Welcome.
Anh Le (in Vietnamese diacritics Lê Sỹ Huy Anh) is an Assistant Professor of History and Asian Studies at Muhlenberg College. Before coming to Muhlenberg, I was Assistant Professor of History at St. Norbert College where I regularly offered introductory and upper-level courses on Modern East Asia, China, Vietnam, and colonial Southeast Asia; Global Chinese Migration; Asian-American History; and Comparative Colonialism.
Trained as a historian of modern China and Vietnam, I explore three recurring and interrelated themes in my research and writing: 1) the making of Chinese migrant networks and its roles in urbanization and the transformation of the political economy. 2) colonial strategies of ethnic administration. And 3) how inter-Asian migrant networks defined and reshaped colonial relations. I am currently finishing a book manuscript, titled Entangled Histories: Chinese Migration, Inter-Asian Connections, and Empire Building in French Colonial Vietnam. The book investigates the migrations, settlements, and evolution of the Chinese community in southern Vietnam and their roles in Saigon’s emergence as a prominent port city by the late nineteenth century. It is a social and economic history of Chinese migrants in southern Vietnam and at once a political history of inter-ethnic relations in the colonial city and the inter-Asian forces shaping its cosmopolitan characters.
I received my Ph.D. with distinction in East Asian History from Michigan State University in 2021 and B.A. Honor in Economics and Chinese studies from Wabash College. At MSU, I was advised by a foremost expert on modern Vietnamese history and French Indochina, Dr. Charles P. Keith, and served on the organizing committee of the interdisciplinary migration studies collective. I am also a proud graduate of Middlebury College and Fudan University's Chinese language programs, which I often credited with propelling me toward Sinology.
My research at its various stages has received support from the American Philosophical Society, the Social Science Research Council and the Andrew Mellon Foundation, the Henry Luce-American Council of Learned Society, the American Historical Association, and the National Library of Singapore. I have held visiting fellowships at the Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore and Singapore's National Library Board. Deeply committed to multi-sited and multilingual archival works, I have conducted research in national libraries and state/municipal archives across China, Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam, and France.
When not reading and researching history, I am an amateur runner and indoor rock-climbing hobbyist. I also finds solace in hiking trails and my growing record collection. On a casual, non-active day, I enjoy gaming, reading a good novel, and browsing random digital archives in search of interesting stuff that rarely has to do with my own research, but probably will excite my students down the road.
Anh Le (in Vietnamese diacritics Lê Sỹ Huy Anh) is an Assistant Professor of History and Asian Studies at Muhlenberg College. Before coming to Muhlenberg, I was Assistant Professor of History at St. Norbert College where I regularly offered introductory and upper-level courses on Modern East Asia, China, Vietnam, and colonial Southeast Asia; Global Chinese Migration; Asian-American History; and Comparative Colonialism.
Trained as a historian of modern China and Vietnam, I explore three recurring and interrelated themes in my research and writing: 1) the making of Chinese migrant networks and its roles in urbanization and the transformation of the political economy. 2) colonial strategies of ethnic administration. And 3) how inter-Asian migrant networks defined and reshaped colonial relations. I am currently finishing a book manuscript, titled Entangled Histories: Chinese Migration, Inter-Asian Connections, and Empire Building in French Colonial Vietnam. The book investigates the migrations, settlements, and evolution of the Chinese community in southern Vietnam and their roles in Saigon’s emergence as a prominent port city by the late nineteenth century. It is a social and economic history of Chinese migrants in southern Vietnam and at once a political history of inter-ethnic relations in the colonial city and the inter-Asian forces shaping its cosmopolitan characters.
I received my Ph.D. with distinction in East Asian History from Michigan State University in 2021 and B.A. Honor in Economics and Chinese studies from Wabash College. At MSU, I was advised by a foremost expert on modern Vietnamese history and French Indochina, Dr. Charles P. Keith, and served on the organizing committee of the interdisciplinary migration studies collective. I am also a proud graduate of Middlebury College and Fudan University's Chinese language programs, which I often credited with propelling me toward Sinology.
My research at its various stages has received support from the American Philosophical Society, the Social Science Research Council and the Andrew Mellon Foundation, the Henry Luce-American Council of Learned Society, the American Historical Association, and the National Library of Singapore. I have held visiting fellowships at the Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore and Singapore's National Library Board. Deeply committed to multi-sited and multilingual archival works, I have conducted research in national libraries and state/municipal archives across China, Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam, and France.
When not reading and researching history, I am an amateur runner and indoor rock-climbing hobbyist. I also finds solace in hiking trails and my growing record collection. On a casual, non-active day, I enjoy gaming, reading a good novel, and browsing random digital archives in search of interesting stuff that rarely has to do with my own research, but probably will excite my students down the road.
