Since I demanded all of you do a self-introduction (thank you to everyone that has posted thus far!), I thought it was only fair that I do my own – even though I babbled at you plenty at our introductory course meeting.
I am a modern Chinese cultural historian: my primary work currently is on cultural reform and censorship in the People’s Republic of China between 1949 and 1966. I look at a wonderful, amazing literary genre called chuanqi, “miraculous tales” (which means everything from ghosts to gods to fox spirits), particularly ghost opera. I write a lot about my research on my personal blog (and elsewhere), and am always happy to talk ghosts, superstition, and issues related to censorship. My next big research project is going to consider the history of high altitude mountaineering in China – it’s one I’m very excited to get underway, especially considering the awesome scholars of the environment and science we have here at MSU.
As I mentioned in class, this is a big experiment for me. I finished my PhD in the summer of 2013 & started at MSU a few weeks later, so I’m still learning who I am as a teacher and what I’d like to accomplish (and how). I think digital tools are very important (I’ve been part of conference panels & written a little bit about my experience with digital tools in my research), and am proud to have done my BA at a university that takes the “digital humanities” very seriously. I’ve been really inspired by the cool work my undergrad mentor & her colleagues have done at Mary Washington – and have been itching for a chance to try some new-to-me-in-teaching tools and structure in one of my classes. I like the possibilities offered by platforms like WordPress, and I like challenging myself with my teaching (and believe me, this is a big challenge on several levels!). And so this class – and you guys! – are my first test lab. I really do hope this will be pretty collaborative: I want to hear about your thoughts on all of this. I’m excited – and terrified – about having this being pretty outward facing, but I’m looking forward to seeing what we produce over the next 15 weeks.
As for gaming, it’s probably obvious at this point that I play videogames. I also have experience writing about them professionally, as well as thinking about them academically. I’m generally interested in connections between contemporary society & historical issues. I am a devotee of Japanese role-playing games (JRPGs) & life sims (Harvest Moon et al. – most recently in that vein, Fantasy Life). While my gaming goes in cycles, I do still like to write about them when inspiration strikes. Some of my favorite games from the PS2 generation onward are Final Fantasy X & X-2, Lost Odyssey, Dragon Quest VIII, Crisis Core, the Tales of series, the Suikoden series, and the Persona and Shin Megami Tensei series. But my purpose in putting together this class wasn’t to talk about my preferred mode of play: it was to think of all kinds of different forms of games and play, across time and space, with people who have many different relationships with games and play. The games I’ve researched thus far (like mahjong or Chinese tower defense games) aren’t things I play at all. And – based on your introductions – it seems I’ve succeeded in luring a diverse group to my wild experiment!
I grew up riding horses & rode seriously until I was in my early 20s, so I’m not totally unacquainted with athletic pursuits (I have a bit of a fetish for equine art, which you may notice from time to time: there’s a good reason for that!). My best friend studies sport history in the PRC & I’ll be dipping my toe in those waters with my mountaineering project, so I’m looking forward to exploring more of it.
I am very excited about this class, and I am excited to have all of you for a semester & see how things develop. I look forward to a fun, productive semester talking about cool stuff and writing good things about our own interests.
I can be found on Twitter or at my website’s blog, The Wayward Historian (my current claim to fame is having posted a 1980s Chinese comic book version of Star Wars that went viral last year: probably the first and last time I’ll be on the BBC & Rolling Stone websites, among many others). I also have the world’s cutest pit bull, who is an excellent hiking companion.
