•  803
    Symposium: Are Certain Knowledge Frameworks More Congenial to the Aims of Cross-Cultural Philosophy?
    with Leigh Jenco, Steve Fuller, Thaddeus Metz, and Miljana Milojevic
    Journal of World Philosophies 2 (2): 99-107. 2017.
    In “Global Knowledge Frameworks and the Tasks of Cross-Cultural Philosophy,” Leigh Jenco searches for the conception of knowledge that best justifies the judgment that one can learn from non-local traditions of philosophy. Jenco considers four conceptions of knowledge, namely, in catchwords, the esoteric, Enlightenment, hermeneutic, and self- transformative conceptions of knowledge, and she defends the latter as more plausible than the former three. In this critical discussion of Jenco’s article…Read more
  •  29
    Anti-Asian Racism
    American Philosophical Quarterly 60 (4): 411-424. 2023.
    Over the last twenty-five years, philosophers have offered increasingly more sophisticated accounts of the nature and wrongness of racism. But very little in this literature discusses what is distinctive to anti-Asian racism. This gap exists partly because philosophy, like much of U.S. culture, has been influenced by civic narratives that center anti-black racism in ways that leave vague anti-Asian racism. We discuss this conceptual gap and its effects on understanding anti-Asian racism. In resp…Read more
  •  5293
    Xenophobia and Racism
    Critical Philosophy of Race 2 (1): 20-45. 2014.
    Xenophobia is conceptually distinct from racism. Xenophobia is also distinct from nativism. Furthermore, theories of racism are largely ensconced in nationalized narratives of racism, often influenced by the black-white binary, which obscures xenophobia and shelters it from normative critiques. This paper addresses these claims, arguing for the first and last, and outlining the second. Just as philosophers have recently analyzed the concept of racism, clarifying it and pinpointing why it’s immor…Read more
  •  9
    Guest Editors' Introduction
    Critical Philosophy of Race 4 (1): 1-5. 2016.
  •  27
    Alterity, Analectics, and the Challenges of Epistemic Decolonization
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 57 (S1): 37-62. 2019.
    This essay explores some conceptual and diagnostic frameworks to advance epistemic decolonization in the US philosophical profession. A central focus is the distinction between those philosophies of formerly colonized peoples that are culturally alterior or, simply, alterior and those that are analectical in the Dusselian sense of emerging from a subordinated political position. The paper begins by reflecting upon connections between coloniality, the alterior, and the analectical to frame the di…Read more
  •  24
    As the title suggests, Taking Back Philosophy: A Multicultural Manifesto offers a critique of the profession of philosophy and an inclusive vision for its future. Importantly, unlike many philosophical critiques of philosophy, this book is not merely meta. It delivers a bona fide introduction to philosophy while exemplifying the kinds of conceptual sensitivities and skills that can help students see that philosophy is distinctively valuable. The author, Bryan Van Norden, provides compelling and …Read more
  •  10
    The 7 x 1 Fermi Surface Reconstruction in a Two-dimensional f-electron Charge Density Wave System: PrTe3
    with E. Lee, H. W. Kim, J. D. Denlinger, H. Kim, J. Kim, K. Kim, B. I. Min, B. H. Min, Y. S. Kwon, and J. -S. Kang
  •  501
    Recent work in philosophy of race involves Native American, Africana, and Latin American critiques of the sociohistorical specificity underlying allegedly universalist moral and political philosophy in the U.S. and the West generally. Joining the discussion, this essay explores American orientalism in terms of the imperialist expansion of the U.S. across the Pacific since the late 19th century. Toward this end, Hawai'i, Guam, and thereby the U.S. itself are conceptualized as geopolitical gestalt…Read more
  •  1
    Contempt and Ordinary Inequality
    In Susan E. Babbitt & Sue Campbell (eds.), Racism and Philosophy, Cornell University Press. 1999.
  •  939
    Imperialism rarely receives discussion in mainstream philosophy. In radical philosophy, where imperialism is analyzed with some frequency, European expansion is the paradigm. This essay considers the nature and specificity of American imperialism, especially its racialization structures, diplomatic history, and geographic trajectory, from pre‐twentieth century “Amerasia” to present‐day Eurasia. The essay begins with an account of imperialism generally, one which is couched in language consistent…Read more
  •  815
    José Mariátegui's East-South Decolonial Experiment
    Comparative and Continental Philosophy 7 (2): 157-179. 2015.
    Common notions of comparative philosophy tend to be strongly configured by the East-West axis. This essay suggests ways of seeing Latin American liberation philosophy as a form of comparative philosophy and an important Latin American thinker as being relevant for East-West political philosophy. The essay focuses on the Peruvian activist and intellectual, José Mariátegui, who is widely regarded to have been a leading Marxist, liberatory, and decolonial figure in 20th century Latin America. Like …Read more
  • Most criticism of American imperialism is founded on theories that take European expansion as their paradigm. Here David Haekwon Kim examines aspects of distinctly American imperialism, specifically urban anticipations of US overseas expansion, the codification of imperial dominion in structures of US foreign diplomacy and the prophetic geography of US domination extending from “Amerasia” to Eurasia. First, Kim offers some stage-setting through a preliminary account of imperialism cast in the vo…Read more
  •  1802
    The Unexamined Frontier: Dewey, Pragmatism, and America Enlarged
    In Chad Kautzer Eduardo Mendieta (ed.), Pragmatism, Nation, and Race: Community in the Age of Empire, Indiana University Press. pp. 46--72. 2009.
    This essay critically examines the political philosophy of John Dewey in relation to U.S. imperialism in the Asia-Pacific. First, using the work of Louis Menand and Robert Brandom's critical refinement of it, the significance of U.S. imperialism for pragmatism is discussed. Second, the essay argues that Dewey's work reveals a structured and generative absence of reflection on the expansion of American racial hegemony across the Pacific in spite of Dewey's serious engagement with Asia and especia…Read more
  • Moral philosophy has been increasingly concerned with the nature of emotion and its ethical significance. Almost no attention, however, has been paid to disgust, in spite of its evident connections to taboos, exclusionary policies, and severe forms of moral, political, and aesthetic condemnation. This dissertation offers a theory of revulsion. On the basis of this account, it also gives us a way of thinking about intimate or tactile features of moral agency, which play a vital role in maintainin…Read more
  •  1003
    Asian American Philosophers: Absence, Politics, and Identity
    American Philosophical Association Newsletter 1 (2): 25-28. 2002.
    Less than one percent of U.S. philosophers are Asian American. This essay contends that the low percentage cannot be fully explained by considerations of demographics, immigration, and "Asian culture." Completeness of explanation requires reference to racial politics and Orientalism in their historic and national dynamics. It also requires reference to various kinds of identity derogation specific to the academy and to philosophy, in particular. The essay concludes with reflection on how the "mo…Read more