Kevin Li

Kevin Li is an Assistant Professor of History at New York University's College of Arts and Science, holding the Elihu Rose Scholar in Modern Military History position and serving as a Faculty Fellow. His research centers on modern Vietnam with emphasis on decolonization, state formation, and political violence during the First Indochina War.

His educational credentials include a BA in History from UC Irvine, an MA in East Asian Studies from Yale University, and a PhD in History from UC Berkeley.

Li's research spans Modern Southeast Asia, Vietnam, Nationalism, Revolution, Decolonization, Civil Wars, Outlaws And The State, and Urban History. He specializes in the role of non-state actors like the Bình Xuyên—a Saigon-based political-military force that evolved from communist allies to anticommunist bulwarks—challenging state-centric narratives of postcolonial Vietnam through his manuscript "Entrepreneurs of Disorder: Gangsters, Revolutionaries, and Collaborators during the Decolonization of Vietnam (1945-1955)." His second project examines the national police's social history within Vietnam's decolonization framework.

His publications reveal consistent focus on southern Vietnam's political complexity, analyzing how outlaw groups influenced state formation during wartime. The 2022 chapter on the Mekong Delta and 2016 article on the Bình Xuyên demonstrate methodological rigor in using regional dynamics to reframe broader decolonization narratives.

His scientific awards include:

• The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation Emerging Scholar Award (2018-19)
• Pre-Doctoral Fellowship, Program on Order, Conflict, and Violence, The Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University (2017-18)
• Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA) Fellowship, US Department of Education (2015-16)
• Social Science Research Council International Dissertation Research Fellowship (SSRC IDRF) (2014-15)
• Pacific Rim Mini-Grant, University of California Office of the President (2014)
• John L. Simpson Memorial Research Fellowship in International and Comparative Studies, UC Berkeley (2013-14)

Prior to NYU, Li held postdoctoral positions at Dartmouth College (Rosenwald Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy) and Columbia University (Postdoctoral Research Scholar in Modern Vietnamese Studies), with research supported by multiple competitive fellowships enabling extensive archival work in Vietnam and France.