Jack Jin Gary Lee
Assistant Professor of Sociology
Email
jackjin.lee@newschool.edu
Office Location
D - 6 East 16th Street
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Profile
Jack Jin Gary Lee is Assistant Professor of Sociology at The New School for Social Research.
Gary's scholarship explores how race and law shape the social logics and processes of governance in modern empires and (post)colonial states. 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 reconstitution of Jamaica and the Straits Settlements (Singapore, Penang and Malacca) as Crown Colonies in the nineteenth century, this project examines the structures, practices, and mythologies 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). More recently, his article, which was based on the book's findings, was recognized with the American Sociological Association Global and Transnational Sociology Section's 2024 Best Scholarly Article Award.
Gary is collaborating with Professor Lynette J. Chua of the National University of Singapore on a historical-ethnographic project on the colonial and postcolonial governance of epidemics. This ongoing project, "Governing through Contagion," charts the origins and transformations of public health strategies, involving both human and nonhuman agencies, as colonial and postcolonial states in Asia fought the spread of contagious diseases. They convened an international workshop on the concept of governing through contagion in 2022. Its proceedings form the basis of an edited volume, Contagion, Technology, and Law at the Limits (Hart Publishing | Bloomsbury).
Degrees Held
PhD Sociology, University of California, San Diego, 2017
MA Sociology, University of California, San Diego, 2012
BA Sociology, University of Chicago, 2007
Recent Publications
Books
Chua, Lynnette J. and Jack Jin Gary Lee (editors). 2024. Contagion, Technology, and Law at the Limits. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing (Hart).
Articles and Book Chapters (selected)
Historical Sociology | Race and Ethnicity
Lee, Jack Jin Gary. 2023. “Racialized Legalities: The Rule of Law, Race, and the Protection of Women in Britain’s Crown Colonies 1886-1890.” Law and Social Inquiry (FirstView).
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Winner of the American Sociological Association Global and Transnational Sociology Section’s 2024 Best Scholarly Article Award
Lee, Jack Jin Gary. 2015. “Plural Society and the Colonial State: English Law and the Making of Crown Colony Government in the Straits Settlements.” Asian Journal of Law and Society 2(2): 229-249.
Law and Society | Global Health
Lee, Jack Jin Gary and Lynette J. Chua. 2023. “Smallpox Vaccination and the Limits of Governing through Contagion in the Straits Settlements, 1868-1926.” Law and Policy 45(3): 331-352.
Chua, Lynette J. and Jack Jin Gary Lee. 2021. “Governing through Contagion.” In Covid-19 in Asia: Law and Policy Contexts, edited by Victor V. Ramraj. New York: Oxford University Press.
Book Reviews and Encyclopedia Entries (selected)
Lee, Jack Jin Gary. 2024. “Racialized Citizenship.” Elgar Encyclopedia of Citizenship Studies, edited by Thomas Faist and Marisol García Cabeza.
Lee, Jack Jin Gary, & Julián Gómez-Delgado. 2023. “Book review: Modernity’s Corruption: Empire and Morality in the Making of British India,” Sociology of Race and Ethnicity (OnlineFirst).
Public and Professional Writings (selected)
Lee, Jack Jin Gary. 2023. “Rule of Law as Imperial Theology.” The Immanent Frame: Secularism, Religion, and the Public Sphere. Social Science Research Council.
Awards And Honors
2024-2025 Graduate Institute for Design, Ethnography & Social Thought (GIDEST) Faculty Fellow
2023-2024 Mellon Initiative for Inclusive Faculty Excellence Faculty Fellow