Jia Hui Lee | University Of Bayreuth, Germany (original) (raw)

Papers by Jia Hui Lee

Annals of Science, 2023

At the end of the 1920s, Tanganyika Territory experienced several serious rodent outbreaks that t... more At the end of the 1920s, Tanganyika Territory experienced several serious rodent outbreaks that threatened cotton and other grain production. At the same time, regular reports of pneumonic and bubonic plague occurred in the northern areas of Tanganyika. These events led the British colonial administration to dispatch several studies into rodent taxonomy and ecology in 1931 to determine the causes of rodent outbreaks and plague disease, and to control future outbreaks. The application of ecological frameworks to the control of rodent outbreaks and plague disease transmission in colonial Tanganyika Territory gradually moved from a view that prioritised 'ecological interrelations' among rodents, fleas and people to one where those interrelations required studies into population dynamics, endemicity and social organisation in order to mitigate pests and pestilence. This shift in Tanganyika anticipated later population ecology approaches on the African continent. Drawing on sources from the Tanzania National Archives, this article offers an important case study of the application of ecological frameworks in a colonial setting that anticipated later global scientific interest in studies of rodent populations and rodent-borne disease ecologies.

The Upright Thinkers: The Human Journey from Living in Trees to Understanding the Cosmos is an ac... more The Upright Thinkers: The Human Journey from Living in Trees to Understanding the Cosmos is an accessible grand history of science and many of its most crucial figures, enlivened by personal anecdotes and insights by physicist Leonard Mlodinow. Mlodinow evocatively demonstrates how scientific developments are not solely the product of isolated genius, but are dependent upon the convergence of systems, technologies and happenstance. Although he suggests that a more critical reflection on the parameters of ‘science’ could have been offered, Jia Hui Lee argues that The Upright Thinkers is a witty and thought-provoking account of the history of scientific discovery.

African Studies Review

With ten essays and an editorial introduction, Black Bodies and Transhuman Realities: Scientifica... more With ten essays and an editorial introduction, Black Bodies and Transhuman Realities: Scientifically Modifying the Black Body in Posthuman Literature and Culture, edited by Melvin G. Hill, offers an array of insightful perspectives on the intersections of science, technology, and Black subjectivity, particularly in works of African American literature and culture. Focused on American histories and experiences of race, these essays present compelling frameworks for examining Black identity and being in an effort to transcend and enhance the human-understood as "transhumanism"-through medical, algorithmic, digital, and other technologies. The collection's focus on transhumanism means that the essays also touch on the debates surrounding posthumanism and Afrofuturism. Several essays focus on the problems and possibilities that arise from miscegenation and reproduction, which the authors argue can be read as transhumanist technologies for modifying the human. In the case of the British colonies in the Caribbean, Md. Monirul Islam (Chapter One) shows how racial mixing was proposed as a new method of colonial subject formation and control, the thinking being that "miscegens" would embody both European intellect and African strength to improve production in the plantations. Miscegenation would also hinder any slave rebellions organized on the basis of skin color. In an instance of undermining the biological fixtures of race, Melvin G. Hill (Chapter Five) presents George S. Schuyler's Black No More (1931[reprint Dover 2011]) as an Afro-transhumanist novel in which its protagonist, Max Disher, who is Black, undergoes genetic transformation to become white. This subsequently upends the racial and racist binaries that define the United States, which later culminates in white nativist riots. These essays contend that the Black self, formed through histories of slavery and racism, is already a site for transhuman endeavors, imagination, and disruption.

Are animals technology? Rodent trainers in Tanzania readily think so. This suggests that thinking... more Are animals technology? Rodent trainers in Tanzania readily think so. This suggests that thinking about rats as technology can help scholars of the environment see that nature is always being transformed through social practices that rework environmental histories.

The Senses and Society, 2018

o k-review-walter-a-ro dney-a-pro mise-o f-revo lutio n/ Blo g Admin Book Review: Walter A. Rodne... more o k-review-walter-a-ro dney-a-pro mise-o f-revo lutio n/ Blo g Admin Book Review: Walter A. Rodney: A Promise of Revolution This book presents a moving and insightful portrait of Guyanese scholar and revolutionary Walter Rodney through the words of academics, writers, artists, and political activists who knew him or felt his influence. These informal recollections and reflections aim to demonstrate the importance of Rodney's work on oppression and exploitation. Given renewed discords about race in the United States, these essays appropriately return us to the many focal debates during a time when restless ideas about civil rights, socialism, and African independence provoked the imagination, writes Jia Hui Lee.

