From Ph.D. to Professor: Teaching in Early Career
The shift from doctoral studies to faculty roles brings challenges, such as developing course materials, balancing research and teaching demands, and adapting pedagogical approaches to different institutional cultures. To address these common concerns, CHUS (Chinese Historians in the United States) invites you to join an online discussion with three outstanding early-career scholars.
Our speakers include Dr. Kyungsun Lee (Assistant Professor of Geography, University of Arkansas at Little Rock), Dr. Bess Xintong Liu (Visiting Assistant Professor of Music, Kenyon College), and Dr. Yidi Wu (Assistant Professor of History, Elon University). They will share their experiences and discuss practical solutions to common challenges faced by new faculty members across different institutional settings. Whether you’re preparing for the academic job market or just starting your first teaching position, this event will offer practical perspectives and specific strategies for building a successful academic career.
Sincerely,
Dr. Yi Ren
Our speakers:
Dr. Kyungsun Lee is an Assistant Professor of Geography in the Department of History at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. As an interdisciplinary environmental social scientist, Dr. Lee’s research focuses on investigating the governance of socio-technical systems for urban water sustainability transitions. Dr. Lee teaches courses in human geography, environmental history, and environmental justice and has a strong interest in integrating sustainability across the curriculum. Before joining the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, she was a Teaching Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder and a Postdoctoral Researcher at Texas A&M University. Dr. Lee earned her Ph.D. in Environmental and Natural Resources Policy from the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, as well as a master’s degree in the History of Science and a bachelor’s degree in Chemical and Biological Engineering, both from Seoul National University.
Bess Xintong Liu is currently the Visiting Assistant Professor of Music at Kenyon College. She graduated from the musicological doctoral program at the University of Pennsylvania in 2023. Her primary research interest lies in musical exchange between China and the West in the twentieth century. Her dissertation titled “Resonant China: Transnational Music-making and the Construction of the Public, 1934-1958” explores music circles originated in Shanghai but expanded globally. Besides her commitment as a music historian, she is also a pianist, vocalist, translator, and a Chinese chamber music director.
Dr. Yidi Wu is the O’Briant Developing Professor and Assistant Professor of History at Elon University in North Carolina. Yidi teaches China, East Asia, world history, and occasionally Argentine tango. She practices and promotes historical role-playing games and ungrading in teaching. Her first book focuses on Chinese student activism in 1957. Her second book project investigates the transformation of Chinese higher education in the early 1950s. She is also developing a role-playing game based on the dialogues between student activists and government officials in 1989. She has served as the book review editor for PRC History Review from 2018 to 2024.
“History Matters” Series_Nov. 08, 2024_Seeing History: Public History in China by Dr. Na Li
学者简介
李娜，新加坡国立大学历史学系副教授，《公众史学》主编，主要研究领域是公众史学和城市历史保护，致力于公众史学在亚洲的建设与发展。专著包括：Kensington Market: Collective Memory, Public History and Toronto’s Urban Landscape, University of Toronto Press, 2015;《集体记忆、公众史学与城市景观》，上海三联书店，2017年；《公众史学研究入门》，北京大学出版社，2019年；Seeing History: Public History in China, De Gruyter, 2023。
陈新，弗吉尼亚大学 (University of Virginia) 访问教授。
“History Matter” Series_Oct. 05, 2024_Zhou Enlai and China’s “Prolonged Rise” by Dr. Jian Chen
学者简介
Jian Chen is the Director of the NYU Shanghai-ECNU Center on Global History, Economy, and Culture, a Distinguished Global Network Professor of History at NYU Shanghai, and a Global Network Professor in the Department of History at NYU. He is also Zijiang Distinguished Visiting Professor at East China Normal University. Prior to joining NYU Shanghai, he was the Michael J. Zak Professor of History for US-China Relations at Cornell University, Global Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson Center, the Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs at the London School of Economics, and visiting research professor at the University of Hong Kong (2009-2013). He holds a PhD from Southern Illinois University and an MA from Fudan University and East China Normal University in Shanghai.
Chen is a leading scholar in modern Chinese history, the history of Chinese-American relations, and Cold War international history. Among his many publications are China’s Road to the Korean War (1994), The China Challenge in the 21st Century: Implications for U.S. Foreign Policy (1997), and Mao’s China and the Cold War (2001). He is now completing a diplomatic and political biography of Zhou Enlai.
Chen was the recipient of the Jeffrey Sean Lehman Grant for Scholarly Exchange with China, Cornell University, 2007, and a chief faculty speaker for the National Endowment for the Humanities’ Summer Institute, “New Sources and Findings on Cold War International History,” held at the George Washington University in the summer of 1999. His other fellowships include the Jennings Randolph Senior Fellowship for International Peace (United States Institute of Peace, 1996-1997) and the Norwegian Nobel Institute Fellowship (Oslo, Norway, 1993). In addition, in 2005 he shared in the honors for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in News and Documentary Research for Declassified: Nixon in China.