A new course called China, India and the West will be available in the fall for students who are interested in taking a unique history course.

Dr. Kelly Elliott, assistant professor in the History Department, will teach the class.

“My Ph.D. is in modern British history,” Elliott said. “I have done a lot of work in the empire, I have good training in the British India in particular, which is why I ended up with this Asian history course because I’ve done a lot of work in India and China as well.”

Elliott has taught courses in Modern Western Civilization, Core 210, European and Asian history. In 2014, she taught the China, India and the West material in a special topics pilot course.

“I decided to do some non-traditional things,” Elliott said. “I wanted it to be a very interactive student-driven course.”

The class will hold about 20 students and is a nineteenth-twentieth century look at United States’ relationship with Japan, China and India. Elliott plans to include a panel in the class as she did in 2014, she said.

“We were able to have a panel of students who are from China and India come to class and the students in the class were able to speak with them and ask them questions,” Elliott said.

She provided students with translated documents originally from India and China. The course also does film analyses, class debates and research projects. Elliott said Maggie McAlister, senior English major and

History minor from Abilene, wrote her research paper on honor killings and rape culture in India after taking the pilot class in 2014.

“The two things that I loved the most about the class were Dr. Elliott and the way the class itself works,” McAlister said. “Her classes have helped not only to better inform me of historical events, they have helped me become a better writer, a better studier and have helped broaden my world-view.”

“I just loved it last time. Part of that was the group of students and I think that is encouraged by a much more interactive model where it’s much more student driven, so I hope that will happen again,” Elliott said.