Postdoctoral Teaching Fellows
Postdoctoral Fellows, 2010 – 2026
Illinois College (2024-2026)
Dr. Abhishek Nanavati
Ph.D., Georgetown University (History)
Fields of interest: Modern histories of Japan and Korea, global environmental history
Dr. Nanavati’s dissertation, titled “Co-Producing ‘American Dreams’: Dependents Housing, Hydroponic Farming, and the Militarization of Everyday Life in Occupied Japan, Okinawa, and South Korea, 1945-1950,” examines the American post-war military presence in East Asia as an act of empire built through the labor of locals. He teaches in the Global Studies program at Illinois College.
Southwestern University (2023-2025)
Dr. Maorui Yang
Ph.D., Louisiana State University (Economics)
Fields of interest: Economic development
During her initial semester at Southwestern, Dr. Yang will teach Comparative Economic Development. This course provides an introduction to the field of comparative economics to understand the nature of different economic systems (e.g. capitalism and socialism). It examines the factors that shape economic outcomes and the unique challenges and successes experienced by nations around the world, with a particular emphasis on Asian economies.
Trinity University (2023-2025)
Dr. Huiqiao Yao
Ph.D., University of Arizona (Chinese)
Fields of interest: Chinese literature and religion
At Trinity University, Dr. Yao teaches Asian religions, Chinese religions, and the intersection of religion with vernacular literature in late imperial China. Dr. Yao’s research centers around secular hagiographies in late imperial Chinese religion and literature. In her dissertation, titled “Popularizing the Sage: Wang Yangming and Vernacular Confucian Hagiographies in Late Imperial China,” she delves into diverse genres of hagiographies that focus on the renowned figure Wang Yangming. It argues that these hagiographies popularized and elevated Wang as a Confucian sage, garnering admiration and idolization from individuals across different social strata, thus reshaping the landscape of Confucianism and popular literature in late imperial China.
Knox College (2022-2024)
Dr. Chirasree Mukherjee
Ph.D., Arizona State University (Politics and Global Studies)
Fields of interest: International relations and comparative politics; religion and conflict; international terrorism, democratization and foreign policy
In her research, Chirasree Mukherjee grapples with intractable conflicts, especially those fought on religious grounds. Relying on both qualitative and quantitative analysis, she concentrates on conflicts between Hinduism and Islam in India to understand how the deep-seated religious cleavage between Hindus and Muslims germinate violence, resulting in intractable conflicts. She is the first woman in her family to pursue a doctoral degree and to travel overseas for higher education in United States.
Post-fellowship: Dr. Mukherjee is an Assistant Professor of Political Science (International Relations/Comparative Politics at Eastern Michigan University.
Moravian University (2021-2023)
Dr. Dorothee Xiaolong Hou
Ph.D., University of California, Davis (Comparative Literature)
Fields of interest: Asian cinema and world cinema; modern and contemporary Sinophone literature; globalization, migration and urbanization; language pedagogy, critical theory
Among the courses Dr. Hou taught as a Postdoctoral Fellow were Introduction to Chinese Cinema and Monsters in Asian Culture. Her dissertation is entitled Space, Place, and the “Stories-so-far”: Reimagining China’s Rust Belt in Literature and Film.
Post-fellowship: Dr. Hou is an Assistant Professor of Chinese and Asian Studies at Moravian University.
St. Lawrence University (2021-2023)
Dr. Irma Hidayana
Ed.D., Columbia University, Teachers College (Health Education)
At St. Lawrence University, Dr. Hidayana taught courses on Maternal and Child Health (MCH) in Southeast Asia and Covid in Asia. Her research centers on the impact of the baby food industry on maternal and child health in Indonesia and some countries in Southeast Asia regions. She manifests her scholarly works into real-world public health advocacy initiatives. Utilizing the advance of health innovation, she developed an advocacy platform to monitor violations of the WHO-UNICEF International code of marketing of breastmilk substitutes in Indonesia which helps both the government and civil society to protect breastfeeding from unethical marketing practices by the baby food industry.
Post-fellowship: Dr. Hidayana is an Assistant Professor in the Public Health program at Hofstra University.
