Faculty

Francisca Cho– Chair- Professor

Francisca Cho (Ph.D. University of Chicago) specializes in East Asian Buddhism in the premodern and contemporary periods, as it has been culturally expressed through literature and film. Her books have focused on the seventeenth-century Korean novel of Kim Manjung, and the early modern poetry of the Korean monk Han Yongun. Her more recent publications on film look at how the medium of cinema functions ritually and extends the religious function of literature as traditionally understood in the East Asian Buddhist community. She also works in the area of Buddhism and science as another way of considering how Buddhist thought traditions intersect with our own conceptions of truth and fiction.

Min Koo Choi– Associate Teaching Professor and Korean Language Coordinator

I was born in Seoul, South Korea and immigrated to the United States to expand my educational opportunities. I received my B.A. in English and my M.A. and Ph.D. in Korean at the University of Hawaii. I taught Korean language and culture at the Defense Language Institutes at Presidio of Monterey, CA for two years before I acquired my current position at Georgetown University. Since I was very young, I have been fascinated by all kinds of stories, such as fairy tales and folktales, and in the course of my higher education, my fascination developed into an interest in the idea of narrative. I am currently doing my scholarly research on the ways in which Korean intellectuals under Japanese colonial rule created new kinds of approaches to subjectivity through confessional self-narratives addressing the subject of love. I teach various Korean language courses as well as Korean history and culture courses taught in English at Georgetown University.

Kevin Doak– Professor & Nippon Foundation Endowed Chair in Japanese Studies

Professor Doak specializes in the study of nationalism and democratic thought and culture in modern Japan, as well as in the literary, cultural and philosophical expressions of public thought and values. He has served as co-editor of The Journal of Japanese Studies and sat on the executive board of the Society for Japanese Studies. His writings in Japanese have been prominently published in major Japanese newspapers and journals and cited by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in his book Atarashii Kuni E (2013). Professor Doak’s current research focusses on issues related to politics and religion (especially Catholicism) in modern Japan, ranging from jurisprudence, fiction and literary works, and theology. After a sabbatical at The International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken) in Kyoto in 2015, he published the results of that research in his most recent book, Tanaka Kotaro and World Law: Rethinking the Natural Law Outside the West (Palgravemacmillan, 2019).

Lihong Huang – Associate Teaching Professor

Lihong Huang received her Ph.D. in Linguistics from Georgetown University. Her areas of interest include cognitive linguistics, Chinese linguistics and pedagogy, and second language acquisition. Constantly inspired by her students’ questions, she is particularly focused on explaining Chinese, especially particles, polysemous verbs, and syntactic structures, from cognitive linguistics perspectives and connecting theories with second language learning. She is the coauthor of Cognitive Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition of Chinese: Theories and Applications, published by Cambridge University Press in 2024, and the coeditor of What is Applied Cognitive Linguistics?: Answers from Current SLA Research, published by De Gruyter Mouton in 2018. She has taught Chinese language courses at all levels and created upper-level courses related to Chinese culture, society, and politics, such as Chinese in Diplomatic Discourse.

Philip J. Ivanhoe– Professor

Philip J. Ivanhoe 艾文賀 (Ph.D. Stanford University) specializes in the history of East Asian philosophy and religion and its potential for contemporary ethics; he is particularly interested in moral psychology and conceptions of the self, East and West, and the implications these have for naturalized theories of value. Among his recent books are: Confucianism & Catholicism: Reinvigorating the Dialogue, Co-editor with Michael R. Slater, Erin M. Cline. (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020), Zhu Xi: Selected Writings, Contributor and Editor (Oxford University Press, 2019), Oneness: Eastern Conceptions of Virtue, Happiness, and How We Are All Connected, (Oxford University Press, 2017), and Three Streams: Confucian Reflections on Learning and the Moral Heart-Mind in China, Korea, and Japan, (Oxford, 2016). His current research, which he is pursuing in collaboration with Professor Hwa Yeong Wang, is focused on the writings of two late Joseon dynasty Korean women philosophers: Im Yunjidang 任允摯堂 (1721-1793) and Gang Jeongildang 姜靜一堂 (1772-1832). Entries on Yunjidang and Jeongildang are forthcoming in Mary Ellen Waithe and Therese Boos Dykeman, eds., Women Philosophers from Non-Western Traditions: The First Four Thousand Years, a volume in the series Women Philosophers and Scientists (Dordrecht: Springer). A larger, combined study is under contract for the new series Oxford New Histories of Philosophy (see https://www.oxford-new-histories.com/contact/) under the title: Korean Women Philosophers and the Idea of a Female Sage, The Essential Writings of Im Yunjidang and Gang Jeongildang.

