{"id":5887,"date":"2026-05-07T03:32:58","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T03:32:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/?p=5887"},"modified":"2026-05-07T03:44:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T03:44:20","slug":"teaching-at-tuj","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/?p=5887","title":{"rendered":"Teaching at TUJ reading guide"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Here’s an overview of the classes I taught at TUJ a few years ago. They ranged from development economics to urban studies. Temple University Japan is the Japan campus of Philadelphia based Temple University. They have been around since the 1980s, and have grown significantly in the last couple of years, in line with the global appeal of Japan (and its undervalued exchange rate). <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

I taught a Metropolitan Tokyo<\/a> class several times to a mainly enthusiastic crowd of 5-25 students. It was the course closest to my heart and research while doing my PhD at GRIPS, and immediately after graduating. There is no better way to learn about a city than to teach a course. I wrote an annotated urban studies bibliography of Tokyo a few years later, and published most of research after leaving Japan. As a result, the class I’d teach nowadays would be slightly different, although I’d keep the broad contours in place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another class I taught at TUJ was Global Cities<\/a>, a more general urban studies entry-level course aimed at general education students in their first year. We followed a textbook<\/a> for this one which had a regional approach, and I thought it was a bit on the heavier side for the level I was teaching. The academic requirements were very different here than in the Tokyo class, which was aimed at senior students in their final or penultimate years. It was probably as close to being a high school teacher. I really enjoyed it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the two more econ-heavy classes was Politics of the Global Economy<\/a>, a relatively standard, entry-level IPE introduction. This was the class I was hired to teach in 2017, I must have run it at least 4 if not more times. Given the broad scope of IPE, I could put a little more emphasis on critical issues like trade, international finance and the role of IFIs drawing on my work in the field and echoing some of my own intellectual formation at SOAS in London. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, the class I enjoyed the most was this standard Intro to Development Economics<\/a>. How can poor countries develop? I spent two whole degrees on that question, but to synthesize it into one intro class was a fantastic way for me to become more articulate and confident in presenting these issues; to think like an educator, not a policy wonk. This clearly improved the quality of my written work since.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s an overview of the classes I taught at TUJ a few years ago. They ranged from development economics to urban studies. Temple University Japan is the Japan campus of Philadelphia based Temple University. They have been around since the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academia","category-curation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5887"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5892,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5887\/revisions\/5892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}