Kimberly Kay Hoang is an Associate Professor of Sociology and the College and the Director of Global Studies at the University of Chicago.
She is an award winning scholar, author, and teacher. She received the 2020 Lewis A Coser Award from the American Sociological Association Section on Sociological Theory— a mid-career award for Theoretical Agenda Setting. Her books and articles have been awarded over 18 prizes from several different professional associations. In addition to her research, she is the winner of the 2018 Llewellyn John and Harriet Manchester Quantrell Teaching at the University of Chicago.
Dr. Hoang is the author of, Dealing in Desire: Asian Ascendancy, Western Decline, and the Hidden Currencies of Global Sex Work (2015) published by the University of California Press. This monograph examines the mutual construction of masculinities, financial deal-making, and transnational political-economic identities. Her ethnography takes an in-depth and often personal look at both sex workers and their clients to show how high finance and benevolent giving are intertwined with intimacy in Vietnam’s informal economy. Dealing in Desire is the winner of seven distinguished book awards from multiple sections of the American Sociological Association, the National Women Studies Association, the Society for the Study of Social Problems, and the Association for Asian Studies.
With funding support from the Social Science Research Council, the Fulbright Global Scholar Award, and the ACLS she is currently finalizing her her second monograph Playing in the Gray that examines offshoring and foreign investment in frontier markets.
Her work has been published in American Sociological Review, Social Problems, Gender & Society, City & Community, Contexts, and the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography. Her peer reviewed journal articles have won over 12 prizes and honorable mentions from the Sociologists for Women in Society, Vietnam Scholars Group, and the American Sociological Association: Section on Global & Transnational Sociology, Section on Race, Gender and Class, Section on Sociology of Sex & Gender, Section on Sociology of Body and Embodiment, Section on Asia and Asian America, and the Section on Sexualities.