what might interested students hope to take away?
A: First, I would say that Asia has recovered in the 2020s the global position that it lost in the 1820s. There is a political and economic shift taking place in the global balance of power between Asia and Euro-America which makes it a good moment to revisit the long history of the decline and the rise of Asia. But there is another, more immediate reason for wanting to do this. Harvard and the best American universities have been the greatest gift to the entire world in the last 100 years. As the United States turns inward in the current moment, it is very important to remind our students—the younger generation—about the great advantages of Harvard’s and American higher education’s international involvements. I want to do it particularly through a study of Harvard’s engagement with Asia.

Q: How are you planning to use Harvard’s resources, such as archives? Do you anticipate any unexpected or surprising findings?
A: Yes, I intend to use many of Harvard’s resources and locations. On many days that we meet, we will spend an hour in the classroom and then spend the next hour going to a relevant location, such as the Harvard Archives and the Houghton Library. In President Charles Eliot’s papers, there are boxes on the earliest students who came to Harvard from Japan, China, and India in the very late 19th and early 20th centuries. Students will have a hands-on experience going through these papers.

At Houghton Library there are fascinating manuscripts. Rabindranath Tagore was here in 1913, the year he won the Nobel Prize for literature, and the original notebook in which he wrote these poems is in Houghton. The first Japanese visiting professor at Harvard, Masaharu Anesaki, gave lectures that were published in a little book in 1915 and that is also in Houghton. We will go to the Peabody Museum, which has photographs of the Philippines between 1909 and 1913, when Cameron Forbes, a Harvard alum and later Overseer, was Governor General. We will visit Radcliffe’s exhibition on Asian and Asian American women, and the Museum of Fine Arts, where figures like Okakura from Japan and Ananda Coomaraswamy were curators of Asian art and had close Harvard ties. So from many perspectives we can study Harvard-Asia relationships. As for surprises, I am sure we will find some. Eleanor Wickstrom discovered, for example, that the table in the Faculty Room in University Hall was sent from the Philippines by Cameron Forbes to President Lowell. It is made of Nara wood and that correspondence had been forgotten. These are the kinds of little nuggets I expect students will uncover.

Q: How might the course serve as a segue or introduction to the November 2025 Asia Center conference on a related theme?
A: There will be a lot of thematic overlap between the course and the conference we are planning. My hope is that the course will ensure student interest and involvement in the conference. If we make enough progress by mid-November, the students collectively might be able to present something of their discoveries to what will be a wonderful gathering of scholars and alumni. The Archives, Houghton Library, and the Peabody Museum have already contacted me to say they will make arrangements for students and will also put up popup exhibits for conference participants.

Q: Beyond historical accounting, what could come of this conversation in the course and at the conference?
A: We are arranging the conference themes to focus, for example, on eminent intellectuals from Asia who visited Harvard and spoke here: Tagore in 1913, Vivekananda at Radcliffe in the 1890s, Hu Shi in 1936, and so on. There will be a session on students—both pioneers and pathways created by them, from the earliest students to the later growth of Asian student populations. Another session will address the institutionalization of Asian studies at Harvard and Harvard’s role in building institutions in Asia. Finally, we will examine Harvard’s role in policy toward Asia. There is much to celebrate, but we can also critically assess Harvard’s role during periods like the Asian Exclusion Act of 1924 or the Vietnam War. Beyond that, I hope this project helps us think about the future: historically Harvard invested heavily in East Asia, but less so in South and Southeast Asia until recently. Through the course and conference, we might give impetus to strengthening the study of Southeast Asia at Harvard.

Q: As an historian, how often are you surprised by what your research uncovers, and could this project alter perceptions of Harvard’s engagement with Asia?
A: I always keep an open mind. It is important to begin with a big question, but then let the archives and evidence guide you, even if that changes your hypothesis. That is exactly what I want students to do in this course.

On a personal note, I first came to Boston as a two-year-old because my father, a pediatrician, received a Rockefeller fellowship at Harvard Medical School in the late 1950s. He trained with Dr. Ed Neuhauser, a pioneer in pediatric radiology. Dr. Neuhauser predicted my father would be recognized as the father of pediatric radiology in India, which came true when he returned and led a major teaching hospital. At Boston Children’s Hospital there is a painting of Dr. Neuhauser with his residents and students—most of them were international. That painting still hangs in the radiology reading room. My mother, meanwhile, visited museums and became a specialist in American art, writing about her experiences in Boston. These personal and institutional histories show how important Harvard’s global engagements were, and they illustrate the kinds of discoveries students might make.

Q: Given current challenges, how do you view a future where Harvard has less international engagement?
A: I think it would be a great pity if Harvard had to reduce its international engagements because of external pressure. American higher education has made the United States truly attractive to the world, even when U.S. foreign policy has been criticized. Harvard in particular has been admired for what it has given in the field of knowledge. Harvard itself learned from abroad: in the 19th century faculty and administrators studied German research universities, which were then the best in the world. After the 1930s, American universities became global leaders, and one reason was their ability to attract the best intellectual talent both from within the United States and from outside. About 27% of Harvard’s student body is international today. Harvard may be in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but it is a global university. I hope we will do everything possible to make sure that Harvard’s strong bonds with the rest of the world, which go back a long time, are not only retained but nourished by our administration, faculty, and students.

Sugata Bose is the Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History in the Department of History at Harvard University.