Teaching
Research, Training & Practice
Berktay, Asli. & Wang, J. (2022). "Co-teaching Theme Parks: A Collaboration between An Anthropologist and A Historian (一门关于主题公园的课程，历史学与人类学的火花)." Interviewed and translated by Mengzhu An. TyingKnots, April 8.
Wang, J., & Hargis, J. (2021). "Reflections on productive discomfort and the right amount of confusion, frustration and success." Journal of Transformative Learning, 8(1).
JOURN 567 — MASS MEDIA AND GLOBAL COMMUNICATION
Spring 2025
This course is an invitation to deepen students’ understanding of communication and media industries in different regions of the world, various historical periods, and various global crises and opportunities facing humanity, from digital activism to diasporic networks, from neoliberal expansion to climate change, from digital platforms to big data.
JOURN 201 — INTRODUCTION TO MASS COMMUNICATION
Spring 2024
This is an introductory course to underestand how the mass media are organized and how they function in modern society. It offers conceptual tools for understanding how and why our society’s mediated communications work the way they do. This course will help you become a more conscientious media user and think deeply about the role of media in your life.
JOURN 162 — MASS MEDIA IN MULTICULTURAL AMERICA
Fall 2023
This is an introduction to the roles and functions of print, film, electronic and digital media in multicultural America. It offers international comparisons that highlight differences and commonalities in the social and cultural position of mass media in societies with racially and ethnically diverse populations.
Between 2019 and 2021, I taught Global Perspectives on Society (GPS), together with my colleagues. In this course, we explore a set of recurring questions about how society is, or should be, organized, based on the close examination of diverse thinkers and writers from different time periods and different parts around the world. Over the semester, students develop skills that are central to a liberal education.
"Ambitious and ambiguous, the theme park phenomenon in China" is an integral part of a fast-changing neoliberal economy fueled by national imagination. This course invites students to embark a journey into theme parks in contemporary China.
Co-taught with Dr. Asli Berktay, a historian of the enslaved experience, of the slave trade and of comparative slavery in both Africa and in the African Diaspora.