Profile
Christina H. Lee is Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and Acting Chair of the Humanities Council at Princeton University (2025-2026). She is also a member of the Center for Culture, Society, and Religion’s Executive Committee, an associated faculty member in the Program of Indigenous Studies, Latin American Studies, and the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies. Professor Christina Lee also serves as a Faculty Fellow for Novogratz Bridge Year, in the Faculty Advisory Board of the Emma Bloomberg Center for Access and Opportunity, and as the faculty board member of the Princeton Alumni Weekly.
Christina Lee’s research focuses on the literary, social, and cultural productions of Iberian Spain and the Spanish Transpacific during the early modern period. She has published eight books. Among them, Saints of Resistance: Devotions in the Philippines under Early Spanish Rule (Oxford University Press, 2021), The Anxiety of Sameness in Early Modern Spain(Manchester University Press, 2015, 2018), The Routledge Companion to Race in Early Modern Artistic, Material, and Visual Production with Nicholas Jones and Dominique Polanco, The Spanish Pacific, 1521-1815: A Reader of Primary Sources, Volume 1 (Amsterdam University Press, 2020) and Volume 2 (Amsterdam University Press, 2024) with Ricardo Padrón, Western Visions of the Far East in a Transpacific Age (Routledge, 2012, 2017), Reading and Writing Subjects in Medieval and Golden Age Spain (Juan de la Cuesta, 2016) with José Luis Gastañaga, and the Spanish edition of Lope de Vega’s Los mártires de Japón (Juan de la Cuesta, 2006).
Christina Lee is the co-director, with Cristina Martínez-Juan (SOAS-University of London) of Reclaiming the Lost Archive of the Convento de San Agustin, which digitally repatriated about 1,000 books and manuscripts that were seized from the library of the Church of San Agustín during the British occupation of Manila (1762-1764). An alternate view of the materials may be found in the Digital Princeton University Library site.
Christina Lee is also the co-editor, with Julia Schleck, of the global history book series Connected Histories in the Early Modern World.
Education
- Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures at Princeton University
Selected Publications
- Saints of Resistance: Devotions in the Philippines of Early Spanish Rule (Oxford University Press, 2021)
- The Anxiety of Sameness in Early Modern Spain (Manchester University Press, 2015)
- The Spanish Pacific, 1521-1815: A Reader of Primary Sources (with Ricardo Padrón, Amsterdam University Press, 2020)
- The collection of essays Western Visions of Far East in a Transpacific Age (Routledge [Ashgate], 2012),
- Reading and Writing Subjects in Medieval and Golden Age Spain: Essays in Honor of Ronald E. Surtz (with José Luis Gastañaga, Juan de la Cuesta, 2016), and the Spanish edition of Lope de Vega’s
- Los mártires de Japón (Juan de la Cuesta, 2006).
- She is also the co-editor of the global history book series Connected Histories in Early Modern Europe (with Julia Schleck), at Amsterdam University Press.