Wilmington College (2021-2022)
Dr. Nguyet Nguyen
Ph.D., American University (History)
Fields of interest: Vietnam War and US foreign relations, Asian Studies, Asian history, gender studies, imperialism and decolonization
At Wilmington College, Dr. Nguyen taught courses on World Civilization, Asian History, and the Vietnam War. She is working on a manuscript regarding how Vietnamese in both Vietnam and the Vietnamese diaspora initiated and fostered the global antiwar movement, including that in the United States. In addition to her academic training and teaching, Nguyet has worked for NGOs, and governmental agencies, and as a journalist and interpreter.
Post-fellowship: Dr. Nguyen is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Alaska – Southeast.
Denison University (2020-2021)
Dr. Jue Liang
Ph.D., University of Virginia (Religious Studies)
At Denison University, Dr. Liang taught courses on Buddhism, Hinduism, and religions in Southeast Asia. Her dissertation, Conceiving the Mother of Tibet: The Life, Lives, and Afterlife of the Buddhist Saint Yeshe Tsogyel, examines the literary tradition surrounding the matron saint of Tibet, Yeshe Tsogyel, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It also presents the blossoming of this literary tradition in tandem with the efforts to trace their religious pedigree and define what counts as authentic Buddhism by Nyingma Tibetan Buddhists.
Post-fellowship: Dr. Nguyen is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Case Western Reserve University.
New College of Florida (2019-2021)
Dr. Kent Cao
Ph.D., Princeton University
At New College of Florida, Dr. Cao taught Mainland, Peninsula and Archipelago: Introduction to East Asian Art and Archaeology, a survey course on the foundational intellectual landmarks in East Asian Art and Archaeology; Court, Studio, Monastery and Market: Art Production and Circulation in East Asia and Beyond, an upper-division course which brings students to explore the interwoven relations between various agencies in art creation and consumption in East Asia, and its associated exchange with Central Asia and the West; and Think like a Caster: Art, Archaeology and Technology of Bronze Age China, a seminar that focuses on close reading and examination of art historical scholarship and archaeological discoveries in the field of Chinese Bronze Studies.
Post-fellowship: Dr. Cao received the Getty/ACLS Postdoctoral Fellowship in the History of Art. He is an Assistant Professor of Art and Archaeology at Duke Kunshan University and Duke University.
Bowdoin College (2019-2020)
Dr. Christine Marrewa-Karwoski
Ph.D., Columbia University
At Bowdoin College, Dr. Marrewa-Karwoski taught Epics Across Oceans, a class on the diversity of Indian epics across South and Southeast Asia; The Tigresses’ Snare, a class on the place of gender in asceticism and yoga in South and Southeast Asia; and Militancy and Monasticism in South and Southeast Asia. She is a cultural and religious historian of South Asia who focuses on the confluence of language, literature, and politics in North India over the longue durée. Her current research focuses on communal identity formation and the literature of the Nath yogis (most well-known for their connection with Hatha yoga) from the 17th through the 20th centuries.
Post-fellowship: Dr. Marrewa-Karwoski is a Lecturer in South Asian Histories at Columbia University.
Austin College (2017-2019)
Dr. Larissa Pitts
Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley (History)
At Austin College, Dr. Pitts taught modern East Asian history, introductory Chinese language, and Chinese politics. Her book project “Seeing the Forest from the Trees: Scientific Forestry and the Rise of Modern Chinese Environmentalism, 1864 – 1937” narrates the rise of state involvement in defining and managing China’s woodlands. She argues that in promoting the conservation and expansion of woodlands, Chinese states fostered the rise of a modern environmental consciousness in line with contemporary developments in world history. This meant that the condition and size of China’s forestland would serve as a barometer for state capacity for both Chinese citizens and international observers alike.
Post-fellowship: Dr. Pitts is an Assistant Professor of History at Quinnipiac University.
