Bio

Seulghee Lee (he/him) is Associate Professor of African American Studies and English. In 2025, Lee became the first faculty member tenured by the Department of African American Studies. He is currently a McCausland Faculty Fellow and a Pearce Faculty Fellow. Lee is the author of Other Lovings: An AfroAsian American Theory of Life (Ohio State University Press, 2025), and he is co-editor, with Rebecca Kumar, of Queer and Femme Gazes in AfroAsian American Visual Culture (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024). In addition to his graduate and undergraduate mentoring, he teaches for TRIO Upward Bound. As a community-engaged scholar, Lee serves as Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the South Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, as well as on the steering committee of Make Us Visible South Carolina, the education committee of the Columbia SC Branch NAACP, and, from 2021 to 2025, the AAPI advisory committee of the South Carolina Commission for Minority Affairs.

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Education

Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley (2014)
B.A., Williams College (2007)

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Areas of Specialization

     • African American Literature
     • Blackness / Anti-Blackness
     • AfroAsian Studies
     • Racial Misandry Studies

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Recently Taught Courses

     •  Women of Color Feminisms (graduate seminar) (Fall 2025)    
     •  Asian Renaissance and Harlem Renaissance (Fall 2025)
     •  Introduction to African American Studies (TRIO Upward Bound) (Summer 2024, Summer 2023, Summer 2022, Summer 2021, Summer 2020, Summer 2019, Summer 2018)
     •  Black Feminist Theory (Spring 2025, Spring 2022, Spring 2020, Spring 2019, Spring 2018)
     •  Asian American Culture in the Twenty-First Century (Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023)
     •  Introduction to African American Studies (Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2018)
     •  Racial Misandry in American Culture (graduate seminar) (Fall 2023)
     •  African American Literature Since 1903 (Spring 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2018)
     •  AfroAsian Connections in American Culture (Spring 2022, Spring 2021, Fall 2019)
     •  The Black Radical Tradition (graduate seminar) (Fall 2021)
     •  The Black Arts Movement (Fall 2021)
     •  Black Sport | Black Style | Black Protest (Spring 2021)
     •  American Literature (Spring 2020, Spring 2019, Summer 2018, Fall 2017)
     •  Theorizing Difference / Theorizing Desire (graduate seminar) (Fall 2019)
     •  Minority Affect (graduate seminar) (Spring 2018)
     •  Black / Humor (Fall 2017)

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Professional Accolades

     • McCausland Faculty Fellowship, University of South Carolina, 2023-2026
     • English Department Teaching Award, University of South Carolina, 2023
     • Excel Program Research Grant, University of South Carolina, 2023-2024
     • Pearce Faculty Fellowship, University of South Carolina, 2022-2024
     • AAPI Advocate of the Year, South Carolina Commission for Minority Affairs, 2022
     • Center for Integrated and Experiential Learning Faculty Fellowship, University of South Carolina, 2019-2020
     • Anna Julia Cooper Award, Caribbean Philosophical Association, 2016
     • C3 Program Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2014-2016

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Current Research Projects

     • Oriental Menace: Anti-Asian Misandry in American Culture
     • Editor, The David Lionel Smith Reader

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Publications

Books
     • Other Lovings: An AfroAsian American Theory of Life. The Ohio State University Press, 2025.
     • Co-editor, with Rebecca Kumar, Queer and Femme Gazes in AfroAsian American Visual Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, 2024.

Articles
     • “Introduction: AfroAsian Social Insurgency in the Visual Field.” In Queer Gazes in AfroAsian American Visual Culture, edited by Rebecca Kumar and Seulghee Lee, 1-18. Palgrave Macmillan, 2024.
     • “Black Girlhood and Anti-Asian Misandry in Justin Chon’s Gook.” In Queer Gazes in AfroAsian American Visual Culture, edited by Rebecca Kumar and Seulghee Lee, 141-159. Palgrave Macmillan, 2024.
     • "When Is Asian American Life Grievable?" Tropics of Meta. 30 April 2021. 
     • “Black Male Studies and Contemporary African American Writing.” In Gender in American Literature and Culture, edited by Jean M. Lutes and Jennifer Travis, 204-218. Cambridge University Press, 2021.
     • "An Asian Man Who Likes Math: Anti-Asian Misandry and Transformative Hospitality." Tropics of Meta. 13 March 2020.
     • "Ecstatic Blackness." Lute & Drum, No. 2. May 2015.
     • "'Exotic Fagdom': The Baraka of Surplus Love in a Transnational Context." In Ethnic Literatures and Transnationalism: Critical Imaginaries for a Global Age, edited by Aparajita Nanda, 69-82. Routledge, 2015.

