Biography
Dr. Keva X. Bui is an Assistant Professor of Asian American studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where they research, teach, and write about histories and cultures of race, war, and science in the contexts of U.S. empire in Asia and the Pacific. Their current book project, Munitions Cultures: Anti-War Critique of Cold War Racial Science, collates analyses of literature, art, anti-war activism, scientists' papers, government memos, and military correspondence to re-examine the history of U.S. Cold War military science as a race-making knowledge formation in an era of total war. Bui’s writing can be found/is forthcoming in Amerasia Journal, Journal of Asian American Studies, Verge: Studies in Global Asias, and Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies.
Other current writing projects include 1) an article on the Cold War legacies of international schools in Asia, with specific focus on Taipei American School and enduring presences of U.S. militarism in Taiwan, and 2) a co-authored essay with Heidi Amin-Hong on diasporic, artistic, and community practices of ecological memory in the wake of the Vietnam War.
They are also a member of the Missing Piece Project, a collective of Vietnamese diasporic artists and activists invested in reimagining collective memory around the Vietnam War. They have previously organized with Viet Unity-Southern California and Hai Ba Trung School for Organizing. Prior to coming to UIUC, Bui was a President’s Postdoctoral Fellow at Pennsylvania State University with the Global Asias Initiative and is a former board member of the Association of Asian American Studies (AAAS).
Research Interests
Asian American studies; feminist science and technology studies; war in everyday life; militarism and capitalism; Cold War imperialisms; history of Cold War science; anti-war critique; environmental humanities; literary and cultural studies
Education
Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies with a certificate in Critical Gender Studies, University of California, San Diego
M.A. in Ethnic Studies, University of California, San Diego
B.A. in English and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Dartmouth College
Additional Campus Affiliations
Assistant Professor, Asian American Studies
Intellectual Property
Journal Articles
2024 - “Napalm’s University: Abolitionist Visions from the Anti-War Movement,” Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies 45.1, special issue “Asian American Abolition Feminisms,” eds. Rachel Kuo and Diane Wong (forthcoming)
2023 - “Eugenic Ecologies of Herbicidal Warfare in the Vietnam War,” Journal of Asian American Studies 26.3, special issue “Environmental Entanglements in Asian America” eds. Lisa Park and Simi Kang (forthcoming)
2022 - “Materialities of Empire in a More-than-Human World,” with Heidi Amin-Hong, Verge: Studies in Global Asias 8.2, Special Issue “Visualizing Asias: Interventions in Asian and Asian Diasporic Art,” eds. Laura Kina, Chang Tan, and Tina Chen (August 2022): 65-69
2022 - “A Game of Transformation,” Verge: Studies in Global Asias 8.2, Special Issue “Visualizing Asias: Interventions in Asian and Asian Diasporic Art,” eds. Laura Kina, Chang Tan, and Tina Chen (August 2022): 75-79
2021 - “Objects of Warfare: Infrastructures of Race and Napalm in the Vietnam War,” Amerasia Journal 47.2, Special Issue “Cold War Reformations,” eds. Crystal Mun-hye Baik and Wendy Cheng (Fall 2021): 299-313
Book Reviews
Review of Biotic Borders: Transpacific Plant and Insect Migration and the Rise of Anti-Asian Racism in America, 1890-1950, by Jeannie Shinozuka, Journal of Interdisciplinary History (Spring 2023)
Review of The Subject(s) of Human Rights: Crises, Violations, and Asian/American Critique, edited by Cathy J. Schlund-Vials, Guy Beauregard, and Hsiu-chuan Lee, Canadian Literature (Fall 2021)
Review of Migrant Futures: Decolonizing Speculation in Financial Times, by Aimee Bahng, Journal of Asian American Studies (June 2020)
Review of Sticky Rice: A Politics of Intraracial Desire, by Cynthia Wu, MELUS (April 2020)
Recent Publications
Bui, K. X. (2023). Eugenic Ecologies of Herbicidal Warfare in the Vietnam War. Journal of Asian American Studies, 26(3), 315-337. https://doi.org/10.1353/jaas.2023.a913082
Bui, K. X. (2023). Review: J. Shinozuka's Biotic Borders: Transpacific Plant and Insect Migration and the Rise of AntiAsian Racism in America, 1890–1950. Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 54(1), 141-142. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/6/article/902980
Amin-Hong, H., & Bui, K. X. (2022). Materialities of Empire in a More-than-Human World. Verge: Studies in Global Asias, 8(2), 65-89. https://doi.org/10.1353/vrg.2022.0028
Bui, K. X. (2021). Objects of Warfare: Infrastructures of Race and Napalm in the Vietnam War: Infrastructures of Race and Napalm in the Vietnam War. Amerasia Journal, 47(2), 299-313. https://doi.org/10.1080/00447471.2021.2021775
Bui, K. X. (2021). The (Im)possibility of Human Rights in Asian/American Studies. Canadian Literature, (246), 132-134.