This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Keisha Brown, Mark Akpaninyie, and Leland Lazarus about initiatives they’re involved with to increase black representation in China-related fields. Keisha Brown is a historian of modern China who is an assistant professor in the Department of History, Political Science, Geography, and Africana Studies at Tennessee State University. Mark Akpaninyie is a researcher focusing on China’s Belt and Road Initiative, Chinese investment abroad, and China-Africa relations. Leland Lazarus is a foreign service officer stationed in Barbados, who recently joined Sinica for a discussion on China’s influence in the Caribbean.
8:24: Disciplines within China studies that need black voices
10:45: Underrepresentation within China studies
20:31: Black role models in East Asian academia
44:59: Right-wing populist parallels in America and China
51:35: Engaging communities of color in China studies
Recommendations:
Keisha: Asian Studies and Black Lives Matter, a digital dialogue conducted by the Association for Asian Studies, and the podcast Code Switch, by NPR.
Mark: A Chinese-language Black Lives Matter syllabus created by Amani Core.
Leland: The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History, by John M. Barry. Kaiser: How the pandemic defeated America, a story in the September issue of The Atlantic, by Ed Yong.
