BRIAN R. DOTT

 

Department of History

Whitman College

Walla Walla, WA 99362

(509) 527-5776

dottbr@whitman.edu

http://marcus.whitman.edu/~dottbr/

 

EDUCATION                                                                                              

      Ph.D.  University of Pittsburgh  History Department, August 1998   

            Dissertation: “Ascending Mount Tai: Social & Cultural Interactions in 18th Century China”

            Fields: East Asia, Qing Dynasty, Chinese Religion, Medieval European Popular Culture

 

      M.A.   University of Michigan  Asian Studies, China Specialization, May 1991

            Thesis: “Christian Brethren and the ‘Brother’ of Christ: American Presbyterian

                  Missionaries’ Views of the Taiping Rebellion”

 

      B.A.    Cum Laude, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis     July 1987

            Double major in International Relations and French, minor in Foreign Studies

 

 

PUBLICATIONS

      Book

      Identity Reflections: Pilgrimages to Mount Tai in Late Imperial China. Harvard East Asian

            Monographs, no. 244. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2004.

 

      Book Review

      Review of Ritual Opera & Mercantile Lineage: The Confucian Transformation of Popular

            Culture in Late Imperial China by Qitao Guo.  The Journal of Asian Studies, forthcoming.

 

      Pedagogical

      “Un-Othering Minorities in Chinese History.”  ASIANetwork Exchange, forthcoming.

 

      Other

      “Hiring Asianists for Liberal Arts Colleges: The Candidate’s Perspective.”  ASIANetwork                  

            Exchange, 10, no. 3 (Spring 2003): 28-30.

 

 

CURRENT RESEARCH

      “Signifying Mount Tai: Modern Meanings of an Ancient Site.”  Manuscript to be submitted to

            The Journal of Asian Studies.

 

 

EMPLOYMENT AND TEACHING

      Assistant Professor of History, Whitman College, 2002-present

                  Courses taught:     East Asian History to 1600

                                                East Asian History from 1600 to the Present

                                                Historical Methodologies

                                                Early China

                                                Early Japan

                                                Modern China

                                                Modern Japan

                                                Gender in Chinese History

                                                East Asian Popular Religions

                                                Asian Studies Senior Seminar

                                                Identity Crises:  Ethnicity, Race and Nationalism in Qing China

 

      Assistant Professor of History, Fort Lewis College, 2001-2002

                  Courses taught:     Survey of East Asian Civilizations I & II

                                                Modern China

                                                Early Japan to 1600

                                                Women, Gender and Family in Chinese History

                                                East Asian Popular Religion

 

      Visiting Assistant Professor, Kenyon College, Department of History 1999-2000

                  Courses taught:     Modern East Asia

                                                Women, Gender and Family in Chinese History

                                                Japan to 1800

                                                Pilgrimage and Popular Culture in East Asia

                                                Vietnam: 1945-1975 (team-taught with William Scott)

 

      Visiting Assistant Professor, Kalamazoo College, Department of History 1998-1999

                  Courses taught:     Introduction to History: The World Before 1700

                                                Introduction to East Asian Civilizations

                                                Modern China

                                                Women and Gender in Chinese History

                                                Medieval European Popular Culture  

                                                Crusade and Pilgrimage: East and West

 

      Department of History, University of Pittsburgh

                  Lecturer, Fall 1997 and Summer 1996

                  Teaching Fellow, 1995-1996, 1991-1992

 

 

PAPERS PRESENTED     

      “Un-Othering Minorities in Chinese History.”  Paper to be presented at the ASIANetwork

            Annual Conference, Whittier, CA, April 2005.

 

      “Inscribing the Future: Qinq Literati Writing on Mount Tai.”  Paper presented at the Western

            Conference of the Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference, Seattle, September

            2004.

 

      “Making the Distant Local:  Visualizing Religious Rituals.”  Paper presented at a panel

            about producing documentaries for classroom use at the ASIANetwork Annual

            Conference, Chicago, April 2004.

 

      “Singing Gender: Transforming Popular Music in 20th Century China.”  Paper presented at the

            ASIANetwork Annual Conference, Greenville, SC, April 2003.

      “Signifying Mount Tai:  Modern Meanings of an Ancient Site.”  Paper presented at the Association

for Asian Studies Annual Meeting, Washington DC, April 2002.

 

      “The Candidate’s Perspective.”  Paper presented at a panel on hiring at liberal arts colleges at the

ASIANetwork Annual Conference, Chicago, April 2002.

 

      With Jeffery M. Lung. “Daoism Burning: Daoism in Contemporary Beijing.”  A documentary

presented at the ASIANetwork Annual Conference in Cleveland, and to audiences at Kalamazoo

and Kenyon Colleges in April 2001.

 

      “Pilgrimage as Legitimation: Manchu Emperors in Chinese Sacred Space.”  Paper presented at a

Kenyon Seminar, Kenyon College, October 1999.

 

      “Mount Tai as Manchu Sacred Space: The Kangxi and Qianlong Emperors’ Pilgrimages.”  Paper

presented at the Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, February 1999.

 

      “Piety vs. Propriety:  The Dilemma of Female Pilgrimage to Mount Tai.”  Paper presented at the

Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting, Chicago, March 1997.

 

      “Talking with Old Grandma: Women Pilgrims’ Visits to the Goddess of Mount Tai.”  Paper

presented at Association for Asian Studies, Mid-Atlantic region annual meeting, October 1996.

 

      “Eighteenth Century Writing Men and Praying Women:  Mount Tai as Travel and Pilgrimage

            Destination” (presented in both Chinese & English).  International Symposium: China and

the World in the 18th-Century, sponsored by Qing History Institute, Beijing, June 1995.

 

      “Not Quite ‘Heathen’: Presbyterian Views of the Taiping Rebellion.”  Conference on Close

Encounters of the Cultural Kind, University of Michigan, April 1991.

 

 

HONORS AND AWARDS

      Korea Society Fall Fellowship, October 2004

      ASIANetwork Freeman Student-Faculty Fellowship, Summer 2000.  “Daoist Practice in                           Contemporary Beijing,” with Jeffery M. Lung, student at Kalamazoo College

      Teaching Fellow, History, University of Pittsburgh, 1997-98, 1995-96, 1992-93, 1991-92

      Research Assistant, Department of History, University of Pittsburgh, Winter 1998

      Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship (FLAS) for dissertation writing, Asian Studies,               University of Pittsburgh, 1996-1997

      Committee on Scholarly Communication with China Graduate Fellowship for dissertation                        research in China.  Based at the Qing History Institute, Beijing, 1994-1995  

      Dissertation Travel Grant, China Council, University of Pittsburgh, March 1994

      FLAS, for advanced Chinese study at Inter-University Program in Taipei, Taiwan (formerly                     Stanford Center), Asian Studies, University of Pittsburgh, 1993-1994

      Merit-based Maintenance Stipend, Inter-University Program, Taipei, Taiwan, 1993-1994

      FLAS, for Japanese language study, Asian Studies, University of Pittsburgh, Summer 1992    University of Michigan, Center for Chinese Studies, Research Assistant, Spring 1991

      Member Phi Beta Kappa Honors Society

 

 

SERVICE TO THE COLLEGE

      Member of Asian Studies Faculty, 2002-present

      Member of Gender Studies Faculty, 2002-present

      Member of Whitman College Phi Beta Kappa Chapter, 2002-present

      Member of seven History Department Search Committees, 2002-present

      Faculty Advisor to the Vietnamese Cultural Club, 2002-present

      Elected member of the General Studies Committee, Spring 2005

      Member of the Freeman Visiting Scholars and Study Tour Program Committee, 2004-2005

      Member of the International Studies Planning Committee, 2003-2004

      Member of the Whitman-in-China Committee, 2003-2004

      Faculty House Advisor to the Asian Studies Interest House, 2003-2004

      Member of the selection committee for Asian Studies Freeman trip to Japan, Fall 2003

