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Focuses on the Indian Ocean World, a critical historical arena of large-scale cultural and economic contact among societies of South Asia, the Middle East, East and Southeast Asia, and East Africa. We will explore this contact zone chronologically and thematically, examining the influence of environment, the demands of commerce, the bonds of Islam, and the political tensions of empires from medieval to modern times. We will pay particular attention to the networks and individuals that have made up the social fabric of this oceanic world: merchants, pilgrims, smugglers, and laborers. Texts will include scholarly studies as well as travel and fictional accounts.