Chin Jou, Ph.D.

Brackenridge Endowed Chair in Literature and the Humanities

Associate Professor, Interdisciplinary School for Engagement

Chin Jou’s research interests include twentieth-century U.S. history, American studies, medical humanities, food studies, and carceral studies.

Jou’s current book manuscript, “Captive Consumers: Prison Food in the Era of Mass Incarceration,” examines the history, politics, sociology, and business of prison food in the United States. She is also the author of “Supersizing Urban America: How Inner Cities Got Fast Food with Government Help” (University of Chicago Press, 2017).

Jou has published research articles on a range of topics related to U.S. food policies, obesity, African American history, nutrition science, gender and diet culture, race relations, and the prison industrial complex. Her work has been featured in refereed academic journals including American Quarterly, the Journal of Urban History, The New England Journal of Medicine, Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies, The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, International Labor and Working-Class History, and others. Her essays have also appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Scientific American, and HuffPost, and her research and expertise have been featured on National Public Radio, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Politico, Vice, and other radio and print media outlets in the United States and Australia.

Prior to joining the UTSA faculty in fall 2023, Jou taught in the history department at the University of Sydney from 2014 to 2023, where she received a Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Excellence in Teaching Award in 2019. She has held fellowships from the National Institutes of Health, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Humanities Center, and has held a visiting professorship in history of science at Harvard University.

Jou earned her Ph.D. and M.A. in History from Princeton University.