David Johnson Lee
EMPLOYMENT
Current:
Assistant Professor of History
Department of History, Anthropology, and Political Science
Adams State University
Alamosa, CO
Previous:
Visiting Assistant Professor
History, Political Science, and International Studies Department
Manhattan University
Riverdale, NY
Teaching Fellow
Honors College
Rutgers University
New Brunswick, NJ
Visiting Assistant Professor
College of Liberal Arts
Temple University
Philadelphia, PA
Instructor
NJ-STEP Prison Education Program
A.C. Wagner Correctional Facility, Garden State Correctional Facility, South Woods Correctional Facility, NJ
In collaboration with College of New Jersey, Rutgers University, Raritan Valley Community College.
EDUCATION
Ph.D. Temple University, United States and Latin American History
M.A. University of Georgia, United States History
B.A. Georgia State University
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Books:
Reviewed in H-Diplo Roundtable, Diplomatic History, Journal of Latin American Studies, Journal of American Studies, Journal of Cold War Studies, Hispanic American Historical Review, Choice, Strategic Visions.
Translations:
Miguel Ángel Asturias, Weekend in Guatemala. Translated by David Johnson Lee. Verso Books, 2026.
Peer-reviewed Articles and Reviews:
AWARDS AND GRANTS
2024 Rutgers University Lecturer Professional Development Fund
2019 London School of Economics Nicaraguan Revolution Workshop Grant
2018 University of Leiden Liberal World Order Workshop Grant
2017 Universität Wuppertal Nicaraguan Revolutionary Culture Conference Grant
2015 Temple History Arthur N. Cook Outstanding Graduate Student Award
2014 Temple University Dissertation Completion Grant
2014 SHAFR Samuel Flagg Bemis Research Award
2014 Center for Humanities Advanced Graduate Scholar Award
2013 Travel Grant, New Cold War Workshop, University of Tübingen, Germany
2013 Votaw Endowed Research Award
2012 Wachman Endowed Graduate Research Fellowship
2012 Temple University College of Liberal Arts Research Grant
2008-2012 Temple University Presidential Fellowship
2004-2006 University of Georgia Teaching Assistantship
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
General Education
Service Learning/Community Engaged Learning
Rutgers University Honors Forum colloquium
Introduction to Social Justice
Immigrant America
Seminar
Temple University Intellectual Heritage I: The Good Life
Temple University Intellectual Heritage II: The Common Good
Global Studies
Introductory
Introduction to Global Studies
The Global Crisis: Power, Politics and the Making of Our Times
World History to 1500
World History since 1300
U.S. Political Culture since World War I
Upper Level
Third World Issues through Film
Global Human Rights
Global Society & Culture since 1945
Latin American Studies
Introductory
Introduction to Latin America
Modern Latin America
Representing Race
Migration in the Americas
Race in the Americas
Latin America in Literature and Film
Upper Level
Indigenous Voices in the Americas
Latino Identity in the United States
History of Mexico
Contemporary Mexico
Cultures of the Spanish Speaking World
Latin American Studies (Race, Gender, and Environment)
US Studies
Introductory
U.S. History since 1865
American Revolutions
American Social Justice
Representing Race
Race in the Americas
Upper Level
Latino Identity in the United States
Media and American Culture, 1706-Present
Urban History
Seminar on US Foreign Policy
Women in the United States
Graduate
American Diplomacy
Universities
Adams State University, Alamosa, CO
Manhattan University, Bronx, NY
Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ.
Temple University, Philadelphia, PA.
Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA.
NJ-STEP Program: A.C. Wagner Correctional Facility, Garden State Correctional Facility, South Woods Correctional Facility, NJ.
CONFERENCES AND TALKS
2025, Alamosa, CO. Rocky Mountain Anthropological Conference.
Paper: “Ri ubix ri ulew: Translating Humberto Ak’abal between Languages and Worlds.”
2025, Alamosa, CO. Adams State University.
Faculty Lecture: “Ri ubix ri ulew: Translating History and Language in Maya Poetry.”
2025, Chicago, Il. Saint Xavier University.
Invited talk on David J. Lee, The Ends of Modernization.
2024, Toronto, Canada. Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.
Roundtable: “New Histories of the Nicaraguan Revolution.”
2024, New Brunswick, NJ. Rutgers Honors College Genocide Workshop.
Seminar: “Memory, Reconciliation, and Justice in Guatemala.”
2024, Philadelphia, PA. Temple University College of Liberal Arts Teaching Colloquium.
Invited Talk: “Frantz Fanon: Psychiatry, Philosophy, Militancy.”
