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Top blue bar image Sidney X. Lu
Annette and Hugh Gragg Associate Professor of Transnational Asian Studies
 

ABOUT

 

Sidney X. Lu is Associate Professor and the Annette and Hugh Gragg Chair of Transnational Asian Studies at Rice University. He is a social and cultural historian of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Japan and East Asia, with research interests in the areas of migration, settler colonialism, gender, race, and trans-Pacific connections. He earned his Ph.D. in history from the University of Pennsylvania in 2013.

His first book, The Making of Japanese Settler Colonialism: Malthusianism and Trans-Pacific Migration, 1868-1961, published by Cambridge University Press in 2019, is a study of the relationship among Malthusianism, emigration, and colonial expansion in the history of modern Japan. He has also co-edited the book, Japanese Empire and Latin America, published by University of Hawaii Press in 2023, which provides a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between Japanese migration and capital exportation to Latin America and the rise and fall of the Japanese empire Asia. In addition, He is the author of several refereed articles that appear in Journal of Asian Studiespositions: asia critique, Journal of Global HistoryJournal of World History, and Japanese Studies. He is currently completing a new book, Collaborative Settler Colonialism: Japanese Migration to Brazil in the Age of Empires (under contract with University of California Press), which explores the intersections in the histories of Japan and Brazil, and the historical convergence of Asia and Latin America in general, through the lens of modern settler colonialism. For a detailed description of his research and publications, please see BOOKS and ARTICLES.

He is a coeditor of the book series Between Asias and Americas at University of Pittsburgh Press, which bridges Asian studies with American studies (conceived hemispherically to include Latin American studies and Asian American studies).

He is an associate of Lovett College.

He offers a variety of courses across the disciplines of humanities and social sciences, related to the histories, societies, and cultures of Japan and East Asia, as well as Asian American studies. For a detailed description of his teaching approaches and courses, please see TEACHING.

He serves as an academic advisor of the Japanese American Collaborative Historical Project, directed by the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California. Funded by the Mellon Foundation and National Archives, this project offers innovative and interactive ways to make Japanese American immigrants’ archival material available and accessible to users of all interests, professions, and levels of expertise.