Academics

Seth Harter - History & Asian Studies

Seth Harter plunged into Asian studies after spending the summer of 1987 in Hong Kong, working as a receptionist for a venture capital firm by day and teaching English in a Vietnamese refugee camp by night. Hong Kong captivated Seth with its energy, and with its resistance to simple categorization. "The city was simultaneously a colony and not colonial, both individualistic and family-oriented, at once cosmopolitan and parochial."

Seth returned to Hong Kong between 1989 and 1991, teaching English literature and composition at the Chinese University. Still fascinated by the paradoxes he saw there, he used them at the University of Michigan as the basis of his dissertation in history, which examines the relationship between Hong Kong and China in the mid-twentieth century.

Seth sees an expanding role for Asian studies in U.S. education. "Recently there has been a lot of talk, in connection with globalization, about the importance of understanding Asia. I couldn’t agree more, but I think that discussions of globalization in the media often promote two misconceptions: first, that global economic interdependence is a recent phenomenon; and second, that globalization has created a culturally homogenous world. One of the greatest contributions that Asian studies can make, in the liberal arts context, is to counter these two misconceptions." At Marlboro, says Seth, "I want to use the heterogeneity of Asian history to get students to think about seemingly familiar phenomena – gender relations, migration, time, money – in new ways."

B.A., Yale University, 1989; M.A.,University of Michigan, 1996; PhD., University of Michigan, 2006; Marlboro College, 2000 –