Teacher, Professor, Mandarin, Latin
Resume:
Dear Search Committee,
I am applying for the position of History Teacher. In addition to a PhD in history from Berkeley, I have a current teaching certificate for secondary school and over two decades of experience teaching middle school to college level students. Although recently I have been teaching college, I really want to get back to teaching high school again, because I feel that I can make a greater impact on our world through helping younger students achieve a solid academic foundation.
Currently, I am a visiting professor at the University of San Francisco, teaching East Asian Civilizations, and a Visiting Scholar at UC Berkeley, mentoring undergraduates, many of them first generation students, in the Berkeley Connect Program. I have experience teaching Asian Civ., Western Civ., ancient world (Egypt, Greece, Rome), Mythology, Religion, and Art and Archaeology. I can design engaging classes and electives for students on any almost any historical subject. I, especially, work hard on demystifying other cultures instead of exoticizing them. I have received excellent reviews in my classes, and I will gladly share these reviews and my syllabi upon request.
I am proficient in Mandarin and Latin, and I read Classical Chinese, Japanese, and several stages of Ancient Egyptian (hieratic and hieroglyphs). I am also a professional jazz musician and have spent over a decade in China performing and teaching jazz. I would enthusiastically bring these skills to any clubs or programs at your school in order to enrich the students’ experiences. As a history teacher, I am an excellent storyteller, have a good sense of humor, and have a wide range of experiences with other cultures having spent much of my adult life outside of the U.S.
I am very interested in digital humanities and have encouraged my students to engage with digital projects. I developed yokoiscool.com/funerary-art.html, a website which compares ideas about the afterlife in various cultures. Presently, it displays and translates funerary texts and images concerning afterlife journeys in New Kingdom Egypt and Early China. For it I have translated the texts from the tomb of Nefertari (QV66, ca. 1250 BCE) and the famous funerary banner and nested coffins from Mawangdui tomb No. 1 (Western Han, ca. 168 BCE). My database of Wu and Yue artifacts and bronze inscriptions can be found at wuyuescripts.com, a website I developed for my dissertation, which examines the material culture and inscriptions of these kingdoms, emphasizing the importance of scientifically excavated artifacts over unprovenanced pieces. I love creating learning and research tools in this digital format, and I feel it is one way that historians can interact with the wider community. Colleagues of mine at different universities and high schools have used these sites in their classes.
As a Berkeley Connect Mentor, I have I have had the privilege to learn from and teach and mentor students of all social classes, ethnicities, genders, and sexual orientations, many of whom are first generation students. Mentoring has been so important to me, helping me learn how to best assist all students succeed in both campus life and studies. I also have experience and working with students with various accommodations. I am firmly committed to culture of equity and democratic sensibilities, and ten years of playing jazz and Latin music in Asia has informed much of my teaching philosophy.
I firmly subscribe to the idea that learning happens best in an environment that is focused, yet free of anxiety. Although learning often happens in times of confusion, students who feel comfortable, openly trying to navigate confusion, who do not feel like they are being judged, have a willingness to take risks and make mistakes. In class discussions, invariably, opinions differ, but far from creating tensions, these divergences are an opportunity for students to better understand others and gain cultural sensitivity and diversity awareness, which are absolutely vital skills in the 21st century. Even though we are often focused on learning about the past, the energy that emanates from the students when they are discussing a topic with ramifications in the present is always invigorating. As they ponder these questions, relate them to their own lives, compare and contrast them with various socio-historical backgrounds, and learn to embrace a multiplicity of opinions, beliefs, and interpretive possibilities, I believe that the translingual and transcultural competencies they are acquiring in humanities courses fosters the abilities to analyze various rhetorical strategies and engage with the nuances in our source materials. When they recognize the strong and weak points of different arguments, students can create their own evidence-based arguments. Hence, they will ideally blossom into global citizens capable of effecting positive change wherever they go.
I also have experience teaching online. Although I do not enjoy it as much as the organic nature of teaching in the classroom, over the past couple of years during the pandemic, I have come up with various methods to keep the students interested in the material, and on track in the classes. At the beginning of this semester, one of my students came up to me after the first class, and said she was taking my course on the recommendation of students who took my course over zoom in the fall semester.
Along with this letter, I have included my resume. I will gladly share additional information upon request, such as my CV with a list of publications. I thank you for your consideration and would be delighted to have an opportunity to further discuss my candidacy.
Sincerely,
Benjamin Daniels
Benjamin Daniels 孫傑明
1110 Stannage Ave, Unit C Email: *********@********.***
Albany, CA 94706 Websites: wuyuescripts.com
Phone: 216-***-**** yokoiscool.com/funerary-art.html
Education
Ph.D. in History August 2021
University of California, Berkeley
M.A. in East Asian Studies June 2013
University of Arizona
Education Certificate, Secondary History, Renewed til 2026 June 1995
Cleveland State University
B.A. in Classical Civilization December 1992
University of Cincinnati
Teaching and mentoring
University of San Francisco, San Francisco CA
Visiting Professor, East Asian History, designed and taught the courses 2021-2022
UC Berkeley, Berkeley CA
Visiting Scholar, Berkeley Connect, mentoring history undergraduates 2021-2022
UC Berkeley (2013-2021), Graduate Student Instructor, Instructor on Record
Taught Sections for US History, Soviet History, Chinese History, Japanese History, Roman History, Ancient History
Instructor on Record for Manuscript Culture in the Premodern World
University of Arizona (2013-2021), Teaching Assistant (taught sections and graded), Instructor on Record
Taught Sections for Chinese History
Instructor on Record for Chinese History
Ironwood Ridge High School, Tucson, AZ (Summer 2012), Teacher
Taught 10th grade World History
Hefei University of Technology (1999-2003, 2005-2011), Instructor
Taught European Culture, Advanced English in Media, American and British History
Hefei, Number 8 Middle School (2008-2010), Teacher
Taught ESL and “Western Culture” classes
Cleveland City Schools, Lakewood City Schools, & Bay Village City Schools, OH (1997-99)
Substitute Teacher (7-12)
Lakewood High School, OH (1997) Student Teacher,
Taught World History and Military History
Languages
Classical Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, Latin, Middle Egyptian (Hieroglyphs and Hieratic), Late Egyptian, Demotic Egyptian (Beginning), Japanese (Reading)
awards
Columbia University, Tang Center for Early China, Post-Doctoral Research Award
(2021-2022)
Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award, 2020
Graduate Seminar Paper Prize, Outstanding Scholarship in a Graduate Course (May, 2017) “Animal Metaphors in Claudian and Ammianus Marcellinus”
Other work experience
2005-2011: Musician, Revolutionary Bar, Hefei, China
played Bass and Piano in a combo, four days a week, Jazz, Latin, Funk, and Reggae
2006-2009: Jazz Bassist: Hefei Hilton, Hefei China
2003-2004: Jazz Bassist, Novotel Atlantis, Shanghai, China
2001-2003: Jazz Bassist, Novotel Hefei, Hefei, China
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