Kenyon College (2017-2018)
Dr. Arun Brahmbhatt
Ph.D., University of Toronto (Religion and South Asian Studies)
During his teaching fellowship year at Kenyon College, Dr. Brahmbhatt taught courses on Global Hinduism, religion in Southeast Asia, and the life of Hindu Epic literature. He is a scholar of religion in South Asia whose research is focused on the use of Sanskrit in text, print, liturgy, and ritual in modern Hindu traditions. His dissertation, Scholastic Publics: Sanskrit Textual Practices in Gujarat, 1800-Present, examined the negotiation of language, place, and modernity in the formation of religious community in colonial and contemporary western India.
Post-fellowship: Dr. Brahmbhatt is an Assistant Professor of South Asian Religions at St. Lawrence University.
Lewis & Clark College (2017-2019)
Dr. Layoung Shin
Ph.D., Binghamton University (Anthropology)
While at Lewis & Clark College, Dr. Shim taught Cultural Politics of Youth in East Asia, Contemporary Korean Culture, and Queer Theory in East Asia. She is a sociocultural anthropologist who researches queer youth and fandom culture in South Korea. She has conducted research on young women’s same-sex sexuality in relation to pop culture, fandom and costume-play. Through ethnographic research on how young women’s sexuality is constructed through media consumption and performing like celebrities, her projects have demonstrated how both media and embodiment are vital for the construction of non-heteronormative desire.
Union College (2016-2017)
Dr. Daniel Johnson
Ph.D., University of Chicago (East Asian Languages and Civilizations & Cinema and Media Studies)
Dr. Johnson is a media scholar whose teaching and research focus on the intersections between film, television, and games. He is the author of the book Textual Cacophony: Online Video and Anonymity in Japan, Cornell University Press, 2023. At Union College he taught courses on Japanese film and media culture.
Post-fellowship: Dr. Johnson is Assistant Professor of Japanese at the College of William and Mary.
Wabash College (2016-2017)
Dr. Sundar Vadlamudi
Ph.D., University of Texas, Austin
During his fellowship year at Wabash College, Dr. Vadlamudi taught South Asia in World History, 1200 – 2000 CE, a survey course on World History, and a course on the Trade and Travel in the Indian Ocean. A historian of South Asia and the Indian Ocean world, his research areas include Islam in South Asia, Indian Ocean trade, economic history of South Asia, and socio-religious reform movements in India. His dissertation examined the maritime trade of a community of South Indian merchants during the period of transition to colonial rule in India during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Post-fellowship: Dr. Vadlamudi is an Assistant Professor of History at the American University of Sharjah, UAE.
Bucknell University (2015-2016)
Dr. Ketaki Pant
Ph.D., Duke University (History)
At Bucknell, Dr. Pant taught courses on Islam in Asia; sex, gender, and family in colonial Asia; and material culture in Asia. She is a historian and anthropologist whose research focuses on ecumenical Islam in South Asia and its encounters with imperial political economy. One of her projects examines merchant homes as semiotically charged sites where imperial political economy came into contact with longer histories of Islamic itinerancy that shaped the Indian Ocean world from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Gujarat’s Muslim merchants were active across imperial port-cities from Arabia to Southeast Asia but continued to maintain historic homes in ports of Gujarat. Her work explores the imaginative and cultural practices merchants developed around their historic homes to reconcile the multiple spatial and cultural attachments that were entailed in this dual identity of being both imperial and Muslim.
Post-fellowship: Dr. Pant is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Southern California.
Luther College (2015-2016)
Dr. Yang Wang
Ph.D., The Ohio State University (Art History)
At Luther College Dr. Wang taught Introduction to Asian Art, Modern and Contemporary Chinese Art, and Global Contemporary Art, and also curated an exhibition featuring contemporary Chinese art at the college. Dr. Wang is an art historian of Asian art with a focus on modern and contemporary Chinese art. Her dissertation, Regionalizing National Art in Maoist China: The Chang’an School of Ink Painting, 1942–1976, examines the role of China’s provincial art centers in the overhaul of the national art program during the early People’s Republic of China.
Post-fellowship: Dr. Wang is an Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Colorado, Denver.
Marietta College (2017-2018)
Dr. Phillip Guingona
Ph.D., University at Buffalo
Dr. Guingona is a historian who researches the many avenues of contact between China and the Philippines. His dissertation, entitled Crafted Links and Accidental Connections of Empire: A History of Early Twentieth Century Sino-Philippine Interaction, explores Filipino communities in China, Chinese communities in the Philippines, educational and business exchanges, and other types of interaction in what was an intimately connected and malleable region.