Philip Kafalas– Associate Professor

My specialty is literature in Classical Chinese, especially late-imperial memoirs and miscellanies (biji). I am particularly interested in how such texts construct and reflect their authors’ sense of spatial context—ranging from the spaces in which they lived and to which they felt loyalties (home, city, studio, remembered landscapes, empire) to the experienced realms of the supernatural and dream. My courses include an Introduction to Classical Chinese, traditional Chinese literature on war, depictions and explanations of dreams, landscape literature and painting, and tales of the supernatural. On the side I am an amateur musician.

Aimee Lee – Adjunct Lecturer

Aimee Kyuyeon Lee is an Adjunct Lecturer of the Korean Language Program in Department of East Asian Languages and Culture at Georgetown University. She received her B.A. from Pennsylvania State University where she first began her teaching experience. She earned M.A. in Linguistics at Sogang University, Korea and M.Ed. at University of Pennsylvania focused on second language acquisition. During her time in South Korea, she enjoyed helping Korean overseas adoptees with tracing their childhood history and learning the importance of language and culture. With her free time, she likes watching sports and enjoys reading Children’s books with her daughter.

Yoshiko Mori– Professor and Japanese Language Coordinator

Yoshiko Mori is Associate Professor and Director of the Japanese Language Program in Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Georgetown University. She holds a Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her specialization is in second-language learning and instruction from a psycholinguistics perspective. Her research interests include cross-linguistic influences on vocabulary/kanji learning, the roles of metacognitive awareness in language learning, individual differences, and heritage language learning. Her work has been published in book chapters and major journals including Reading Research Quarterly, Language Learning, Modern Language Journal, Applied Psycholinguistics, Foreign Language Annals, and Language Teaching.

Bokyung Mun– Associate Teaching Professor

Bokyung Mun received her Ph.D. in Linguistics from Georgetown University and joined the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures as an Assistant Teaching Professor in Korean. Her main research interests lie in the areas of syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and Korean linguistics with particular focus on tense and modality. Her goal as a professor is to help students gain practical language skills as well as socio-cultural knowledge to better understand Korean culture and society. This motivates her to continue research on topics related to teaching and learning of Korean and Korean linguistics.

Motoko Omori– Associate Teaching Professor

I received my B.A. in Mathematics and Computer Science from Middlebury College, and earned my M.A.T. in Teaching English as a Second Language and Bilingual Education from Georgetown University. I started teaching at the university while working on my graduate degree. In recently years, I’ve been mainly teaching Intensive Second Level Japanese but I have taught beginning Japanese language course as well as courses structured for senior level Georgetown students. My main research interest is the use of computers to assist language learning. I’m a die-hard Boston Red Sox fan (and other New England sports teams) as I spent first 8 years of my life in America in New England. I am also a self-proclaimed computer geek and spend a lot of time on a computer when I’m not teaching!

Di Qi– Associate Teaching Professor

Di Qi received her Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from Georgetown University. In 2012, she joined the faculty of the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, where she has taught and served as the level coordinator of novice, intermediate, and advanced Chinese language courses. She also has experience teaching Chinese at other language programs such as Princeton in Beijing, the U.S. Strategic Language Initiative, and the Ohio State University Chinese Flagship Program. Her research focuses on cognitive linguistics, language program evaluation, and a variety of topics in second language acquisition, such as language learners’ individual differences, interaction and corrective feedback, and methods for second language research including meta-analysis and structural equation modeling. She endeavors to become an increasingly effective educator by applying linguistics theories, along with her pedagogical training and research, to her teaching.