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Selected Academic Appearances

     • “The Commons of Anti-Black and Anti-Asian Violence: A Roundtable on Seulghee Lee’s Other Lovings.” American Studies Association. November 2025.
     • “Blaysian Bay Digital Archive & Interactive Map: A Collaboration With the Editors of Queer and Femme Gazes in AfroAsian American Visual Culture.” Department of Film, Theater, and Dance. San José State University. September 2025.
     • “Seulghee Lee, Other Lovings: An AfroAsian American Theory of Life (Ohio State UP, 2025).” New Books Network podcast. Channels: African American Studies, Asian American Studies, Critical Theory. May 2025.
     • "USC Humanities Faculty Book Launch." Sponsored by All Good Books. University of South Carolina. April 2025.
     • "'Hello? Is Anybody Out There?' A Roundtable on Vivian L. Huang's Surface Relations: Queer Forms of Asian American Inscrutability." Association for Asian American Studies. April 2024.
     • "Rick 'Lyricks' Lee, a.k.a. Bap Ross, in Conversation with Seulghee Lee." Organized speaker series: AAPI Hip-Hop Pioneers. Sponsored by the South Carolina Commission for Minority Affairs. University of South Carolina. October 2023.
     • "G Yamazawa in Conversation with Seulghee Lee." Organized speaker series: AAPI Hip-Hop Pioneers. Sponsored by the South Carolina Commission for Minority Affairs. University of South Carolina. March 2023.
     • "Jon 'Dumbfoundead' Park in Conversation with Seulghee Lee." Organized speaker series: AAPI Hip-Hop Pioneers. Sponsored by the South Carolina Commission for Minority Affairs. University of South Carolina. February 2023.
     • “Asian American Presence, Civic Engagement, and Advocacy in the Contemporary Southeast.” Invited address. Chinese American Academic and Professional Association in the Southeastern United States. July 2022.
     • “Black Study, Here and Now: Fred Moten with Seulghee Lee.” Community-facing event for AFAM 50. African American Studies Program. University of South Carolina. March 2022.
     • “Black and Asian Solidarities and Potentialities.” The Elephant in the Room Project. Passionfruit Farms. February 2022.
     • “Surviving Anti-Asian Violence in an Anti-Black World.” Keynote address for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. Center for Student Leadership and Engagement. Clemson University. April 2021.
     • “We Have Been Here All Along: Gender, American Literature, and White Supremacy.” Roundtable of select contributors to Gender in American Literature and Culture. Department of English and Falvey Memorial Library. Villanova University. March 2021.

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Selected Papers

     • "'I'm Already Urs': Asian American Popular Music and Racial Ontology in the Pandemic Era." Session: Asian American Literary and Cultural Studies. Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association. November 2024.
     • “Rejecting Subjection in the Asian Renaissance.” Co-organized seminar with Emily Yoon: “Asian American Relationality.” American Comparative Literature Association. March 2024.
     • “Asian American Thought in/as Black Study.” Co-organized seminar with James Ford: “Ante-Disciplinarity and Black Study.” American Comparative Literature Association. March 2023.
     • “Love-Being in the Love-Ethic.” Department of English at the University of Arizona. February 2023.
     • “‘I Speak ABC’: Asian American Ironic Consciousness in the Asian Renaissance.” Co-organized seminar with Alvin J. Henry: “Asian Fun.” American Comparative Literature Association. June 2022.
     • “Love-Being in the Love-Ethic.” AfterAffects: New Methods in Affect Theory. Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture at the University of Chicago. May 2022.
     • "Black Male Studies and Contemporary Black Art." Columbia Museum of Art. December 2021.
     • "'So Who Are You to Tell Me It’s Not My Passion, Homie?' AfroAsian Alignment as Asian American Being." Panel: "Tries and Tribulations: The Difficulties of Trying Reciprocity." The Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present. October 2021.
     • "Asian Maleness and the Right to Opacity." Organized seminar: "The Glissant Variations." American Comparative Literature Association. April 2021.
     • "Surviving Anti-Asian Violence in an Anti-Black World." Institute for African American Research at the University of South Carolina. March 2021.
     • "'My Greatest Joy is to Foil the Blows': Aimé Césaire, Black Joy, and Diasporic Essence.” Co-organized panel with Manya Lempert: “Forms of Joy.” Modernist Studies Association. November 2018.
     • "Black Adornment / Black Adorno: Anti-Blackness as Negative Dialectics." Seminar: "The Aesthetics of Excess: Baroques, Blackness, and the Will to Adorn." American Comparative Literature Association. March 2018.
     • "Inaugurating the Undercommons: Amiri Baraka, Raced Affect, and Black Studies." Comparative Literature conference at the University of South Carolina: "1968 in Global Perspectives." February 2018.
     • "Feeling Yellow Flesh in Fanon." Caribbean Philosophical Association. June 2017.
     • "Critical Moodiness in/as Blackness." Seminar: "Black Affect and Minor Feelings." Affect Theory Conference at Millersville University: "Worldings, Tensions, Futures." October 2015.
     • "Audre Lorde's Technologies of the Flesh." Caribbean Philosophical Association. June 2015.
     • "Raciality in/as Positive Affect: Gallimard’s Love-Being in M. Butterfly." Studies in Sexualities Initiative symposium at Emory University: "Race, Indigeneity, Affect." January 2015.
     • "The Zen of Black Optimism." Seminar: "Critical Divestment." American Comparative Literature Association. March 2014.
     • "From Melancholia to Linsanity: Basketball, Positive Affect, and Racial Ontology." American Studies conference at Humboldt University of Berlin: "Cultures of Basketball." November 2013.