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In Residence
Dr Jack Jin Gary Lee is an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Asian Legal Studies and a Visiting Scholar at the American Bar Foundation in AY2021/22. Beginning Fall 2022, he will be an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the New School for Social Research. Dr Lee’s research and teaching examines the significance of culture, law, and politics in social processes of state-making and governance. He is working on a book, “Inventing Direct Rule”, on the significance of law and race in the making of “direct rule” in the modern British Empire. Focusing on the re-constitution of Jamaica and the Straits Settlements (Singapore, Penang and Malacca) as Crown Colonies in the latter half of the nineteenth century, this project examines the structures, practices, and legacies of “direct rule” in relation to colonies marked as “plural societies”. His dissertation on this topic won the University of California, San Diego’s 2018 Chancellor’s Dissertation Medal (Social Sciences).
While at CALS, he will serve as Co-PI for the CALS-funded research project “Governing through Contagion” with Assoc Prof Lynette Chua. This project charts the origins and transformations of public health strategies, involving both human and nonhuman agencies, as colonial and postcolonial states in Asia combatted the spread of contagious diseases.