Min Joo Lee's research and teaching expertise are positioned at the intersection of Asian Studies, Gender Studies, and Media Studies.
More specifically, her research and teaching expertise revolves around South Korean gender and race relations, transnational feminism, transnational media, and sexuality and eroticism. Min Joo Lee's first book project, tentatively titled Finding Mr. Perfect: Korean Television Dramas, Romance, and Race, examines the gendered and racial politics of the transnational popularity of Korean popular culture. Her second book-length research project, tentatively titled Digital Rape: Illicit Pornography, Sexual Consent, and Race, analyzes the transnational dissemination of illegal and non-consensual Korean sex videos to examine how digital media have generated new forms of sexual and racial violence. Prior to coming to Occidental College, she worked at Wellesley College and Indiana University, Bloomington.
At Occidental College, she teaches classes on Korea (“Introduction to Korean Society & Culture”), South Korean media (“Korean Popular Culture”), and gender (“Asian Feminisms” and “Romance and Sexuality in Asia”). Min Joo Lee is committed to creating a classroom environment where everyone can discuss key issues from a transnational and intersectional framework. Furthermore, she strives to create a classroom environment where folks learn to work across differences in world views. She does so in hopes that the folks in her class will incorporate these skills in their future – academic as well as nonacademic – endeavors to work with others who have different opinions and backgrounds.