S ORA Y. H AN
Department of Criminology, Law & Society
2319 Social Ecology II
University of California
Irvine, CA 92697-7080
Office: (949) 824-0050
Mobile: (510) 872-6333
Fax: (949) 824-3001
[email protected]
ACADEMIC POSITIONS
University of
California, Irvine
Dept. of Criminology, Law & Society and
School of Law (affiliations with African
American Studies, Gender & Sexuality
Studies, and Ph.D. program in Culture &
Theory)
Associate Professor
2016-present
Assistant Professor
2008-2016
University of
California, Berkeley
School of Law, Center for the Study of
Law & Society
Visiting Scholar &
Postdoctoral Fellow
2006-2008
Columbia University
Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race
Adjunct Professor
2005-2006
School of Law, Center for the Study of
Law & Culture
Visiting Researcher
2004-2005
EDUCATION
Ph.D. History of Consciousness (parenthetical in Feminist Studies), University of California, Santa Cruz, 2006
J.D. (concentration in Critical Race Studies), University of California, Los Angeles, 2004
B.A. Comparative Ethnic Studies (Summa Cum Laude), University of California, Berkeley, 1999
PUBLICATIONS
BOOKS
B4. Mu, the First Letter of an Anti-Colonial Alphabet (in progress).
B3. Slavery as Contract: A Study in the Case of Blackness (in progress).
B2. Letters of the Law: Race and the Fantasy of Colorblindness in American Law (Stanford UP, 2015).
B1. Comparative Equality and Anti-Discrimination Law: Cases, Codes, Constitutions, and Commentary, coauthored with David Oppenheimer and Sheila Foster (Foundation Press, Fall 2012).
JOURNAL ARTICLES
JO6. “The Anti-Colonial Errancy of Mu” (manuscript available).
JO5. “Race, Visuality, and Criminology” in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal
Justice (forthcoming Fall 2017).
JO4. “Slavery as Contract: On Betty’s Case and the Question of Freedom” in Law & Literature (Fall 2015).
JO3. “Abolition: At Issue, In Any Case” in Lateral, Issue 3 (Spring 2014).
JO2. “The Purloined Prisoner” in Theoretical Criminology, vol. 16, no. 2 (June 2012).
JO1. “The Long Shadow of Racial Profiling” British Journal of American Legal Studies, vol. 1, issue 1
(Birmingham City University School of Law, Spring 2012).
BOOK CHAPTERS
BC3. “Equal Protection’s Dead End, or the Slave’s Undying Claim” in Anne Richardson Oakes (ed.),
Controversies in Equal Protection Cases in America: Race, Gender and Sexual Orientation (Surrey, UK:
Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2015), pp. 49-64.
BC2. “Strict Scrutiny: The Tragedy of Constitutional Law” in Patricia T. Clough & Craig Willse (eds.), Beyond
Biopolitics: Essays on the Governance of Life and Death (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011), pp.
106-135.
BC1. “Intersectional Sensibilities and the Shudder” in Renée Heberle (ed.), Feminist Interpretations of Theodor
Adorno (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2006), pp. 173-191.
LAW REVIEW ARTICLES
LR2. “The Conditional Logic of Strict Scrutiny: Race and Sexuality in Constitutional Law” in Stanford Journal
of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, vol. IV, issue 1 (Stanford Law School, April 2008): 77-112.
LR1. “The Politics of Race in Asian American Jurisprudence” in Asian Pacific American Law Journal, vol. 11,
no. 1 (UCLA School of Law, Spring 2006): 1-40.
BOOK REVIEWS
BR2. Review of Michelle Brown, The Culture of Punishment: Prison, Society, and Spectacle for Law and
Society Review, vol. 45, no. 2 (June 2011): 518-520.
BR1. Review of Mary Bosworth and Jeanne Flavin, eds., Race, Gender & Punishment: From Colonialism to
the War on Terror for Theoretical Criminology, vol. 12, no. 2 (London: Sage, May 2008): 250-253.
