Jeannie Shinozuka

Biography

Jeannie Shinozuka’s research interests center on Asian American studies and history, environmental history, and the history of medicine and science. Her first book, Biotic Borders: Transpacific Plant and Insect Migration and the Rise of Anti-Asian Racism in America, 1890-1950 (University of Chicago Press, 2022) received honorable mention for the Frederick Jackson award from the Organization of American Historians and was longlisted for the International Convention of Asia Scholars: ICAS Book Prize-Humanities. She is currently working on two book projects. Global Biotic Borders: Race and Asian Insect and Plant Migration in an International Context is on recent Asian biological invasions in Europe and Latin America, including the Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus) and Asian citrus psyllid (Diaphornina citri Kuwayama or ACP). Model Minority Intelligence: Race and Asian Americans in Education is on the relational racial construction of Asian American and African American students in the early twentieth century in order to better understand the interrelationship between intelligence testing, scientific racism, and citizenship.

 

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy, History, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

Dissertation Title: From a Contagious to a Poisonous Yellow Peril: Japanese and Japanese Americans in Public Health and Agriculture, 1890s-1950

• Master of Arts, Asian American Studies, University of California, Los Angeles

Thesis Title: The Past and the Present: Asian American Women in Medicine

• Bachelor of Arts, History and Political Science, Minor in Gender Studies, Honors Program, Cum Laude, La Sierra University

Research Interests

• Asian American Studies
• Environmental Studies
• Ethnic Studies
• History of Medicine, Science, and Technology
• International Migration
• Japanese American Studies
• Modern America, Science, Technology, and Society Studies
• Social Theory
• Transnational American Studies
• Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Publications

Book

• Biotic Borders: Transpacific Plant and Insect Migration and the Rise of Anti-Asian Racism in America, 1890-1950. University of Chicago Press, 2022.

 

Refereed Articles

• Shinozuka, Jeannie N. “Murderous Hornets, Crushing Lanternflies, and Silken Jorō Webs: Racialized Responses to New Asian Bio-Invasions.” In Nature Unfurled: Asian American Environmental Histories, edited by Connie Y. Chiang. University of Washington Press, 2024: 65-90.
• Shinozuka, Jeannie N. and Rohan Deb Roy. “White Ants: From Biotic Borders to Biocultural Frontiers.” In Isis Focus: Insect Histories, edited by Lisa Onaga and Dominik Hünniger vol. 115, no. 1 (March 2024): 131-35.
• Shinozuka, Jeannie N. “Deadly Perils: Japanese Beetles and the Pestilential Immigrant, 1920-1930.” American Quarterly vol. 65, no. 4 (December 2013): 831-52.

 

Book Reviews and Encyclopedia Entries

• Shinozuka, Jeannie N. Dentinger, Rachel. Review of The Two Faces of Coevolution: How an Evolutionary Theory of Interspecies Entanglement Emerged from the mid-20th-Century Effort to Fight Insect Pests (under consideration, University of Chicago Press).
• Shinozuka, Jeannie N. Kritsky, Gene. Review of A Cultural History of Insects vol. 1-6. Bloomsbury, 2024. In Isis vol. 116, no. 3 (September 2025): 598-599.
• Shinozuka, Jeannie N. Lyon, Cherstin M. Review of Prisons and Patriots: Japanese American Wartime Citizenship, Civil Disobedience, and Historical Memory. Temple University Press, 2012. In the Journal of American Ethnic History vol. 32, issue 4 (Summer 2013): 94-96.
• Shinozuka, Jeannie N. “Japanese American Agriculture.” In Asian American History and Culture: An Encyclopedia, edited by Huping Ling and Allan W. Austin. M. E. Sharpe, 2010: 381-382.
• Shinozuka, Jeannie N. Molina, Natalia. Review of Fit to be Citizens? Public Health and Race in Los Angeles, 1879-1939. University of California Press, 2006. In the Journal of American Ethnic History vol. 26, no. 2 (Winter 2007): 137-140.