2023, Philadelphia, PA. Temple University. Temple Association of University Professionals.
Organizer and host, Speaker series: “Labor in Higher Education.”
2023, Houston, Tx. University of Houston-Downtown.
Invited talk on David J. Lee, The Ends of Modernization.
2023, Washington, DC. Washington History Seminar. Co-hosted by The National History Center and the Wilson Center.
Invited talk on David J. Lee The Ends of Modernization.
2021, Ithaca, NY. Cornell University Press United States in the World Series
Authors in Conversation. “Dollars and Development in the Late Cold War.”
2019, New York, NY. Society for U.S. Intellectual History.
Paper: “The New Deal in the New Frontier: Planning Cold War Politics in the 1960s.”
2019, London, England. London School of Economics Workshop: International, Transnational, and Global Histories of the Nicaraguan Revolution, 1977-1990, “Sandinista Afterlives: Protest, Memory, and Intervention in Contemporary Nicaragua.”
Paper: “Devórame Otra Vez!: Pacts, Development, and the Afterlives of Sandinismo in Contemporary Nicaragua.”
2019, Boston, MA. Latin American Studies Association.
Paper: “Indigenous Autonomy on the Isthmus: Indigenous Rights and International Development in Central America after the 1960s.”
2018, Chicago, IL. Society for United States Intellectual History.
Panel Organizer, “Intellectuals in the Service of Power: Urban Development, Disorder, and Design in the 1960s.”
Paper: “Disclaiming the Lockean Inheritance: History, Consensus, and Development in U.S. Politics.”
2018, Philadelphia, PA. Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.
Panel Organizer: “Indigenous Movements, Decolonization, and the Question of Sovereignty.”
Paper: “Autonomy and Empire on the Isthmus: Indigenous Rights and U.S. Foreign Policy in Central America.”
2018, Leiden, The Netherlands. University of Leiden Workshop, “Challenging the Liberal World Order: The History of the Global South, Decolonization and the United Nations, 1955-2000.”
Paper: “Institutional Insurrection: North-South Confrontation over the New International Economic Order in the United Nations”
2018, Pittsburgh, PA. Northeast Modern Language Association.
Paper: “The Body Metamorphosed: Representation and Memory in Mexico City after Ayotzinapa”
2017, Wuppertal, Germany. Universität Wuppertal Nicaraguan Revolutionary Culture Conference.
Paper: “The Ends of Modernization: Development, Ideology, and Catastrophe in Nicaragua after the Alliance for Progress”
2017, Philadelphia, PA. Temple University Richard Immerman Symposium.
Paper: “The Miskito Robinson Crusoe: Marooning Nicaragua between Modernization and Neoliberalism”
2016, Philadelphia, PA. Temple University Works in Progress Symposium.
Paper: “Concertación and Sustainable Development: Institutionalizing Precarity in Post-War Nicaragua”
2015, Philadelphia, PA. Temple University. Temple-Tübingen Exchange Program Workshop.
Discussant: Panel on the Global Cold War
2014, Philadelphia, PA. Temple University. Peripheries Conference at the Center for the Humanities at Temple. Co-Organizer.
2013, Tübingen, Germany. University of Tübingen New Cold War Workshop.
Paper: “Retracing Imperial Paths on the Mosquito Coast: The Case of the Miskito Indians at the End of the Cold War and Beyond”
2012, Philadelphia, PA. Greater Philadelphia Latin American Studies Consortium.
Paper: “Decentering Managua: Post-Earthquake Reconstruction and Revolution in Nicaragua”
2011, Philadelphia, PA. Barnes Conference, Temple University.
Paper: “Witnesses for War and Peace: North American Revolutionary Tourists in 1980s Central America”
2010, Philadelphia, PA. Barnes Conference, Temple University.
Paper: “Public Diplomacy and Private Armies: Central America and Democratization in the 1980s”
PROFESSIONAL SERVICE
2019-present, Referee for Diplomatic History, Hispanic American Historical Review
2024-present, Editorial reviewer for Rowman & Littlefield Press
2024, Vice President, Organizing, Temple Association of University Professionals
2023-2024, Rutgers Honors College Liaison
2023, Temple Faculty Senate Constituency Member
2020-2023, Constituent Council member, Temple Association of University Professionals
PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS
American Historical Association
Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations
Latin American Studies Association
Society for U.S. Intellectual History
LANGUAGES
Fluent in English
Fluent in Spanish
Reading proficient in French
Reading proficient in German
Intermediate K’iche’