SELECT PRESENTATIONS
Invited Talks
“Decolonizing Revolutionary
Theory: Comments”
The Social Justice Institute, University of British
Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
January 2017
“Law, Violence, and Fanon”
Law and Violence Working Group, University of
California, Irvine, Humanities Research Institute
November 2016
“The Anti-Colonial Errancy of Mu”
The Black Outdoors Speaker Series
Duke University, Franklin Humanities Institute
October 2016
“Emergency/Poetics: Remembering
Nasser Hussain”
Inhabiting the Impasse: A Symposium on Race,
Law & Colonialism, University of Illinois,
Chicago, Social Justice Initiative
April 2016
“The Poetics of American
Constitutionalism”
Intersections in American Constitutionalism Panel
University of California, Irvine, Dept. of
Criminology, Law & Society
“Law, Language, and Letters of the
Law”
Law and Society II Graduate Seminar
University of California, Irvine, Dept. of
Criminology, Law & Society
“Race, Gender, and Criminology”
Criminology and Criminal Justice Program, School
of Law, University of London, Birkbeck
Han: 2 of 7
February 2016
November 2015
July 2015
“Gender, Inequality and Law”
Law and Society I Graduate Seminar
University of California, Irvine, Dept. of
Criminology, Law & Society
May 2015
“Slavery as Contract”
Law and Poetry Symposium
University of California, Riverside
“Sing or Your Life”
The Liquid Plain Symposium
University of California, Irvine
“50th Anniversary Roundtable: The
(Not So Common) Place of Law”
Law and Society Association Annual Meeting
Minneapolis, MN
May 2014
“The Racial Politics of American
Federalism”
UC Center for New Racial Studies Symposium
UC Hastings College of Law, San Francisco, CA
May 2014
“Indigenous as Alien: Comments”
Law as…Glossolalia Symposium
University of California, Irvine, School of Law
“Comments on The Law is a White
Dog”
Race and the Jurisgenerative Principle Symposium
University of California, Irvine
“Anti-Colonialism and the Critique
of Law”
Critical Ethnic Studies Annual Meeting
Chicago, IL
“Betty’s Choice”
Race and Ethnic Studies Division of the Cultural
Studies Association, Chicago, IL
May 2013
“The EUs Racial Equality
Directive: A Shadow Reading”
Comparative Affirmative Action Conference
University of California, Berkeley School of Law
April 2013
“Bell’s Invitation, Betty’s Arrival”
Center for Law, Society & Culture Colloquium
University of California, Irvine
April 2013
“Law’s Animacies”
Beatrice Bain Research Group Spring Panel
University of California, Berkeley
April 2013
“Bell’s Invitation, Betty’s Arrival”
Identity and Difference Seminar
University of California, Irvine, School of Law
March 2013
“Derrick Bell’s Fanonian Leap”
Fifth Annual Critical Race Studies Symposium
UCLA School of Law
March 2013
“Letters of the Law”
Faculty Colloqium
University of Hawaii, Manoa, School of Law
January 2013
“The Legal Lyric of Civil Rights”
Anti-Colonial Machine Working Group
Amherst College, Amherst, MA
“The Materiality of Treasure’s
Letter”
Cultural Studies Association
San Diego, CA
March 2015
February 2015
March 2014
October 2013
September 2013
September 2012
April 2012
“Feminine Jouissance and the Law” Graduate seminar on Race and Psychoanalysis
University of California, San Diego
March 2012
“Asian Americans In Theory”
Asian American Law Journal Symposium
University of California, Berkeley Law School
March 2012
“Derrida’s Abolitionism”
Abolition Pedagogies Conference
University of California, Berkeley
Han: 3 of 7
October 2011
“Race in Political Theory”
Anti-Colonial Machine Working Group
Duke University, Durham, NC
“Towards a Punishment Studies”
Law and Society Association
San Francisco, CA
June 2011
“Abolition Without Condition”
Cultural Studies Association
Chicago, CA
March 2011
“Unbecoming: A Reading of
Torward a Global Idea of Race”
American Studies Association
San Antonio, TX
November 2010
“The Shadow of Sexual Privacy”
Violence and the Law Symposium
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
September 2010
“So Many Letters”
Sites of Critique in a Dystopic World Roundtable
Pembroke Center, Brown University, RI
April 2010
“The Exemplar of Arizona in Sun
Belt Justice”
Panel on Mona Lynch’s Sun Belt Justice
University of California, Irvine
April 2010
“Writing the Wall”
Cultural Studies Association
Berkeley, CA
“The Full-Circle of
Prison/Education”
Prison/Education Panel
University of California, Irvine
“The Catch-22 of Legal
Interpretation”
The Interpretive Violence of the Law Symposium
University of California, Riverside
January 2010
“What I Learned From Angela”
Angela Y. Davis: Legacies in the Making
University of California, Santa Cruz
October 2009
“Comments on Law and
