Resource for Teaching Asia

We emerging scholars have all been there. It was either when applying for a job, or after starting a new one: the teaching requirements include covering topics well beyond your expertise. In my time on the job market, I particularly enjoyed seeing positions to cover East Asian Studies. After all, you know one East Asian culture you know ‘em all, why hire specialists when you can underpay one lecturer? 

Provocatory remarks aside, we all need to dip into the unknown from time to time. In this post, I introduce some great online resources for scholars who have to dip into Asia-related topics, and do not have the necessary background to do so. In teaching 20th century China, I use these sources to remind myself what was going on around the area in other countries. 

Here, I provide a brief introduction to three sources that have really helped my teaching & course-creating process. 

Asia for Educators 

This is a great resource, it’s always my first go-to when I need to find resources. Its organization is immediate, divided by centuries, with great maps, and several primary sources listed under each topic. It collects an incredible array of online resources that would not necessarily pop-up with a simple google-search. I find it an incredible source for ideas, some of the questions according to which the material is organized are great sources for my own syllabi, and frequently I get ideas for assignments after I spend some time with this platform. 

For example, I start my course with a bit of a lecture about the many ways in which using “China” and “Chinese” are incorrect. But since they are also so useful when teaching at the undergraduate level (especially in survey courses), I am sticking with them… anyways, to make the point I often recur to maps. I show a map of East Asia in 500 CE and have students notice how much the boundaries differ from the area today officially recognized as PRC. So I navigate to the geography section and navigate to “spatial terms” to land on a page that has so many resources. The section ‘There is no-one in China’ (half-way through the page) caught my attention, and so I am taken to a resource that is arguably limited, even though its pictures are beautiful. The project ‘There is no-one in China’ is actually from the Field Museum “Cyrus Tang Hall of China”, an online exhibition that I do not think I would have discovered had it not been for the Asia For Educators Website. 

The Warring States project 

Ok, I confess: not one of my favourite. I am a Warring States specialist, so I am prone to see this field as outdated more than useful. But I am missing my own point: using online resources curated by more scholars than Wikipedia is (which is a great, often-times correct source also crafted by scholars) to get a first sense of what the topic is. For Warring States, this is not a bad place to start. It would be great if this project could be revived, perhaps with inputs by emerging scholars who are working with newly discovered manuscripts. 

East Asian History Courses at Muhlenberg

Curated by Tineke D’Haeseleer, this is an excellent resource. From the Welcome section you can navigate to what fits your needs best. The section “Useful Resources” is one of my favourites, and I have done assignments where students have to navigate this material to find answers to questions I give them. A low-stake assignment that does gives some credits without the stress, and most students return to tolls such as the timelines when working on their papers. I also get inspired by the section on courses, and since we are the Digital Orientalist, I need also to invite you to take a look at the “Digital Tools for Teaching” section.