Georgetown University | Yale-NUS College | Syracuse University | University of Notre Dame | University of California-Berkeley
Teaching
Teaching social-cultural anthropology courses with both undergraduate and graduate students has been rewarding and enlightening. I have had the privilege of working with bright, inquisitive and critically engaged students from around the world at several institutions, including Georgetown University, Yale-NUS College in Singapore, Syracuse University, the University of Notre Dame, and the University of California-Berkeley. I have taught a wide selection of courses all of which cluster around my core areas of expertise—social-cultural anthropology, medical anthropology, gender and sexuality studies, and South Asia studies.
Yale-NUS Graduation 2019 with Gem Tan
Courses that I have taught include (but are not limited to):
Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
Global Encounters: Comparing Worldviews and Values Cross-Culturally
Contemporary Anthropological Theory
Ethnographic Techniques
Anthropology Capstone Seminar
Medical Anthropology
Health, Healing, and Culture
Culture and Reproductive Science and Technology
Cancer, Culture, Politics
Society and Transnational Issues in South Asia
Modern South Asian Cultures and Society
Problems in the Anthropology of South Asia
Gender and Sexuality in South Asia
Medicine and Power in South Asia
Through these courses, I encourage students to appreciate and celebrate social and cultural diversity and to understand how local social-cultural worldviews and practices are situated within broader national, regional, and global political and economic contexts. My courses help students to learn how to apply anthropological methods and analysis to pressing social problems in our world today.
Medical Anthropology class visit to
Traditional Chinese Medicine Clinic, Singapore
Medicine and Power in India class visit to
Ayurvedic Clinic, Rockville Maryland
Advising
One of the highlights of my career has been mentoring students through their own independent research projects, whether they are undergraduate students working on a senior capstone thesis, students writing Masters’ theses, or doctoral students pursuing a Ph.D. At Georgetown University, I advise students in the Master’s Program in Asian Studies (MASIA) as well as undergraduate students. At Yale-NUS, I enjoyed not only serving as the capstone supervisor to several students but also teaching the Anthropology Capstone Seminar for all of the Seniors majoring in Anthropology. At Syracuse University, I served as the primary advisor for five students who have received their PhDs, as the advisor for several M.A. students, and as a committee member for over twenty-five other doctoral and Masters’ students. My doctoral advisees pursued their dissertation research on the following topics:
Photos with my doctoral advisees
Chen-I Kuan (PhD 2011, Distinction) “Debates on Gender and Technology: Cesarean Births in Taiwan”
Laurah Klepinger-Mathew (PhD 2015) “Flexible Labor in a Spiritual Economy: Peace, Work and Inequality in Globalized Yoga”
Madhura Lohokare (PhD 2016, Distinction) “Making Men in the City: Articulating Masculinity and Space in Urban India”
Jocelyn Killmer (PhD 2018) “Village Doctors and Vulnerable Bodies: Medicine, Gender and Risk in North India”
Alisa Weinstein (PhD 2019, Distinction) “Tailor Made in India: Jaipur’s Masters of Cloth, Doctors of Clothing”