Inheritance”
Center for Law, Culture and Society
University of California, Irvine
November 2008
“Regulation, Bureaucracy and
Civil Rights”
Humanities Research Institute
University of California, Irvine
November 2008
“Comparing Crime and
Colorblindness”
Comparative Racial Injustice
Paris X University, Nanterre, France
June 2008
“Comparative Equality Law in
Educational Reform”
Law course in Comparative Equality Law
Paris X University, Nanterre, France
June 2008
“The New and Non of US Bound
Immigration”
Association for Asian American Studies
Chicago, IL
May 2008
“Indigenous Studies Today:
Theories We Live By”
Native American and Indigenous Studies
University of Georgia, Athens, GA
April 2008
“Torture and the Press of the
Present”
Panel for staged reading of The Press
University of Southern California, Los Angeles
“Themes in Race, Nation &
Sexuality”
Seminar in Asian American Studies
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
“Intersectionality and
Interdisciplinarity”
Critical Race Feminisms
Stanford Law School, Palo Alto, CA
Han: 4 of 7
October 2011
March 2010
February 2010
March 2008
September 2007
April 2007
“Racial Profiling as Constitutional
Interpretation”
Seminar in Critical Race Theory
School of Law, UCLA
January 2007
“The Tragedy of Constitutional
Law: Race, Internment, Sexuality”
Beyond Biopolitics Symposium
The City University of New York, Graduate Center
March 2006
“The Prison House of Trauma: On
Wiseman’s Titicut Follies (1967)”
The Cinema of Internment
School of Law, Columbia University, NY
March 2005
“Themes in Equal Protection and
Race”
African American Studies Department
University of California, Los Angeles
“Women’s Imprisonment,
Commanding View”
Instruments of Torture: Middle Ages to the Present
Herbst International Exhibition Hall, San Francisco, CA
November 2003
June 2001
Other Conferences and Symposia
“Violence and the Question of
Consent”
Law and Society Association Annual Meeting
New Orleans, LA
June 2016
“Violence and the Question of
Consent”
Law and Society Association Annual Meeting
Seattle, WA
May 2015
“Slavery as Contract”
Cultural Studies Association Annual Meeting
Riverside, CA
May 2014
“Critical Criminology and the
Black Radical Tradition”
American Society of Criminology Annual Meeting
San Francisco, CA
November 2014
“Settler Colonialism and AntiBlackness”
American Studies Association Annual Meeting
Los Angeles, CA
November 2014
“Slavery as Contract”
Law and Society Association Annual Meeting
Minneapolis, MN
May 2014
“Law and the Afterlife of Slavery”
Law and Society Association Annual Meeting
Boston, MA
June 2013
“The Tortious Torture of Social
Life”
American Studies Association Annual Meeting
San Juan, Puerto Rico
“Mass Incarceration After
Intersectionality”
Fourth Annual Critical Race Studies Symposium
UCLA School of Law
“Sustained: Declarations of Law,
Demands for Justice”
American Studies Association Annual Meeting
Washington, DC
November 2009
“The Epistolary Landscape of Mass
Incarceration”
American Studies Association Annual Meeting
Albuquerque, NM
October 2008
“Strict Scrutiny”
Assoc. for Study of Law, Culture & the Humanities
Georgetown Law Center, Washington, DC
“On Owning the Past”
Storytelling and the Law Conference
Emory Law School, Atlanta, GA
Han: 5 of 7
November 2012
March 2010
March 2007
October 2006
TEACHING
Graduate
Undergraduate
Law and Society II
Critical Race Theory
Law and Violence
Law and Biopolitics
Constitution and Abolition
Gender and Power in Law and Society
Race and Incarceration
Law and Inequality
Constitutional Law
Critical Race Theory
Theories of Punishment
Comparative Study of Legal Cultures
HONORS & AWARDS
Award for Inclusive Excellence in Research
Junior Faculty Fellow
Visiting Scholar
Working Group Co-PI
UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship
Davis-Putter Scholarship
Experimental Critical Theory Fellowship
Visiting Research Fellowship
Vincent A. Marco Memorial Scholarship
Eugene Cota-Robles Graduate Fellowship
University Medal Finalist
Haas Scholars Research Fellowship
School of Social Ecology, UC Irvine
UC Irvine Hellman Fellowship
Beatrice Bain Research Group, UC Berkeley
UC Humanities Research Institute
UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program
Davis-Putter Scholarship Fund
Humanities Research Institute, UC Irvine
Columbia Law School
University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Santa Cruz
University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
2015
2013-2014
2012-2013
2010-2011
2006-2008
2002-2006
2005
2004-2005
2002-2003
2000-2002
1999
1998-1999
SELECT GRANTS
2017-2018 Faculty Research Grant, UC Consortium for Black Studies, $6,500.
