Teaching
Course to offer for Spring 2024 at University of Wisconsin-Madison:
JOURN 201 — Introduction to Mass Communication
How the mass media are organized and how they function in modern society; their technological basis, economic and political foundations, and social implications.
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 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.