Courses

I teach a wide range of courses for undergraduates and graduate students. Depending on the needs of my students and department, my classes cover various aspects of the histories of China, Central and East Asia, science and medicine, early modernity, and the global movement of ideas, texts, people, and things. I also teach courses in various theoretical approaches to history as a craft and practice, and transdisciplinary courses on themes or topics that resonate with my work at the time: bodies, temporalities, translation, graphic novels, etc., and independent readings courses on all kinds of things. From 2014-2018 I taught in the humanities and writing-focused Arts One program at UBC as part of the teaching team for the “Hero, Anti-Hero” and “Knowledge and Power” themes. You can find syllabi for my current courses, as well as an archive of past syllabi, below. I’ll post occasional updates with other materials, as well!

Current courses (2022-2023)

  • History capstone (Spring 2023, Pitt) Coming soon!

Previous courses (2006-2022)

  • The Time Kitchen (Spring 2022, Pitt) History 2738. A graduate seminar on time studies. The syllabus is supplemented by weekly recipes.
  • Undergraduate Humanities Research Proseminar (Spring 2022, Pitt) ARTSC 0550. An introduction to research in the humanities for undergraduate research fellows. The syllabus is supplemented by weekly guides.
  • Drugs in Global History (Fall 2021, Pitt) History 1706. And a sample weekly guide for the course can be accessed at the link here.
  • Drugs in Global History (Spring 2020, Pitt) History 1706. The Zombie Apocalypse Edition of the course – a COVID reboot when we were forced to move online mid-semester – is linked here.
  • Graduate History Writing Workshop (Fall 2019, Pitt) History 2012. This course used a nonlinear syllabus in the form of a specially-designed Tarot deck. 
  • Arts One: Knowledge and Power (2016-2017 & 2017-2018; You can find our reading list and course schedule here.)
  • Arts One: Hero, Anti-Hero (2014-2015 & 2015-2016; You can find our reading list and course schedule here.)
  • Stories: Science, Medicine, and Technology in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds (Fall 2013, UBC) History 259. An undergraduate lecture/discussion course that pays special attention to stories and storytelling, with alchemy and dissection and automata. Stories Syllabus Pt. 1 and Pt. 2
  • Later Imperial China: A Sensory History (Spring 2014, UBC) History 379. A course exploring the history of China from the Tang empire through the mid-Qing dynasty, via sensation and the senses.
  • Currencies of Life and Death: Disease, Health, Medicine(Spring 2014, UBC) Hist 104. An introduction to the world history of disease through circulations, with coins and horses and bacteria and zombies. (Mmmm…brrraaaaains!)
  • Organs: Bodies, Medicine, and History (Spring 2012, UBC) History 586. A trans disciplinary graduate seminar in history and/with bodies.
  • Introduction to Manchu Language and Manjuristics (2013-2014 & 2011-2012 UBC) A non-credit seminar.
  • War Games: Central Asia in History (Fall 2011, UBC) Hist 488A. An introduction to the history of Central Asia via a hybrid lecture and long-form role playing game format.
  • History and the Graphic Novel (Fall 2011, UBC) History 490Q. An undergraduate majors  seminar on text and image in the writing of history.
  • Later Imperial China: A Sensory History (Spring 2011, UBC) History 379. A course exploring the history of China from the Tang empire through the mid-Qing dynasty, paying special attention to experiential sources in history. The semester is divided according to the five senses.
  • Translating China (Spring 2011, UBC) History 560 Readings in Pre-1911 Chinese History. During the Spring 2011 term we will be approaching major recent trends in the study of Qing history through the lens of translation, focusing on its history and practice in later imperial China.
  • Writing Modern China (Spring 2011, UBC) History 588 Topics in Asian History. Independent guided readings course on contemporary Chinese historical fiction.
  • Pharmacopoeia: Drugs in Global History (Fall 2010, UBC) History 105 Contemporary Global Issues in Historical Perspective. An introduction to world history and historical methodology, the course traces the emergence of the modern body and of pharmaceutical modernity.
  • Writing Bodies: Medicine and Healing in China (Fall 2010, UBC) History 487. A Writing Intensive interdisciplinary introduction to the history of Chinese medicine: its tools, roots, and literature.
  • Daedalus: Re-Placing the History of Science(Fall 2009, UBC) A graduate seminar on recent work that treats the idea of “local knowledge” in the history and anthropology of science and medicine.
  • An Anecdoted Topography of Chance: An Introduction to the History of Science(Spring 2009, Montana State University) An introduction to themes and methods in the history of science for SETS majors.
  • Tectonics: Shaping the History of Science(Spring 2009, MSU) An experimental graduate seminar that brings together history of science with architectural theory.
  • Creatures: Art and Biology from Early Modernity to Now [Web-based Seminar] (Spring 2008, MSU) An experimental upper-level history seminar for majors. Web-based with optional in-person sessions for on-campus students.
  • Poison: Science, Technology, and Medicine in Global History(Spring 2008, MSU) An introductory lecture course in contemporary global issues in science and medicine.
  • Modern East Asia: Bodies of Evidence (Fall 2007, MSU) An introductory lecture course in modern East Asian history.
  • Unnatural History: Fact and Evidence in Cryptobiology (Fall 2007, MSU; Spring 2007 Rutgers) A seminar course in the epistemology of science.
  • Cabinets of Curiosity: Exotica in the Early Modern World(Fall 2006, Rutgers) An introductory lecture course in world history.