Rate My Professor Lisa Yun

Lisa Yun is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at Binghamton University, State University of New York, with appointments in the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies and the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program. She earned her PhD from the University of Texas at Dallas and her BA from Yale University. Yun works in engaged digital humanities, particularly how multimodal forms of storytelling and testimony are used to address injustice. Her research interests encompass immigration and migration, humanities for justice, digital storytelling, digital pathways to community, community engagement, Afro-Asian connections, Asian American literature and culture, and Asians of the Americas. She explores the intersection of race and gender through digital humanities, public humanities, and community engagement, with a focus on coolie testimonio—a culturally hybrid form derived from indentured laborers' testimonies.

Yun's seminal book, The Coolie Speaks: Chinese Indentured Laborers and African Slaves in Cuba, presents a literary and historical analysis of nearly 3,000 testimonies from Chinese laborers in 19th-century Cuba, establishing the "coolie narrative" as a counterpart to the slave narrative and offering critiques of the contract institution foundational to modern free society. She has contributed chapters to edited volumes including Afro Asia: Revolutionary Political and Cultural Connections (Duke University Press), Transnational Blackness: Navigating the Global Color Line (Palgrave), Afro-Asian Connections of Latin America and the Caribbean (Lexington), and The Chinese of Latin America and the Caribbean (Brill). Her peer-reviewed articles have appeared in Afro-Hispanic Review, SOULS: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Caribbean Quarterly, E-misférica, Journal of Chinese Overseas, Journal of Asian American Studies, Amerasia Journal, Asian Pacific American Journal, MELUS, Wasafiri, and Black Book Review. Additionally, her poetry features in anthologies such as Identity Lessons (Viking Penguin), Roots and Flowers (Holt), and The NuyorAsian Anthology (Temple University Press), as well as journals like The Paterson Literary Review and A Gathering of the Tribes.

In her career, Yun coordinates the Peter T. and Shun Yee Chang Memorial Internship, now in its tenth year, promoting community engagement. As co-principal investigator with PI John Chaffee on a $1.75 million Freeman Foundation Grant, she contributed to founding the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies. She recently co-produced the first season of the podcast “Immigrants Wake America” amid rising hate crimes and is authoring a book project, “Digital for Ourselves.” Yun's commitment to service and teaching has been recognized with the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Faculty Service, Binghamton University Exemplary Community Engaged Teaching Award, Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities Fellowship, Center for Civic Engagement Fellowship, and New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship.