Education

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

Areas of Specialization

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

Recently Taught Courses

     •  Contemporary Korean Culture and Art  (Summer 2025)
     •  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)
     •  Introduction to African American Studies (TRIO Upward Bound) (Summer 2024, Summer 2023, Summer 2022, Summer 2021, Summer 2020, Summer 2019, Summer 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)

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

Current Research Projects

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

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. 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. 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.

Selected Academic Appearances

     • "'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.

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.