Fei Ren– Teaching Professor and Chinese Language Coordinator

Fei Ren joined the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures in 2010. Her research interests focus on temporality and modality in Mandarin Chinese, with special interest in the strategies that Mandarin Chinese uses to make reference to the future. She is also interested in foreign language teaching and learning. Her current research includes the temporal reference of Chinese modal auxiliaries, the interface of Chinese aspect and modality, and their pedagogical applications. She teaches advanced-level Chinese language courses and introductory course on Chinese linguistics.

Kumi Sato– Associate Teaching Professor

I received my B.A. in English, minoring in Japanese Pedagogy from Kansai Gaidai University, Osaka, Japan. After two years of a teaching assistantship at Gettysburg College, I earned my M.A. in Asian Civilizations at the University of Iowa. I taught Japanese at the university throughout my graduate study, and joined the Japanese program at Georgetown University in 2001. I have taught beginning to advanced levels of Japanese language courses, and mainly teach Intensive First Level Japanese and Third Level Japanese at Georgetown University.

My research interests are second language acquisition and its pedagogical application. I am particularly interested in students’ language learning strategies and how to develop teaching methods to enhance their use of those strategies. As a fan of movies and drama, I also create materials that utilize those media to learn Japanese.

Aside from my teaching, I enjoy ballroom dancing, and playing piano. Taking piano lessons help me understand what my students are going through. It is fun and exciting, but can be frustrating sometimes! Regular, consistent practice is the key to mastering a new piece, and I find that process very similar to language learning. I also love cooking, and food always makes me happy!

Kyle Shernuk– Assistant Professor

Kyle Shernuk is a scholar of modern and contemporary Chinese and Sinophone literatures, film, and cultures. His research takes a particular interest in disempowered and minoritized populations, with recent publications focusing on issues of ethnicity, indigeneity, queerness, and language in global Chinese communities. His work has appeared in peer-reviewed journals, such as Prism: Theory and Modern Chinese Literature (2021) and International Journal of Taiwan Studies (2021), and edited volumes, such as Keywords in Queer Sinophone Studies (Routledge, 2020) and A New Literary History of Modern China (Harvard University Press, 2017). He is currently working on a book project focusing on issues of ethnicity in Sinographic literatures from China and Taiwan and that investigates how different ethnic identities are constructed and relate to ideas about what it means “to be Chinese” at the turn of the twenty-first century.

Dr. Shernuk’s additional areas of research interest include: an on-going project on Global Asias (organized by the Global Asias Initiative at the Pennsylvania State University); China and the world; the role of Chinese and East Asian literatures in comparative and world literary perspective; contemporary (Sino-)Tibetan literary traditions; transpacific connections, particularly among indigenous populations; and Taiwan studies.

An active Chinese-English translator, Dr. Shernuk’s translations have appeared in A New Literary History of Modern China (Harvard University Press, 2017) and in collaborations with the National Museum of Taiwan Literature for A Taiwanese Literature Reader (Cambria, 2020) and A Queer Taiwanese Fiction Reader (Cambria, 2021). His current project, a translation of Taiwan aboriginal writer Syaman Rapongan’s novel, The Eyes in the Sky, is under contract with Columbia University Press.

He was previously Lecturer (Assistant Professor) of Chinese Studies at Queen Mary University of London and a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University. He received his Ph.D. degree in East Asian Languages & Civilizations and Comparative Literature from Harvard University in May 2020.

Peng Wang– Associate Teaching Professor

Peng Wang joined the faculty of the Department of East Asian Languages & Cultures at Georgetown University in 2002, and has been teaching various levels of Chinese language courses, including Business Chinese and Intensive Chinese for Advanced Beginners. Prof. Wang has also taught Chinese language as the chief instructor at the Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Studies at Tsinghua University, as well as a visiting professor at Oberlin College and Brown University. In the summer of 2010 and 2012, Prof. Wang served as the academic director for the State Department-sponsored CLS Program in Shanghai.

Chao Yu– Lecturer

Chao Yu has taught all levels of Chinese language classes and Chinese masterpieces in translation. Before joining Georgetown University, she taught Chinese language courses at Johns Hopkins University, Middlebury College (Middlebury Language Schools), Princeton University (Summer Intensive Program in Beijing PIB), United Nations, East Stroudsburg University, and ALLEX Foundation at Washington University in St. Louis. She received her M.A. degree in Education from Elmira College and B.A. degree in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language from Xi’an International Studies University. Her research interests include pragmatic failures, Chinese pedagogy, and curriculum design.

