Teaching

“Education in the Humanities attempts to be an uncoercive rearrangement of desires.” – Gayatri Spivak

An education in the humanities teaches us what it means to be human. An education in literature, specificially, teaches us to read both text and life in ways that help us exceed the narrowness of our individual lives. In a time when how we think and feel has become increasingly mediated by new technologies moderated by corporations, the humanities remains a critical anchor for the heart and mind. My teaching is a modest offering to humanity that I hope will help us make meaningful sense of our existence on this planet.

I have served as a teaching assistant at Columbia University from 2020 to 2022 in the courses Major Texts in East Asia, Chinese Civilization, and China in the Modern World. I am additionally trained to teach in the fields of modern Chinese literature and media, modern Chinese history, and anthropologies and histories of Islam. I was competitively selected as a Teaching Scholar for Fall 2025, and was awarded the opportunity to teach my own course, Religion and Revolution in Modern China and the World. The course explores the negotiation of religion and revolutionary politics in modern China through literature, art, and cultural production. In the course, students will ask why religion continued to play an important role in the social, political, and cultural life of modern China, despite the frequently conjectured incompatibility between religion and revolution.

As a private teacher, I have mentored high school and undergraduate students in research projects. Two of the high school students I have mentored in their National History Day projects were selected, after rigorous competitons in both regional and state rounds, to participate in national round of the National History Day competition. Many students that I have worked with have been admitted into prestigious undergraduate and graduate programs.

I have taught low-income students in Singapore and refugee children in Egypt on a voluntary basis, and continue to offer pro-bono teaching services. I see education as an important aspect of anti-oppression work. I believe the role of the teacher is to help students see themselves as subjects who can drive social change and human liberation.

If you are interested in working with me, please write me at jsl2230@columbia.edu.