Youngho Yoo

Profile

I graduated with a BA (Hons) in History and Classical Civilization at the University of Toronto (2016), where I began to be interested in the topic of a construction of identity. I then focused on modern Jewish history – with a particular focus on French Jews – in MA programmes at King’s College London (2017) and Durham University (2021). In masters programmes, I explored diverse perspectives of the French towards French Jews; my dissertations examined how the French Right and Left viewed French Jews and their identity during the first half of the twentieth century.

Continuing my academic interests on French Jewish history, I expanded my research interests in the transnational, colonial and imperial contexts at the University of California, Irvine (2023). Before coming to Leeds, I taught some undergraduate-level history modules as a lecturer and a teaching assistant in South Korea and the United States.

In 2024, I started a PhD programme at the University of Leeds, funded by the White Rose College of the Arts and Humanities (WRoCAH). I am currently working on Alliance Israélite Universelle’s teachers who were working on the ground in Morocco between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; particularly, I am focusing on how these teachers envisioned “new” Jewish identity from their own perspectives. In addition, my research explores how these teachers on the ground understood the concept of “West” and “East”.

Research interests

• Modern French History
• French Jewish History
• Moroccan Jewish History
• Histories of Sephardi Jews
• Histories of Jewish Diaspora Communities
• Concepts of Modernity, Race/Ethnicity and West/East
• Colonialism and Imperialism

Qualifications

• MRes History
• BA History and Classical Civilization