You selected Sherry Mou as Professor of the Week based on votes from an online poll at thedepauw.com. The DePauw Features sat down with her Monday evening to bring you her story. Here's what she had to say:
TDP Features(TDP): Your classes tend to span several departments. What has drawn you to each of them?
Professor Sherry Mou (Mou): My professional training is classical Chinese women's history, but it's an interdisciplinary program. So basically I took historical documents and then did a literary interpretation of them. Basically, I'm really a literature person but in classical Chinese the historical documents and literature are really very often one in the same. Courses that I teach, since I came to DePauw, tend to be more of intro level or more cultural courses.
TDP: What is your philosophy towards teaching?
Mou: I really approach it very holistically because I really think teaching goes beyond the four walls. The most important thing is to teach students something new which will very often mean forcing them out of their comfort zone, which is actually not that difficult given my special area is in classical Chinese. What I'm interested in is showing students what's out there. I can introduce them to a new area, even if they don't see the relevance right now. I try to bring them to current events. For example, in my intro to Chinese culture class we talked about different themes. We approach it thematically. This week, we're talking about Chinese science and medicine from ancient time and how it was developed. But in one week, we couldn't get through thousands of years, so we could just cover the general notions. I have students do a report on contemporary issues that are derived from those issues.
TDP: How did you get involved with the sword dance?
Mou: I've been practicing T'ai Chi for twenty some years. But I learned T'ai Chi sword from a student several years ago in one of my Three Kingdom's classes.