Lei Guang

Biography
Lei Guang joined the political science department at San Diego State University after receiving his PhD from the University of Minnesota in 1999.  He has an MA degree in political science from the Johns Hopkins University.  He majored in English and American Studies in his college and post-graduate studies in China at Luoyang Foreign Languages University and the Nanjing-Hopkins University Center for Chinese and American Studies.  In 1995 he also spent a year studying modern Indian history and politics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in India.

Though housed in political science, he is interested in interdisciplinary approaches to the study of politics. His research interests are in the areas of Chinese politics, agrarian studies, labor migration, post-socialist transition and globalization. His scholarly publications fall under the following three categories: (1) contemporary Chinese political discourse; (2) the politics of internal migration and emerging new social classes in China; and (3) China’s external relations.  He is currently working on a series of projects related to the above areas, including the politics of labor market transformation in China, post-reform institutional development of the Chinese state, Overseas Chinese and foreign investment in China.  His research has been supported by grants and fellowships from the San Diego State University, Fred J Hansen Institute for World Peace, Center for East Asian Studies at Stanford University and the Program in Agrarian Studies at Yale University.

He has an edited volume, entitled Agriculture and Rural Connections in the Pacific (co-edited with James Gerber), forthcoming from the Ashgate Press.

A sample of his recent journal publications include:

Guang, L. (2005). "Guerrilla Workfare: Migrant Renovators, State Power and Informal Work in Urban China." Politics & Society 33(3): 481-506.
           
Guang, L. (2005). "The Market as Social Convention: Rural Migrants and the Making of China's Home Renovation Market." Critical Asian Studies 37(3).
                       
Guang, L. (2005). "Realpolitik nationalism: international sources of Chinese nationalism." Modern China 31(4): 487-514.
           
Guang, L. (2005). "The State Connection in China's Rural-Urban Migration." International Migration Review 39(2): 354-80.
           
Guang, L. and L. Zheng (2005). "Migration as the second-best option: local power and off-farm employment." The China Quarterly (181): 22-45.

His teaching repertoire include courses on international political economy and politics in the Asia Pacific region, including "Seminar in International Political Economy," "Government and Politics of East Asia," "International Relations of the Pacific Rim," "Politics of Globalization" and "The Politics of Developing Countries."
He was an avid player of Ping Pong and badminton, for which he still enjoys a small fame among his friends while growing up in China.  He loves any sport that involves the use of rackets (badminton, racket ball, and squash) or pedals (ping pong) that extend the reach of his arms. Now he spends most of his spare time playing with his school-age daughter and toddling son.  On Saturdays he tries, often unsuccessfully, to get out of the house for some soccer scrimmage in a nearby community park.