Employee profile

Lisa Hoffman came to UWT in the fall of 2002. Before coming here, she taught at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon in the Sociology and Anthropology Department. Prior to that she lived in Hong Kong and Shanghai where she taught on a range of topics including Chinese society and culture, gender theory, and the sociology of sexuality (1997-2001). In 1992 she received her MA in China Regional Studies from UW Seattle's Jackson School of International Studies followed by a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology at UC Berkeley in December 2000. Her main field site is China where she did research on the recent emergence of urban professionals and issues of rural urbanization in the Dalian area (a major port city in northeast China).

Her research interests include questions of urbanism and globalization (especially in Asia), subjectivity, governmentality, gender, and power - especially issues of new (often neoliberal) forms of governing in China. Analyzing the links between the reform of state socialisms in Asia, the growth of urban centers, and transnational processes are of particular interest. Publications include writings on the social life of labor markets in Dalian city, processes of rural urbanization in China, and a recent article titled "Enterprising Cities and Citizens: The Refiguring of Urban Spaces and the Making of Post-Mao Professionals." She has also started a new project with Mary Hanneman (IAS) collecting oral histories of former students of Tacoma's Japanese Language School. UWT now owns the School building and it is slated for destruction later this year. Outside of work Lisa loves to walk her dogs, Kaitak and Orly, and spend time with her family.