New Media and Japanese Studies
WARNING: those of you interested in Japanese studies but not in internet technologies, new media, and the whole question of how digital learning does or doesn&#...
Category: Teaching
Virtual Forbidden City
Imagethief has been discussing the Virtual Forbidden City. Basically this is something that looks a lot like a Second Life site but you have to download the who...
The Soul of Japan
I’m teaching a survey course on premodern Japanese history this semester. It focuses on medieval and early modern Japan, and I wanted the first paper to d...
What to do with temples?
Another in our occasional series on teaching aids. One aspect of Chinese modernization that most teachers mention is the modernizing state’s need for buil...
A disappointment
I’ve been enjoying the textbook I’m using for World History this fall: Felipe Fernandez-Armesto’s The World: A History. It covers the entire w...
Pictures of China
Opium burning, 1917-1919. Beijing Duke university has put the entire Sidney Gamble archive on-line. Some of these have been published already (Gamble is pretty ...
China under construction
Apparently China produces a lot of cement From the Oil Drum, via Andrew Sullivan, Another in our series of cool teaching graphics.
Comparative religion
Teaching about religions is always tricky in part because I and most of my students are heavily influenced by the Christian (especially Protestant) idea that th...
Authors/Books/China/Culture/Current Events/Literature/Maoist era (1949-1976)/Post-Mao/Teaching/Translation
New Chinese Literature
The New York Times has published three reviews of new Chinese works in translation: Wang Anyi’s The Song of Everlasting Sorrow, Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong (pen na...
Delicious Asia
China Beat has a nice post up linking to some teaching resources. Although they list some really good resources that you should all go look at they leave out th...
Studying Keene’s Emperor Meiji
Much of my Meiji Japan course is taken up with Donald Keene’s Emperor of Japan: Meiji and his World, 1852-1912. It’s been a pretty good experience, ...
Readings on Tibet
I’ve posted links to interesting recent articles on Tibet on a blog for my teachers’ workshop, ASIA: LEARNING FROM, TEACHING ABOUT.
poor peasants
In Modern China class we will be talking about Communists and their analysis of China’s social classes. What is a poor peasant? I will give them the stand...
The race between the Totman and the Hane
Like most teachers, I have a tense relationship with textbooks: too much of one thing, not enough of another; too old, or updated annually; too hard to read, or...
Help me pick some books
Book order forms for the Fall are on my desk again, and again I am going to ask for any advice people might feel like sending my way. The two Asia courses I am ...