Colleen Lye

Colleen Lye is an Associate Professor of English and Chair of the Asian American Research Center (AARC) at the University of California, Berkeley. She holds affiliations with the Department of Rhetoric and the Designated Emphasis in Critical Theory. Her roles include executive committee membership in the UC systemwide Marxist Institute for Research (MIR) and editorial board roles at Representations, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, and Postmodern Culture. Lye’s research bridges Marxist theory, Asian American Studies, and literary criticism, with a focus on global sixties movements, critical university studies, and racial form analysis.

Her educational background includes a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Key publications include America's Asia (2005), which redefined Asian American literary historiography, and the co-edited volume After Marx (2022). She has curated special journal issues on financialization, peripheral realisms, and the humanities crisis in public universities.

Lye’s current research examines Asian American Marxist contributions during the global sixties and the entanglements of global Maoism with cultural production. Her work frequently critiques neoliberal education systems and explores transnational solidarity movements.

Her awards include the Cultural Studies Book Award from the Association of Asian American Studies and a Choice Outstanding Academic Title for America's Asia. She has also contributed to public-facing scholarship through blogs, essays on anti-Asian violence, and analyses of cultural imperialism in global education models like Yale-NUS.

Lye’s teaching focuses on critical theory, Asian American literature, and 20th-century American literature. Her recent work synthesizes Marxist critique with postcolonial studies to address contemporary racial and economic inequities.