Our Faculty

Background

Cynthia Marasigan is a historian whose research and teaching interests include United States history from the mid-19^th century to the present, with particular engagement in U.S. Empire studies, comparative and relational studies of race, U.S.-Philippine and Filipino American history, and Afro-Asian histories. 

Her current book manuscript, Empire’s Color Lines: How African American Soldiers and Filipino Revolutionaries Transformed Amigo Warfare (forthcoming, Duke University Press), explores intersections of U.S. imperialism, Jim Crow, and colonial resistance by analyzing a range of interactions between Black soldiers and Filipinos during the Philippine-American War and its aftermath.

Select Publications

• “The Persistence of War through Migration,” in Filipinx American Studies: Reckoning, Reclamation, Transformation, eds. Rick Bonus and Antonio T. Tiongson, Jr. (New York: Fordham University Press, 2022), 67-82.
• “Race, Performance, and Colonial Governance: The Philippine Constabulary Band Plays the St. Louis World’s Fair.” Journal of Asian and Asian American Studies 22.3 (October 2019): 349-385.

Education

• PhD, History, University of Michigan
• MA, Historical Studies and Political Science, New School for Social Research
• BA, History, Binghamton University

Research Interests

• U.S. empire
• Comparative and relational studies of race
• Philippine and Filipino American history
• Afro-Asian histories

Teaching Interests

• Asian American history
• U.S. empire, race and citizenship
• Philippine and Filipino American history
• Afro-Asian histories
• Mixed race families

Awards

• Ford Foundation Postdoctoral and Dissertation Fellowships
• Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• J. William Fulbright Grant, Philippines
• George C. Marshall/Baruch Fellowship
• Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowship