David Rands

Dr. Rands came to APSU in 2012 after teaching for five years at Frostburg State University in western Maryland. He received his PhD in History in 2011 from the , where his dissertation was titled “The Development of Korean Communities in Japan: Migrant Interactions with Urban Environments.” This was developed into his monograph  published in 2014 by Lexington Books. Dr. Rands currently has wide-ranging research interests including continued study of function-based spatiality, historical theory, and comparative history. He has presented his research at conferences for the , the , and the conference of the , amongst other venues.

In addition to his doctorate, Dr. Rands holds a BA from , where he majored in History and Asian Studies, and MA in International Relations from , located in Kyoto, Japan. He has also spent several years at  as a research student, and most recently, has completed the  at the University of Florida’s Hough Graduate School of Business where he specialized in international business and entrepreneurship.

Dr. Rands is an expert on Japan, and has a deep understanding of many facets of the nation’s history, culture, and people. His experiences of living in Japan began when he took a two-year break from his undergraduate studies to serve a religious mission in the central part of the country. After returning and graduation, he began working for a Japanese company in his hometown of Los Angeles, and then partook of the opportunity to work in the city of Himeji as part of the . Life in Himeji allowed Dr. Rands to see aspects that were unavailable as a missionary, and after three years, he and his wife moved to Kyoto, where they resided for the next six years. It was in Kyoto that his eldest of two daughters was born, and Dr. Rands considers Kyoto his home when he is in Japan.

Dr. Rands has utilized his familiarity with Japan since moving to Clarksville, where he lives with his wife and two daughters. Often he takes students to Japan where they spend up to three weeks traveling across the country, and since 2015 he has spent time as a visiting scholar at Doshisha University where he teaches students from the  while they are in Japan. He also works with the  and mobilizes volunteers for the  and the annual . Dr. Rands is the immediate facilitator of a  Coordinator, who works to highlight Japanese culture at the university and in the community. He has also facilitated a partnership between the Clarksville-Montgomery County School System and Austin Peay State University to incorporate Japanese and Korean languages into their offerings. This  enabled Clarksville to have the only secondary schools in the state to offer Korean and Japanese. Likewise, the partnership provided resources for the university’s Asian language offerings.

On campus, Dr. Rands serves as the Coordinator of the Asian Studies Program and the faculty adviser for the . He has organized a  for students and helped students successfully  so they can go work in Japan after graduation. Additionally, Dr. Rands has brought traditional performers such as  and , as well as scholars and dignitaries from the  and  programs. He has been instrumental, as the university has hosted delegations from both the  and the . Dr. Rands sees these interactions as vital opportunities for students to expand their worldviews and experience cultures far removed from middle Tennessee. He says that one of his greatest pleasures is seeing how students can really come to appreciate Asian cultures and want to understand it beyond the stereotypes.

Dr. Rands teaches a number of courses beyond the survey courses in world history. They include national histories of China, Korea, and Japan, as well as thematic courses such as Japan through anime and manga, transpacific film, and samurai traditions. He has even taught beginning Japanese language and courses in international business. Dr. Rands’ classes are discussion-based and he is frequently posing questions to encourage students to think about the material and its implications. His emphasis on critical thinking skills can be understood through his often-declared motto, “If you leave class without a trickle of blood coming from your ear because you’ve been thinking so hard, we haven’t done enough.”

• HIST 1210: World History I

• HIST 1220: World History II

• HIST 3520: A History of Modern China

• HIST 3620: Modern Japan

• HIST 3820: History of Modern Korea

• HIST 5031: Samurai Tradition in Japanese History

• Japanese

• World