Michelle S. Mood (surnamed Strauss from 1976 to 1985) is the daughter of itinerant academics, having lived mostly in the East and Midwest United States on such campuses as Vassar College, Kalamazoo College, and smaller universities before going to college to study comparative politics and political theory at Oberlin College. Her interest in China having been sparked by an honors project there, she went on to teach English at the remote China Institute of Mining and Technology before returning to study comparative politics, political theory and East Asian studies at Cornell University, receiving her Ph.D. in 1996. She was Assistant Professor of East Asian Politics at Providence College for a few years, during which time she taught both Asian politics and comparative politics classes as well as the introductory first-year political theory course, "Introduction to Ideologies."

Since 1998 she has made her home with her family in Gambier, interrupted by years abroad, first as a post-doctoral fellow in Sweden (where her and partner Associate Professor Steve Van Holde's older son, Sam, was born) and then as a senior research fellow in China (while Professor Van Holde was Fei Yi-ming Professor of Comparative Politics) at the Johns Hopkins-Nanjing program in 2003-2004 and 2006-2007. Starting in 2000, Professor Mood has taught in Political Science, International Studies, and in the new Asian Studies joint major.

Areas of Expertise

Chinese Politics, Chinese rural development, political economy of development, women in politics, globalization

Education

Ph.D. Cornell University
M.A. Cornell University
B.A. Oberlin College

Courses Taught

ASIA490: Senior Seminar: Autobiography and Biography in Asia
PSCI342: Politics of Development
PSCI 346: Riots, Ballots, and Rice: Comparative Asian Politics
PSCI 362: Haves and Have Nots
PSCI390.02: China in the World
PSCI 442: ST: Women in Dev/Developing World