Julia Lee

Julia Sun-Joo Lee (born 1976) is an American writer and professor of English at Loyola Marymount University. She studies African-American literature. Outside of academia, she has published a romance novel under a pen name.

Early life and education

Lee was born to Korean immigrants in Los Angeles. She spoke no English before preschool, but once she was there she lost her Korean fluency. Her parents owned a Pioneer Chicken restaurant in Hawthorne that was damaged during the riots.

Following her graduation from Princeton in 1998, Lee briefly worked in management consulting.

Career

Lee's academic works "[challenge] the legacy of mostly white literary scholarship". Our Gang (2015) follows the lives of the African-American child stars of the 1920s short film series Our Gang (or The Little Rascals) and considers the series's place in the country's racial history.

Lee was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Southern California before joining the faculty of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in 2013. Under the pen name Julia Sonneborn, she published a romance novel, By the Book (2018), inspired by Jane Austen's Persuasion. Biting the Hand (2023), a memoir by Lee, deals with Korean-American identity from her childhood to college years to professional life.

Personal life

Lee lives with her two children and her husband.

Published works