Fornication and the public sphere
So, if like me you are teaching some version of World History 2-Modern Boogalloo, you will probably want to talk about the early modern rise of the public spher...
Author: Alan Baumler
Kings in All but Name
If you are looking for a good new book to help you teach pre-Onin War Japan may I recommend Thomas Conlan’s Kings in All but Name: The Lost History of Ouchi Rul...
Fun with graphics in Chinese history
If you do Republican period Chinese history you know that the various versions of the Chinese state loved graphical representations of data. (This may be someth...
Teaching Japan with maps
At some point in the future, you may find yourself having to explain a lot of Japanese history n a big hurry in order to get to the class you are actually teac...
Passing the Exams-All in the Family edition
There is a long history of talking about the Ladder of Success in Imperial China, and if the Chinese bureaucracy really was a Career Open to Talent. This was al...
Korean sources and look…more Korean sources
For those of you who are interested in such things, our M’eudail Leader, Konrad has added more stuff (links to open access copies of volumes with Japanese...
The 1895 Taiwan Republic and dodgy images
If you want to teach about the rapid spread of “modern” ideas in China after the Sino-Japanese war, the 1895 Taiwan Republic is good to talk about. ...
Qing state capacity
The Qing was quite the Early Modern state, with considerable ability to do things and collect information about how well it was doing. The disastrously expensiv...
Sometimes the flyer is so cool you want to go to the talk
The talk looks interesting too, but it is really the flyer that does it for me.
Oh thank heaven
So apparently 7-11s are becoming a tourist stop in Japan. This actually makes perfect sense to me. I have not done any time in Japan, but I have spent a lot of ...
Teaching in the age of AI -Phantom readings
So, partially because other people are talking about it, and partly because I need to figure out how to deal with AI for next semester. Specifically, I am teach...
Teaching Cao Cao
This semester I am teaching HIST 332 Early China, which goes from Anyang to the Tang.1 One problem with this class is where and how to break it in half. The Sha...
Comparative textbookolgy
One assignment that worked well in this semester’s World History II midterm was having them write comparisons of textbook chapters. The prompt. For this s...
Ignorance is Strength: Or, teaching Laozi in Utah
Utah has apparently become the first state to mandate the Ethics and Public Policy Foundation (EPPF) model legislation on General Education. This will be rolled...
I Wanna be Bob Dylan
A fun book to draw from when teaching modern Japan is Soeda Azembo and Michael Lewis, A Life Adrift: Soeda Azembo, Popular Song and Modern Mass Culture in Japan...