Asian History for the New Millennium

Professorial Chair Lecture

GE Professorial Chair Lecture

Place

Department of Social Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences, UPLB, College, Laguna

Date

7-14-2000

Abstract

Recent trends especially the emergence of what experts call a "global village" has dramatically changed the way we view ourselves. We face newer (and maybe harder). challenges. But we have also showed resiliency by developing, with the help of science and technology, strategies to meet these challenges. We have decided to put a premium on our capability to think our way out of these problems. This capability is being continually hamessed through sharing of resources and ideas. The University, (ideally) in the frontline of society's coping mechanism, should be sensitive to these occurrences. The advent of a "new world order" forces the academe to equip itself and the society it serves with the means to survive these challenges.

The very structure of history as a branch of knowledge calls for its "practitioners" to "make sense" of these phenomena. The past is always "reconstructed" with the view that it must explain the present. "Causal links" between the "past" and the "present" must be established. It means that historians and others interested in history must search the past for explanations regarding the emergence of the present. The present could not have just risen from nowhere.

Asian history is especially important because the importance of human "interactivity" in the present scheme of things is clearly founded in the past. Asian societies and "civilizations" thrived as a result of interaction with their contemporaries. It was not merely coincidence but a matter of choice. Interaction resulted in the emergence of great achievements, not just for a particular period alone but for all time. The very essence of humanity in general and Asians in particular, giving due respect to divergences in details, has always been interaction. The present merely exacerbates this point.

Location

UPLB Main Library Special Collections Section (USCS)

College

College of Arts and Sciences (CAS)

Language

English

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