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Home » Brett Sheehan

Brett Sheehan

Faculty in Residence
Parkside Arts & Humanities Residential College

Professor
History

Email: bsheehan@usc.edu

Education:
PhD, History, University of California, Berkeley

Bio + Fun Facts:
Teaching Chinese history is actually a second career for Brett Sheehan. He turned to academics after obtaining a degree in Finance and spending six years working as a commercial banker. In academics, he combines his business background with his interest in Chinese history by researching and teaching about the history of business and capitalism in China. He lives at Parkside Arts and Humanities Residential College with his wife Yiyu Jiang, and you might see his son Malak around from time to time. Brett and Yiyu spend every summer in Shanghai China, one of the world’s most dynamic cities. In fact, one of the highlights of his year is taking students to China to learn about globalization of consumer culture. He also teaches several GE classes, including one on the history of East Asian business (HIST 266), a class on the global history of the corporation (CORE 104), and a GE Seminar (GESEM130) on the history of Chinese capitalism which is run as an online, multi-player, interactive game where each student takes on a role as a Chinese peasant in about 1820 and then makes decisions about how to invest resources and survive over about 200 years of tumultuous history. For fun, Brett loves working out, hiking, playing board games, and hanging out with Parkside students.