2016-2017 DECADE Graduate Mentor Diversity Award, UC Irvine Graduate Division, $31,800.
2015-2016 Graduate Growth Incentive Award, UC Irvine Graduate Division, $10,600.
2013-2014 Faculty Research Grant, UC Irvine Hellman Fellowship, $9,000.
2013-2014 Faculty Research Grant, UC Center for New Racial Studies, $6,800.
2013-2014 Faculty Research Grant, UC Irvine Humanities Collective, $2,000.
2013-2014 Collaborative Projects Grant, UC Irvine Center in Law, Society and Culture, $1,850.
2010-2011 Working Group Co-PI, UC Humanities Research Institute, $10,000.
2010-2011 Symposium Organizer, UC Irvine Center in Law, Society and Culture, $5,000.
SERVICE
PROFESSIONAL
Board Member, Theoretical Criminology (Fall 2011-present)
Trustee, Davis-Putter Scholarship Fund (Fall 2010-present)
Program Committee Member, Cultural Studies Association (Spring 2015-Spring 2016)
Planning Committee Member, West Coast Law and Society Retreat (Fall 2015-Winter 2016)
Awards Committee, Law and Society Association (Winter 2015)
LSA-ABF Dissertation Fellowship Committee, Law and Society Association (Fall 2014)
Executive Committee, Cultural Studies Association (Fall 2010-Spring 2014)
LSA-ABF Postdoctoral Fellowship Committee, Law and Society Association (Fall 2013)
Manuscript Reviewer, Theoretical Criminology; Law and Social Inquiry; Law, Culture and the Humanities;
PhiloSOPHIA, Punishment & Society, American Quarterly, Duke University Press
Han: 6 of 7
ACADEMIC
Department/School
Member, Graduate Admissions Committee, Criminology, Law and Society (Winter 2017)
DECADE Mentor, Criminology, Law and Society (Fall 2015-present)
Faculty Diversity Committee Chair, Criminology, Law and Society (Fall 2015-present)
Diversity and Justice Speaker Series Committee, Criminology, Law and Society (Spring 2015-Spring 2016)
Faculty Diversity Committee Member, Criminology, Law and Society (Fall 2014-Spring 2015)
Graduate Comprehensive Exam Coordinator, Criminology, Law and Society (Fall 2013-Spring 2015)
Graduate Admissions Committee, Criminology, Law and Society (Fall 2011-Winter 2012)
Law and Society Graduate Curriculum Committee, Criminology, Law and Society (Spring 2009-Spring 2012)
Faculty Ambassador, Social Ecology Undergraduate Recruitment (Spring 2011)
Awards Committee, Criminology, Law and Society (Spring 2011)
Campus
Selection Committee Member, Black Lives Matter Writing Contest, African American Studies (Winter 2017)
Director, Graduate Emphasis in Race and Justice Studies (Spring 2016-present)
Member, Academic Senate Subcommittee on Undergraduate Courses (Winter 2015-present)
Governing Board Member, International Studies Program (Winter 2015-present)
External Faculty Search Committee, Gender and Sexuality Studies (Fall 2014-Spring 2015)
Hellman Fellowship Advisory Committee, Graduate Division (Spring 2015)
Hellman Fellowship Advisory Committee, Graduate Division (Spring 2014)
Dean’s Fellowship Award Committee, Graduate Division (Spring 2013)
President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Workshop, UCI ADVANCE (Spring 2013)
Symposium Organizer, Center for Law, Society and Culture, UC Irvine (Spring 2011)
University System
External Application Review Committee, President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program (Fall 2012-present)
On-Site Application Review Committee, President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program (Winter 2015)
Application Review Committee, UC Center for New Racial Studies (Spring 2012)
On-Site Application Review Committee, President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program (Winter 2012)
Director, University of California Transnationalizing Justice Multicampus Research Group (2010-2011)
Co-Principal, University of California Humanities Research Institute Working Group, “The Post-Public
University and Its Discontents” (2010-2011)
Member, University of California Transnationalizing Justice Multicampus Research Group (2008-2010)
MEMBERSHIPS
American Studies Association (2002-present)
Cultural Studies Association (2010- present)
Law and Society Association (2010- present)
Han: 7 of 7