Derek Chang 
Associate Professor
Office: 454 McGraw Hall
Phone: (607) 255-3705
Fax: (607) 255-0469
E-Mail: dsc37@cornell.edu
Office Hours: M 12:45-1:45 in 425 RCK; T 11:30-12:30 in 454 MCG
Research and Teaching Interests
I was born in Massachusetts, raised in southern California, attended college in Connecticut (at Trinity College), did my graduate work in North Carolina (at Duke University), and now reside in Ithaca. All of this perhaps accounts for the confused look on my face, but it also makes me profoundly curious about the role of regional and geographic difference in Americans’ lives. My first book examines the regional variations in race relations and white supremacy during the late-nineteenth century. I analyze black-white relations in the U.S. South and Chinese-white relations on the Pacific Coast within a context of American nationalism, evangelical Christianity, and black and Chinese imaginings of belonging. I’m currently working on a project that explores the segregated South, the place of Asians within it, and its relationship to broader economic and regional systems (like the Caribbean). In addition to regional differences, my research and teaching interests generally focus on comparative race and ethnicity, American religious history, and gender and women’s history, but I also have an abiding interest in the history American social movements.
I hold a joint appointment with Asian American Studies and teach half of my courses for that program. I’m also affiliated with the American Studies Program and with Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.
Courses
| Fall 2009: | 2640 |
Introduction to Asian American History |
|---|---|---|
| Spring 2010: | 3470 |
Asian American Women's History |
6280 |
Graduate Seminar: 19 Century US History |
Other Courses Taught at Cornell
Lecture Courses
Asian American Women’s History
Introduction to American History II: 1865-Present
Introduction to Asian American History
Introduction to Asian American Studies
20th-Century Responses to American Diversity (co-taught with María Cristina García)
Seminars
American Diversity in the 20th-Century
Asian American Communities
Immigrant Experiences (First-year Writing Seminar)
Jim Crow and Exclusion Era America
Port Cities in the Americas (Rabinor Seminar in American Studies, Spring 2009)
Race and Ethnicity in 19th-Century America
Undergraduate Directed Readings
Asian American Youth Gangs
Comparative Asian-American and Asian-Australian History
Issues in Asian American Mental Health
Korean Los Angeles
U.S. Social Movements
Graduate Directed Readings
20th-Century Responses to American Diversity (with María Cristina García)
Asian American History
Modern American History
Race, Nation, and Gender in American Studies
Working-Class Religion and Community
Education
Ph.D. Duke University, 2002
B.A. Trinity College, 1991
Recent Publications and Awards
Publications
Converting Race, Transforming the Nation: Evangelical Christianity and the Problem of Difference in Late-Nineteenth Century America, University of Pennsylvania Press, forthcoming
“Imperial Encounters at Home: Women, Empire, and the Home Mission Project in Late-Nineteenth Century America,” in Competing Kingdoms: Women, Mission, Nation, and American Empire, 1812-1938, edited by Kathryn Kish Sklar, Barbara Reeves-Ellington, and Connie Shemo, Duke University Press, forthcoming (Refereed)
Review of Linda Frost, Never One Nation: Freaks, Savages, and Whiteness in U.S. Popular Culture, 1850-1877 (University of Minnesota Press, 2005) for Western Historical Quarterly, 38:1 (Spring 2007)
“‘Brought Together Upon Our Own Continent’: Race, Religion, and Evangelical Nationalism in American Baptist Home Missions, 1865-1900,” in Immigrant Faiths: Transforming Religious Life in America, edited by Karen I. Leonard, Alex Stepick, Manuel A. Vasquez, and Jennifer Holdaway, AltaMira Press, 2005
“‘Marked in Body, Mind, and Spirit’: Home Missionaries and the Re-Making of Race and Nation,” in Race, Nation, and Religion in the Americas, edited by Henry Goldschmidt and Elizabeth McAlister, Oxford University Press, 2004 (Refereed)
Awards
Stephen and Margery Russell Distinguished Teaching Award, 2007.
Predoctoral Religion and Immigration Fellowship, 2000-2001: Year-long dissertation fellowship from the Social Science research Council as part of the Pew Charitable Trusts “Religion and the New Immigrants Initiative”.
Anne Firor Scott Research Award, 1999-2000: Research grant from the Duke University Women’s Studies Program for research in women’s history.
Lynn E. May, Jr., Study Grant Endowment Fund for work at the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives, 1998.
Links
Link to Asian American Studies Program
http://www.aasp.cornell.edu/
Link to American Studies Program
http://www.arts.cornell.edu/amerstud/
Link to Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
http://www.arts.cornell.edu/fgss/