JOHN LIE was born in South Korea, grew up in Japan and in Hawaii, and attended Harvard University where he received A.B. magna cum laude in Social Studies in 1982 and Ph.D. in Sociology in 1988. Currently he is C.K. Cho Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. Lie's main scholarly interest is social theory. After working on a reconceptualization of "markets," he sought to rethink the categories of modern peoplehood - race, ethnicity, and nation - which was published as Modern Peoplehood (Harvard University Press, 2004). He is currently working on a systematic work of social theory, tentatively entitled The Consolation of Social Theory. In addition, he is completing a series of books on topics that have bedeviled him: violence, democracy, and the modern (global) university. He also serves on the editorial board of over a dozen journals. Lie has also devoted considerable energy to undergraduate teaching and academic administration. His interest in pedagogy has culminated in an introductory textbook, Sociology: Your Compass for a New Century (with Robert Brym, Wadsworth, 2003), which has been translated into many languages. From 2004 to 2009, he was the Dean of International and Area Studies at Berkeley.