Post-fellowship: After serving as an Assistant Professor of History at Wells College, Dr. Guingona joined the faculty of Nazareth University.
Berea College (2014-2015)
Dr. Lauren McKee
Ph.D., Old Dominion University
Dr. McKee is an international relations scholar specializing in energy security issues in the East Asian region. At Berea College, she taught courses on US-Japan Foreign Policy, East Asian Energy and Environmental Security, and International Political Economy.
Post-fellowship: Dr. McKee is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Asian Studies at Berea College.
Hendrix College (2014-2015)
Dr. Sarah Grant
Ph.D., University of California, Riverside (Anthropology)
At Hendrix College, Dr. Grant taught an introductory course on Southeast Asian cultures and advanced courses in anthropological perspectives on visual culture and gender in Southeast Asia. She is a cultural anthropologist with a focus on commodities, bureaucratic regulation, and material/visual culture in Southeast Asia.
Post-fellowship: Dr. Grant is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at California State University, Fullerton.
Hope College (2014-2015)
Dr. Kai Tang
Ph.D., Harvard University
Dr. Tang is an ethnomusicologist specializing in traditional and contemporary musics of China and Japan. She completed a dissertation titled The Musical Culture of Chinese Floaters, which explores how this mobile community of domestic, temporary, rural-to-urban migrants absorbs various musical elements, traditional or modern, “hometown” or “local”, rural or urban, mainstream or grassroots, to create their own musical culture carrying profound social meanings.
Post-fellowship: Dr. Tang is a research fellow with the Music and Minorities Research Center of the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, Austria.
Muhlenberg College (2014-2015)
Dr. Arnab Banerji
Ph.D., University of Georgia (Theatre and Performance Studies)
During his fellowship at Muhlenberg College, Dr. Banerji taught Introduction to Asian Performance and courses in modern Indian theatre and film. He specializes in contemporary Indian theatre and scenographic performance research. Along with academics, he has also been an active theatre practitioner having directed, designed lights, dramaturged and acted for professional, student-led, university theatre and amateur productions in both India and the United States.
Post-fellowship: Dr. Banerji is an Associate Professor of Theatre History and Dramatic Literature and Director of the University Core Curriculum at Loyola Marymount University.
Carthage College (2013-2014)
Dr. Hilary Snow
Ph.D., Stanford University (Art History)
During her time at Carthage College, Dr. Snow taught Masterpieces of Asian Art and two collaborative, interdisciplinary courses as part of the Carthage Symposium program. Dr. Snow specializes in early modern Japanese art. Her ongoing research explores early modern patronage and the mingling of sacred and secular practices at Japanese religious institutions.
Post-fellowship: Dr. Snow is an Associate Teaching Professor at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee Honors College and a Wisconsin Teaching Fellow.
Wittenberg University (2013-2014)
Dr. Jooyeon Rhee
Ph.D., York University, Toronto (Humanities)
While at Wittenberg, Dr. Rhee taught Introduction to Social and Cultural History of Modern Korea, and courses in Modern Korean Literature and Film.
Post-fellowship: Dr. Rhee is Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) and Head of Korean Studies in the Department of Asian Studies at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Haverford College (2012-2013)
Dr. Erin Schoneveld
Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania (History of Art)
Dr. Schoneveld is an East Asian art historian with a focus modern Japanese cinema, visual culture, and narrative media. At Haverford, Dr. Schoneveld taught an introductory course on Japanese Art and Civilization, an upper-level course on modern Japanese literature and film, and a curatorial seminar that examines the ways in which technological shifts and cultural transformations have shaped East Asian artistic production and visual consumption within modern and contemporary exhibition practices.
Post-fellowship: Dr. Schoneveld is an Associate Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Haverford College. She served as a member of ASIANetwork’s Board of Directors from 2018-2021.