      Participant Pacific Northwest Information Literacy Institute, Whitman College, July 2003

      Produced a DVD of highlights of the Drepung Loseling Monastery Tibetan Sand Mandala

            Ceremony held at Whitman College, March 2003, for classroom use           

 

 

SERVICE TO THE PROFESSION

      Elected member of the board of the Western Conference of the Association for Asian Studies,                 2004-2007

      Organized the panel “The Living Past: Identity through Place and History in the PRC,” for the                 Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting, April 2002

      Organized the panel “Precepts and Practices in Women’s Lives in Late Imperial China,” for the                Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting, Chicago, March 1997

      Qing History Institute, Beijing:  Interpreter from Chinese to English and translator from                            English and French into Chinese for the International Symposium China and the World in                  the 18th Century, Beijing, June 1995

 

 

PUBLIC LECTURES

      “Tibetan History.”  Guest lecturer for Bob Carson’s course Geology 258: Tibet,

            27 February 2005.

 

      “Nationalizing the Sacred: Twentieth-Century Appropriations of a Chinese Mountain.” 

            Whitman College, Faculty Forum, 26 January, 2005.

 

      “Mount Tai.”  Talk for the residents of the Asian Studies Interest House, Whitman College,

            5 May, 2004.

 

      “Pilgrimage in China.”  Guest lecturer for Chas McKhann’s course Anthropology 219: Chinese

            Religion, 2 December, 2003.

 

      Panel participant. “Information Literacy in the Small College Environment: What It Is, and                       Why It’s Important,” part of Whitman College’s Center for Teaching and Learning “Talks                  About Teaching Series,” 23 September, 2003.

 

      “Reading the Past and Writing the Future:  Literati Pilgrimages to Mount Tai in Late Imperial                   China.”  Whitman College, Faculty Forum, 9 October 2002.

 

      “Pilgrimages to Mount Tai.”  Guest lecturer:  East Asian Religions course at Kenyon College

            October 1999;  at Kalamazoo College, May 1999;  at the University of Pittsburgh, February

            1998 and April 1997.

 

      “Unrest Before the Gate of Heavenly Peace:  Political Use of Public Space in 20th Century                        Beijing.” Talk presented at a University of Pittsburgh, Department of History, Power                          Culture and Society Workshop on Concepts in History: Public Space, March 1997.

 

      “Life in Urban China.”  Presentation for High School students at Freedom Area High School,                  Butler, Pennsylvania, March 1997.

 

      Lectured and participated in a day-long seminar for a Pittsburgh firm establishing joint-venture                operations in China.  Organized by the China Council, University of Pittsburgh, December                 1996.

 

      “Mount Tai: Images of Chinese Pilgrimages Past and Present.”  The Wanderers Return Lecture                 Series, Asian Studies Program, University of Pittsburgh, March 1996.

 

 

EXPERIENCE ABROAD

      South Korea: Korea Society Fall Fellowship participant, October 2004

      People’s Republic of China, Beijing: documentary on Daoism, Summer 2000

      Japan: visited historic sites in Tokyo, Kyoto, Nara and Ise, August 2000

      People’s Republic of China, Beijing and Mount Tai:  dissertation research, 1994-1995

      Taiwan, Taipei:  advanced language study at Inter-University Program, 1993-1994

      People’s Republic of China, Mount Tai and Beijing:  research trip, March 1994

      Taiwan, Kaohsiung:  taught English to children, Summer 1990

      France, Nantes:  IES Junior-year abroad program (all courses in French) 1985-1986

 

 

 

 

PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

      Association for Asian Studies

      American Historical Association

      Society for Qing Studies

      Society for the Study of Chinese Religions

      ASIANetwork

      H-ASIA

 

 

LANGUAGES

      Mandarin Chinese, Classical Chinese, French, Modern Japanese (reading)