At Duke Kunshan University, Professor Zach Fredman, chair of the Division of Arts and Humanities, brings a unique perspective to teaching American history. With a student body that includes students from China, the United States, and 68 other countries, Fredman navigates a complex landscape of perceptions about the United States. His insights highlight the challenges and opportunities of teaching U.S. history in China, where students often encounter different narratives than those prevalent in American classrooms. His approach reflects DKU’s mission to cultivate global citizens with nuanced, cross-cultural understanding.
In an exclusive Q&A published in Modern American History, a journal by Cambridge University Press, Professor Fredman and a larger group of scholars who teach American history outside the United States discuss what draws their students to American history, how they reconcile different narratives and the distinctive classroom dynamics at DKU and other universities.
Fredman notes that many students come to DKU with contradictory images of the United States. While most DKU students are interested in American culture and hope to attend graduate school in the United States, many have also been influenced by negative portrayals of America in domestic media. But it’s these contradictions, Fredman argues, that make for some of the best class discussions on American history, politics, and international relations.
The Q&A also asked professors about the surprises they encountered in the classroom and how they taught the history of relations between the United States and the countries where their universities are located. Fredman described the need to provide more context and explanation about things that American students might take for granted. Because the DKU student body is so globally diverse, Fredman and his students often see things about the United States in surprisingly different ways, which also facilitates productive class discussions. When teaching courses on US-China relations, Fredman pays equal attention to Chinese and American perspectives while challenging conventional wisdom and training students to use historical thinking skills to think more clearly about contemporary opportunities and challenges in bilateral relations.
Teaching at DKU over the past six years has also shaped Fredman’s pedagogy. Geopolitical trends and the COVID pandemic presented unanticipated challenges, requiring syllabus updates and online teaching. A transnational historian by training, Fredman reveals how working in Kunshan has reinforced his inclinations to view the United States from a global perspective and train students to do the same.