Davidson College (2011-2012)
Dr. Laura Kaehler Elder
Ph.D., University Center of the City University of New York (Anthropology)
Dr. Elder’s specialties, developed through fieldwork in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, are global political economy and cosmopolitanism. Her current research focuses on the role of women in the consolidation of regimes of expertise in Islamic Finance.
Post-fellowship: Dr. Elder was an Associate Professor of Global Studies at St. Mary’s College and is now an independent scholar. She served as a member of ASIANetwork’s Board of Directors from 2021-2024.
Gettysburg College (2011-2012)
Dr. Susan Chen
Ph.D., Emory University
Dr. Chen is a cultural anthropologist whose subfields of study encompass Asian studies, cultural studies, and film and visual studies. At Gettysburg, she taught one language course on business Chinese, an introductory course on contemporary Chinese popular culture and society, and a seminar on the anthropology and history of Tibet.
University of Wisconsin, Whitewater (2011-2012)
Dr. Mary Alyson Prude
Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara (Religious Studies)
Dr. Prude’s dissertation, Difference, Gender, and Extraordinary Knowing: A study of Himalayan revenants, is a study of lay Buddhist women in Nepal who have undergone near-death experiences, and who later assumed important positions in their local communities. She is fluent in Nepali, Chinese and Tibetan.
Post-fellowship: Dr. Prude is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Georgia Southern University.
Washington and Jefferson College (2011-2012)
Dr. Dewen Zhang
Ph.D., State University of New York at Stony Brook (History)
Dr. Zhang’s work focuses on the history of military nursing, war and gender relations, and women’s movements of twentieth century China. During her stay at Washington & Jefferson College, she taught courses on women in East Asia, war and East Asian society, and general themes on gender and women’s studies; and co-taught a course called “Asian Heritage.”
Post-fellowship: Dr. Prude is an Associate Professor of History at Randolph-Macon College.
Dickinson College (2010-2011)
Dr. Sheri Lullo
Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh (History of Art and Architecture)
At Dickinson College, Dr. Lullo taught Introduction to the Arts of Asia. In this course students were introduced to the visual culture of Asia by focusing on works of art and material culture from India, China, Korea, Japan and areas of the Islamic world from the 3d millennium B.C.E. through the 19th century. Dr. Lullo
Post-fellowship: Dr. Lullo is an Associate Professor of Art History and Director of Asian Studies at Union College.
Fairfield University (2010-2011)
Dr. Ivve Aaslid Covaci
Ph.D., Yale University (History of Art)
Dr. Covaci’s dissertation was The Ishiyamadera engi and the Representation of Dreams and Visions in Pre-modern Japanese Art. During her year as an ASIANetwork-Luce Teaching Fellow at Fairfield University, she taught Introduction to Art History: Asia, Africa, & the Americas, The Arts of India, China, & Japan, and a Special Topics Seminar on Japanese Buddhist Scroll Art.
Post-fellowship: Dr. Covaci is a Lecturer in Art History at Fairfield University and was guest curator of the Asia Society Museum in New York in 2016.
Hobart and William Smith Colleges (2010-2011)
Dr. Elana Chipman
Ph.D., Cornell University
Dr. Chipman is a socio-cultural anthropologist who has done fieldwork in Southeastern China and in Taiwan and studied local identity and the nation-state, ritual and popular religion, tourism, and political-ecology. Her dissertation work examined the production of locality in Taiwan through ritual and other forms of culture work, such as grass-roots historiography. At Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Dr. Chipman co-taught a general introductory East Asian studies course and an anthropology course on environment and culture and taught her own course on the anthropology of tourism in East Asia.
Post-fellowship: Dr. Chipman is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Binghamton University.
Randolph-Macon College (2010-2011)
Dr. Charles A. Andrews
Ph.D., Indiana University (Japanese History)
Dr. Andrews’s research interest is communications in Tokugawa and Early Meiji Japan. While at Randolph-Macon College he taught Intermediate Japanese Language, the Culture of Japan, and Japanese History.
Post-fellowship: Dr. Andrews is an Associate Professor of History at Southern New Hampshire University.
The Henry Luce Foundation was established in 1936 by the late Henry R. Luce, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Time Inc. Among the Foundation’s many grant-making initiatives are those that support increased understanding between the United States and Asia.