Pei Shan Yu– Associate Teaching Professor

Pei-Shan Yu received her Ph.D. degree in Language Education and dual Master’s degrees in Chinese Pedagogy and Language Education from Indiana University  Bloomington (IUB). She has been teaching various levels of Chinese language courses at IUB since 2009. Pei-Shan also had experience teaching in StarTalk and  Flagship Chinese Institute (FCI). She has served as a Chinese Pedagogy Specialist at the Chinese Flagship Center and Interim Associate Director of FCI before joining  Georgetown University. Her academic interests include curriculum design, Chinese pedagogy and language learning for Chinese heritage students.

Professors Associated with EALC

Inku Marshall – Retired Associate Teaching Professor

After my graduation in Korea, I went to Germany in order to study further. I graduated summa cum laude from the University of Hamburg with a Ph.D. in Comparative Education and my minors were German Modern Literature and Linguistics. Afterward, I was a research fellow for two years at the UNESCO Institute for Education in Hamburg and was coauthor of a book on the curriculum for German secondary schools. 

Since coming to America in 1986, I have devoted myself to the development of teaching methods for Korean as a foreign language as well as creating teaching materials on the Korean language and culture for non-Korean people.

Michael McCaskey– Associate Professor Emeritus

I spent much of my childhood living overseas and wasn’t very well
acquainted with the academic world in the United States. I decided to study at Stanford University because a number of American relatives lived nearby. Later I went to Japan to do graduate research. Then one of my Stanford professors, who had switched to Yale University, suggested that I should transfer to Yale, so I did.

When I finished my Ph.D. at Yale, I tentatively explored career opportunities. While I was growing up, a number of people told me that I should go to Georgetown University, because of its international focus. So, when I was offered a teaching position at Georgetown, I accepted it right away. It was a really good decision, and one I have never regretted.

Jordan Sand– Professor of Japanese History and Culture

Jordan Sand is a Professor of Japanese History and Culture at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. He teaches modern Japanese history and other topics in East Asian history, as well as urban history and the world history of food. He has a doctorate in history from Columbia University and an MA in architecture history from the University of Tokyo. His research and writing have focused on architecture, urbanism, material culture and the history of everyday life. House and Home in Modern Japan (Harvard, 2004) explores the ways that westernizing reformers reinvented Japanese domestic space and family life during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His most recent book, Tokyo Vernacular: Common Spaces, Local Histories, Found Objects (University of California Press, 2013), analyzes problems of history and memory in the postindustrial city. He has also examined the comparative history of urban fires and firefighting, the modernization and globalization of Japanese food (including sushi, miso, and MSG), and the history of furniture and interiors, and topics in the study of heritage and museums. He is presently working on a study of manifestations of colonialism in physical forms ranging from bodily comportment to urban planning.

From 2009 through 2011, he served as Chair of Georgetown’s Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures. During the academic year 2012-13, he was a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo Graduate School for Interdisciplinary Information Studies, where he taught a seminar on approaches to the modern city.

Chen-Yieh Catherine Yu– Retired Assistant Professor

Catherine Yu dedicated most of her professional life to teaching Chinese at Georgetown University and her efforts have been richly rewarded by her students. She has been awarded honorary membership in the Alpha Sigma Nu National Jesuit Honor Society, has been selected as one of Georgetown University’s top ten professors by the Georgetown University Student Association, recognized by Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers multiple times, and has consistently received excellent student evaluations for all the courses she has taught at Georgetown University.

Jingyuan Zhang– Associate Professor (In Memoriam)

Professor Zhang received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Cornell University.  She held a tenured position in the Chinese Department and Institute of Comparative Literature at Peking University for 4 years and later taught at Cornell and the UC Berkley before coming to Georgetown.  Her main research interests were in modern Chinese literature and culture, particularly in the relationship between psychoanalytic theories and Chinese culture.  At Georgetown taught courses on a wide range of topics in modern Chinese literature and culture, including film, media, and drama. As a member of the Steering Committee for the Comparative Literature Program at Georgetown, she taught “Introduction to Comparative Literature.”  She was also an accomplished painter, and her artworks have been featured in public exhibitions both in the U.S. and in China.