Dennis Frost

EAS Co-Director
Wen Chao Chen Professor of
East Asian Social Sciences
Phone
269.337.7442
Office
Dewing Hall 303B
Research and Teaching Interests
My research focuses on modern Japanese history, with particular emphases on sports, disability, militarization, and urban development. At K, I teach courses on the entire scope of premodern, modern, and contemporary East Asian history with particular focus on China, Japan, and Korea. I also teach First-Year and Sophomore Seminars in the College’s Shared Passages Program, as well as Senior Seminars for the History Department and the East Asian Studies Program.
Courses Offered
- SEMN 154 – First-Year Seminar: Who Are the Samurai?
- ANSO/HIST 288 – Faster, Higher, Stronger: Sports in East Asia
- HIST 103 – Introduction to East Asian Civilizations: China, Japan, and Korea
- HIST 280 – Modern China: A People’s History
- HIST 282 – Early China
- HIST 283 – Occupiers and Occupied in Post-World War II East Asia
- HIST 285 – Modern Japan: A People’s History
- HIST/SEMN 287 – Sophomore Seminar: What If: Alternate Pasts
- HIST 397 – Seminar: The Korean War
- HIST 490 – Senior Seminar: Historical Methods
- EAST 490 – Senior Seminar: East Asia In and Beyond the Media
Noriko Sugimori

EAS Co-Director
Associate Professor of Japanese
Phone
269.337.7408
Office
Dewing Hall 212B
Research and Teaching Interests
My research interests include sociolinguistics, language ideology, language policy, corpus linguistics, and critical discourse analysis. I have collected oral histories of Japanese-speaking World War II survivors with my students. My Mellon-funded oral history project was the first in using the bilingual Oral History Metadata Synchronizer. At K, I teach the Japanese language as well as courses on sociolinguistics in the Japanese contexts and manga/anime and gender in modern Japan.
“War Memories,” an intergenerational, intercultural oral history project, can be accessed here: http://ohla.info/war-memories-intergenerational-intercultural-oral-history-project/
Brian White

Assistant Professor of Japanese
Phone
269.337.7326
Office
Dewing Hall 212C
Research and Teaching Interests
My research concerns popular media cultures and constructions of subjectivity in contemporary Japan. In particular, I look at how science fiction media has been produced, received, and discussed from the 1960s onward in Japan, and what sorts of political, racial, gendered, and national identities are implicitly enunciated through it. I teach courses on Japanese popular culture, modern and contemporary literature, and Japanese language at K.
Courses Offered
- JAPN 201/202/203: Intermediate Japanese
- JAPN 238: Postwar Japanese Literature in Translation
- JAPN 239: Modern Japanese Literature in Translation
- JAPN 240: Japanese Culture Through Film
- JAPN 250: Manga, Anime, and Gender
- JAPN 255: Science Fiction in Contemporary Japan
- JAPN 301/302: High Intermediate Japanese
Jun Mizukami

Visiting Instructor of Japanese
Phone
269.337.
Office
Dewing Hall
Research and Teaching Interests
Courses Offered
Leihua Weng

Assistant Professor of Chinese
Office
Dewing Hall 209
Research and Teaching Interests
Leihua Weng is assistant professor of Chinese. She taught at Sarah Lawrence College and Pacific Lutheran University before coming to K College. She obtained her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at the University of South Carolina, M.A. at Peking University, and B.A. at Zhejiang University. She is interested in traditions, including the (trans)formations and transmission of traditions, as well as their modern receptions in China and in the West. Her articles have appeared in a number of journals. She is currently conducting several research projects on commentaries in early China, and on nationalism in modern Chinese literature. She is working on a book project on the reception of Plato in China.
Courses Offered
- CHIN 101 – First Year Chinese
- CHIN 102 – First Year Chinese
- CHIN 103 – First Year Chinese
- CHIN 260 – Women in China
- CHIN 222 – 20th Century Urban China
Yanshuo Zhang

Assistant Professor of Chinese
Phone
269.337.7325
Office
Dewing Hall 212A
Research and Teaching Interests
A multilingual scholar and teacher, Yanshuo Zhang’s research tackles multiethnic Chinese identities in literary and visual cultures produced both in China and in the U.S. Her research on multiethnic Chinese cultural productions helps diversify the scholarly understanding of and teaching about China and Asia. Her current book manuscript, tentatively titled Beyond Minority: The Qiang and Multiethnic Imagination in Modern China, is an innovative interdisciplinary project that combines anthropological field research in the ethnic regions of southwest China with close reading of previously under-studied minority cultural articulations in contemporary China. Dr. Zhang’s teaching encourages students to explore identity, diversity, and the traditionally neglected voices of marginalized groups in various parts of the world. Dr. Zhang has published her work in interdisciplinary journals such as positions: asia critique, Heritage and Society, and the Stanford Journal of Asian American Studies. Dr. Zhang grew up in China’s multiethnic Sichuan province known for its spicy food and pandas. She is passionate about fostering diversity in the community; she founded the Stanford Youth Cultural Exchange Initiative, a cross-cultural community service organization at Stanford University. Dr. Zhang received her PhD in Chinese Literature and Culture from Stanford University. Prior to joining Kalamazoo College, she taught in the Program in Writing and Rhetoric at Stanford University and served as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of Michigan.
Courses Offered
Angela Hernandez

Departmental Student Advisor