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Grad Students

Chase Caldwell Smith



Contact Information

Email    chasesmith@ucla.edu
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Chase's research interests center thematically on histories of cultural encounters, race and identity, religious conversion, and knowledge production, and geographically on the early modern Iberian empires in maritime Southeast Asia.

Chase is a first-year PhD student in the UCLA History Department. Previously, he earned a BA in History from the University of Cambridge in 2017 and an MSt in Global and Imperial History from the University of Oxford in 2018. Prior to beginning his graduate studies at UCLA, he pursued an internship at BFM Media in Kuala Lumpur, during which he produced an eight-part mini-series for radio on selected subjects, places, and themes in Malaysian history, and internships at Columbia University Press, W. W. Norton & Company, and the New-York Historical Society. He currently produces and presents the Global History Podcast, a digital history project which features interviews with scholars on research in early modern global history.

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Field of Study

South and Southeast Asia

Subfield

early modern global history; maritime Southeast Asia; early modern Spanish and Portuguese empires; race, ethnicity, and identity; religious conversion; cultural encounter; mapping, cartography, and geography

Research

Master's Dissertation: ‘“Orientalism from Within”? Gender, Self-Fashioning, and Knowledge in the Works of Manuel Godinho de Erédia, c. 1558–1623’; Undergraduate Dissertation: ‘The Representation of Sacred Places in the relaciones geográficas of New Spain, 1577 – 1586’

Publications

Rees, P.C. and Smith, C.C., ‘Conference Report: BSHS Postgraduate Conference’, Viewpoint: Magazine of the British Society for the History of Science, 116 (2018), [http://www.bshs.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Viewpoint116_ONLINE.pdf], pp. 12-13.

Smith, C.C., ‘Review: Geographies of World History Graduate Conference: University of Cambridge, September 2017’, Global Histories: A Student Journal, 4/1 (2018), [https://www.globalhistories.com/index.php/GHSJ/article/view/173/101], pp. 207-10.

Grants and Awards

2020-21 University Fellowship, Graduate Division, UCLA

2017-18  Clarendon Scholarship, University of Oxford

2018       Postgraduate Bursary, British Association for South Asian Studies

2018       Butler Eyles Grant, British Society for the History of Science

2016       Senior Scholarship, Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge

2015       Scholarship, XL America Scholarship Foundation

Conference Presentations

ACADEMIC CONFERENCE & WORKSHOP PRESENTATIONS

Sept 2019, ‘“To the King our Sovereign”: Comparing “Transcultural” Knowledge Production in Works by Manuel Godinho de Erédia and Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala’ (Transcultural Knowledge: 1st Young Scholars Conference, European Society for the History of Science, Observatoire de Paris).

Sept 2018, ‘The Limits of Go-between Knowledge in the Works of Manuel Godinho de Erédia’ (8th European Society for the History of Science Biennial Conference, University College, London).

July 2018, ‘The Limits of Go-between Knowledge in Manuel Godinho de Erédia’s Declaraçam de Malaca e Índia Meridional com o Cathay’ (17th International Conference of Historical Geographers, University of Warsaw).

June 2018, ‘Exploring the Possibilities of Global Microhistory: The Case of Manuel Godinho de Erédia and his Hybrid Knowledges, c. 1560-1623’ (Global History Student Conference, Istanbul Şehir University).

June 2018, ‘Mitigating Mestiçagem: Constructing the Indigenous Mother and her Inverses in the Works of Manuel Godinho de Erédia, c. 1558-1623’ (‘Exploring Iberian History: An Interdisciplinary Graduate Workshop’, University of Oxford).

June 2018, ‘Exploring the Possibilities of ‘Global Microhistory’: The Case of Manuel Godinho de Erédia and his Hybrid Knowledge, 1563-1623’ (Global History Student Conference, Freie Universität Berlin).

Apr 2018, ‘Fruits, Fidalgos, and Fortresses: South Asia through the Eyes of a Luso-Malay Cosmographer, c. 1563-1623’ (British Association for South Asian Studies Annual Conference, University of Exeter).

Apr 2018, ‘“Following the Doctrine of Galen”: Gender and the Construction of Go-Between Knowledge in the Works of Manuel Godinho de Erédia’ (British Society for the History of Science Postgraduate Conference, University of Manchester).

Feb 2018, ‘“Their Backs Open Out into Flames”: Manuel Godinho de Erédia and the Construction of Gendered Knowledge in the Estado da Índia, c. 1560-1623’ (Oxford History Graduate Network Work in Progress Seminar, University of Oxford).

Sept 2017, ‘A Christian Landscape? Negotiating Sacred Places in the Relaciones Geográficas of New Spain, 1579-1586’ (World History Workshop Geographies of World History Graduate Conference, University of Cambridge).

PUBLIC-FACING HISTORICAL & CULTURAL ENGAGEMENTS & PROJECTS

2018-present, Co-Founder and Producer/Presenter, The Global History Podcast: Exploring Cross-Cultural Encounters in the Early Modern World [https://theglobalhistorypodcast.com/].

Jan-June 2020, Producer for an 8-part mini-series on Malaysian history (‘History on Repeat’) for the ‘Live & Learn’ show at BFM Media Sdn Bhd, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia [https://www.bfm.my/podcast/the-bigger-picture/live-learn/history-on-repe....

Dec 2019, Invited Speaker: ‘Manuel Godinho de Erédia: An “Orientalist from Within”?’ (co-organized by the Visual Art Program, Cultural Centre, University of Malaya and the Malaysia Design Archive, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia).

Nov 2019, Invited Pre-Recorded Radio Interview: ‘Crossing Knowledge Boundaries in the Early Modern World’, on the ‘Night School’ show with hosts Dr. Simon Soon and Muhammad Haniff Baharudin, BFM Media Sdn Bhd [http://manager.bfm.my/night-school-knowledge-boundaries-early-modern-wor....

Advisors

Professor Sanjay Subrahmanyam

Degrees

2018   MSt in Global and Imperial History (Distinction), University of Oxford

2017   BA in History (First-Class Honours), University of Cambridge