About J. LoSavio

Welcome! My name is JoAnn LoSavio, and I am a cultural historian of the transnational twentieth century. In Fall 2020 I joined the Department of History at Washington State University, Vancouver as an Assistant Professor and Vancouver Coordinator for the RCI (Roots of Contemporary Issues) program. Click these links to visit my WSU profile: here, and here. I teach HIST 105 in the RCI/ROOTS program and courses on Southeast Asian history and Sports History.

On my website I frequently post book reviews and blog about my classroom experiences and teaching reflections. You’ll learn a lot about me from those pages too!

I received my PhD doctorate degree in History from Northern Illinois University in 2020. I earned a B.A. degree (Summa Cum Laude) at NIU in 2012 in History and Anthropology, with a minor in Southeast Asian Studies, and an M.A degree in Anthropology at Emory University in 2014.

I am a cultural historian of transnational exchange and migration, sports, youth, women’s history, and processes of decolonization. I have particular interests in oral history, and visual and material culture. My dissertation, “Modern Mandala: A Transnational History of Southeast Asian Youth from Burma, Malaya and Thailand, 1950-1970,” focuses on 20th century processes of decolonization, higher education, sports, and the transnational migrations of Southeast Asians in the United States and Britain. Click here to view my curriculum vitae.

I am as much a transnational and transcultural individual as my subjects, having lived in South Korea, Malaysia, and the United States. I am an immigrant, originally from Malaysia, and am a first generation university graduate. My background and experiences have greatly influenced who I am as an educator. Click here to view my teaching portfolio, teaching philosophy statement and a sample of pedagogical materials I have used in courses I have taught. 

I am proud to have been a Carter G. Woodson scholar for 2017-2019. The scholarship is part of the Rhoten A. Smith program which aims to increase minority and underrepresented students’ access to graduate education.

Publications include:

“The Figure of the Sportswoman, Sport, and Nationalism in Burma, 1956-70” Journal of Sport History Volume 48, Number 2, Summer 2021: 135-150. URL: https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/uip/jsh/article/48/2/135/293987/The-Figure-of-the-Sportswoman-Sport-and 

“Temporary Thais: Circular Thai-U.S. Migration in the 1960s” Journal of American Ethnic History, Volume 40, Issue 4, Summer 2021: 41-85. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/jamerethnhist.40.4.0041 

“Burma in the Southeast Asia Peninsula Games, 1950-1970: Buddhism, Bodhisattvas, Decolonization, and Nation Making through Sport,” The International Journal of the History of Sport Supplemental Issue Asian Journal of Sport History and Culture (2020). DOI: 10.1080/09523367.2020.1846527  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09523367.2020.1846527?src=

Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific, of Cynthia Joseph’s Growing up Female in Multi-Ethnic Malaysia (New York and London: Routledge, 2014. ISBN: 978-0-415-62922-5 (hbk); x + 212 pp). You can read my review here.

In 2019, the Immigration and Ethnic History Society website published my  blog article, “Educated Professionals: Thai Women in Transnational Perspective,” which can be read here. 

I have previously published poetry in EastLit Journal, Toasted Cheese Literary Journal and When Women Waken (a literary journal).

Thank you for visiting my personal academic website!

Have a wonderful day!

Dr J. LoSavio