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TALK BY Dr. Keva X. Bui: America’s Ethnic Weapon: The Racial Scientific Imaginary of Napalm

This talk traces the racial history of napalm and other incendiary weapons across multiple Asian/American geographies of war in Japan, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Drawing from military science archives and anti-war newsletters from the Asian American movement, Dr. Bui will discuss how the research, development, and deployment of napalm relied on distinct racial formations of the Asian enemy Other–as unruly, inscrutable, insurgent, and terrorist. By articulating US Cold War military science as also racial science, this talk reveals how Asian racialization becomes integral to military and scientific innovation, from napalm to other weapons of mass destruction.

Keva X. Bui is a scholar of Asian American studies, feminist science and technology studies, and critical militarization studies. Their book project, Disarming Empire, develops an anti-war and abolitionist critique of US Cold War racial science as it shapes the research, development, and deployment of weapons of mass destruction. They are currently an Assistant Professor of Asian American Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.