Michelle Lee

Michelle Lee is an Assistant Professor in Global Asian Studies at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), affiliated with the Racialized Body Cluster. She holds a PhD in American Studies from the University of Minnesota and previously served as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Case Western Reserve University. Her research focuses on Women of Color Feminisms, Asian American Studies, and Visual Culture Studies, examining how Asian diasporic cultural producers use aesthetic strategies rooted in the inhuman, monstrous, and abject to challenge neoliberal frameworks and reimagine posthuman relational networks.

Her current book project, Unnatural Figura: Asiatic Femininity, Aesthetics, and Disfiguration, analyzes visual arts, literature, and medical records to explore how disfiguration shapes Asian women's experiences in U.S. cultural production. This work interrogates intersections of race, gender, and inhumanness through historical and contemporary lenses.

Lee’s academic contributions include publications in Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures in the Americas, ArtAsiaPacific, and Women & Performance Journal. Her research has been supported by the Social Science Research Council, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and the Huntington Library. She also brings museum experience from roles at the National Public Housing Museum and Asheville Art Museum.

Her teaching and scholarship emphasize critical race theory, posthumanism, and decolonial aesthetics. She actively participates in interdisciplinary initiatives addressing racialized bodies and visual representation.