I have taught diverse undergraduate and graduate students at Boston College, Columbia University, and the City University of New York-City College. At these institutions, I offered an array of courses in United States History and Transnational History and supervised independent research projects. I have particularly rich experiences in teaching the history of American immigration and nineteenth-century America, including the Civil War and Reconstruction. At my current institution, Sophia University, I am offering courses in North American Studies and Migration Studies, as well as language courses.
By way of introducing the students various approaches to the study of the past to cultivate their broader academic interests, my courses usually adopt secondary materials drawn from multiple disciplines, including History, Cultural Studies, Political Science, Sociology, Journalism, and Law, in addition to an array of primary sources, such as letters, cartoons, images, memoirs, novels, oral interviews, and legal and legislative documents. The integrated use of diverse materials and methodologies guides students’ learning in my courses.
Below is a selection of courses I have taught. For a complete list of my courses, please visit the CV section of the homepage.
North America in the World
This course explores the global history of North America, especially the United States, from the fifteenth century to the present. By examining how North America interacted with Europe, Africa, Central and South America, and Asia and the Pacific through migration, colonialism, imperialism, commerce, and diplomacy, it advances students’ understanding of North America’s historical relations with the world. Through topics that have particular relevance to the world today, such as refugees and poverty, the course also enhances students’ awareness of contemporary global issues.
History of U.S. Immigration
This course surveys the history of American immigration from the colonial period to the present, covering major events, issues, and concepts in the American immigration experience. It explores the causes and patterns of migration to America; the processes of settlement; the politics of race, ethnicity, class, religion, and gender; meanings of citizenship and assimilation; nativism; the development of regulatory immigration law and policy; and migrant identity and transnationalism. The course also examines the debate over immigration in contemporary American society and politics.
American Nativism
This seminar explores the history of nativism, or intense hostility toward foreigners, in the United States. While the constant influx of immigrants characterizes the history of the United States, intolerance with foreigners who seemed to threaten the cultural, economic, and political fabric of American society from the perspective of native-born Americans has equally shaped the American immigration experience. By exploring nativist writings, cartoons, images, memoirs, oral history, and legal and legislative documents as well as scholarly books and articles through intensive reading and class discussion, the course traces the historical development of American nativism from the late colonial period to the present. Themes to be pursued in the course include the ideological and religious origins of anti-alien sentiment in America; the social, economic, and political circumstances of the time for the rise of nativism; principal targets of nativism in each period; the relationships between nativism and central issues in American history such as race, citizenship, and freedom; the various ways hostile sentiment was expressed; and the nexus between domestic nativist forces in America and larger contexts of international migration.
Wealth and Poverty in America
This seminar explores the problems of wealth and poverty in United States history based on intensive reading and class discussion. Since its inception in the colonial period, American society has been characterized by the pursuit of economic prosperity and the consistent growth of poverty. From the post-Revolutionary period to the present, politicians, reformers, journalists, and the rich and the poor themselves continued to discuss ways to protect private wealth and prevent insolvency, causes of and solutions to poverty, as well as what it meant to be American. In wealth and poverty, as these peoples’ voices suggest, issues of fundamental importance in United States history, such as visions of American society, freedom, citizenship, race and ethnicity, gender, public health, and forces of capitalism converged. By examining ideologies of wealth and poverty, their cultural and legal implications, the development of public policies for property and social welfare, and the lives of the rich and the poor, this course explores the meanings of wealth and poverty in the history of the United States.
The American Civil War in Global Perspective
This course explores the Civil War Era in American history (1846-1877) from global perspectives. The debate over slavery, the course of the Civil War, and the significance of slave emancipation have traditionally been examined as domestic events. While tracing the central narrative of this period, this course focuses on the global dimensions of the events and issues that shaped America’s Civil War Era.
Themes to be covered in the course include the transatlantic abolitionist movement; the significance of the Haitian Revolution and British Emancipation for the American politics of slavery; the roles of American cotton production in global capitalism; proslavery diplomacy and slaveholders’ international sensibility; immigrants’ relationships with the sectional conflict and the Civil War; European countries’ involvements in the Civil War; the comparative analysis of slave emancipation and its aftermath in the Atlantic World; the impact of slave emancipation on the global economy; and the international memory of the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln. By situating America’s Civil War Era in international contexts, this course ultimately helps the students see how the debate over slavery, the destruction of the institution, and the subsequent reconstruction of the nation in the United States were parts of the larger process of national unification and nation building that unfolded on a global scale.
The United States: From Its Origins to 1877
This course surveys the central ideas and events that shaped American history from the colonial period to the end of the Civil War era. Major issues to be covered in the course include European-Indian cultural encounter; the development of American slavery; the origins and consequences of the American Revolution; the geographic, demographic, and economic expansion of antebellum America; the debate over slavery; and the Civil War and Reconstruction. Particular attention is paid to the relationship between America and the world and the roles of race, class, gender, and religion in shaping conflicting visions of American society.