o k-review-philo so phy-and-resistance-in-the-crisis-greece-and-thefuture-o f-euro pe/ by Blo g A... more o k-review-philo so phy-and-resistance-in-the-crisis-greece-and-thefuture-o f-euro pe/ by Blo g Admin

In its twelve essays, this book covers encounters with transvestites in Oman, childbirth in Bhuta... more In its twelve essays, this book covers encounters with transvestites in Oman, childbirth in Bhutan, poverty in Cairo, and 'honour' killings in Scandinavia. Whether an anthropologist, a student of immigration law, or a policy maker, Wikan's essays will provide readers with a striking yet compassionate framework for understanding how people across time and place deal with global contemporary concerns, writes Jia Hui Lee.

o k-review-sexuality-and-so cial-justice-in-africa/ Blo g Admin

Teaching Sociology, 2014

blogs.lse.ac.uk /lsereviewof books/2013/11/15/book-review-animal-studies-an-introduction/ Blog Ad... more blogs.lse.ac.uk /lsereviewof books/2013/11/15/book-review-animal-studies-an-introduction/ Blog Admin Animal studies seeks to understand how humans study and conceive of other-than-human animals, and how these conceptions have changed over time, across cultures, and across different ways of thinking. This interdisciplinary introduction to the field foregrounds the realities of nonhuman animals, and is compelling and comprehensive, writes Jia Hui Lee. Paul Waldau convincingly argues for a deeper and more meaningful engagement with the world, and students of all social science disciplines should find this of interest.

Duke University Press eBooks, Aug 29, 2022

Somatosphere, 2021

One of the most significant challenges to confronting and mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic concer... more One of the most significant challenges to confronting and mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic concerns the manufacturing, circulation, and interpretation of what we call “contested truths.” By this term, we mean the many and varied ways in which official, institutional, and/or scientific facts and recommendations about COVID-19 are challenged, ignored, or subverted at multiple scales, from the individual to the state. On the African continent, these contested truths are frequently also political contestations over resources, economic priorities, and glaring global (health) inequalities inherited from colonization and neoliberal privatization. This series explores contested truths through discussions of biomedical expertise and authority, state power and violence, and religion and ontological multiplicity, situating these phenomena within ongoing legacies of colonialism, missionization, racism, development, securitization, and neoliberalization on the continent. How ‘truth’ is constructed, regulated, circulated, and contested during this pandemic will likely shape the way future public and global health systems are designed and perhaps even how information is disseminated for many years to come. At the crux of these, and our, discussions are questions about life—and the care, responsibility, and accountability required to support its vitality and flourishing.

Annals of Science, 2023

At the end of the 1920s, Tanganyika Territory experienced several serious rodent outbreaks that t... more At the end of the 1920s, Tanganyika Territory experienced several serious rodent outbreaks that threatened cotton and other grain production. At the same time, regular reports of pneumonic and bubonic plague occurred in the northern areas of Tanganyika. These events led the British colonial administration to dispatch several studies into rodent taxonomy and ecology in 1931 to determine the causes of rodent outbreaks and plague disease, and to control future outbreaks. The application of ecological frameworks to the control of rodent outbreaks and plague disease transmission in colonial Tanganyika Territory gradually moved from a view that prioritised 'ecological interrelations' among rodents, fleas and people to one where those interrelations required studies into population dynamics, endemicity and social organisation in order to mitigate pests and pestilence. This shift in Tanganyika anticipated later population ecology approaches on the African continent. Drawing on sources from the Tanzania National Archives, this article offers an important case study of the application of ecological frameworks in a colonial setting that anticipated later global scientific interest in studies of rodent populations and rodent-borne disease ecologies.

The Upright Thinkers: The Human Journey from Living in Trees to Understanding the Cosmos is an ac... more The Upright Thinkers: The Human Journey from Living in Trees to Understanding the Cosmos is an accessible grand history of science and many of its most crucial figures, enlivened by personal anecdotes and insights by physicist Leonard Mlodinow. Mlodinow evocatively demonstrates how scientific developments are not solely the product of isolated genius, but are dependent upon the convergence of systems, technologies and happenstance. Although he suggests that a more critical reflection on the parameters of ‘science’ could have been offered, Jia Hui Lee argues that The Upright Thinkers is a witty and thought-provoking account of the history of scientific discovery.

African Studies Review

With ten essays and an editorial introduction, Black Bodies and Transhuman Realities: Scientifica... more With ten essays and an editorial introduction, Black Bodies and Transhuman Realities: Scientifically Modifying the Black Body in Posthuman Literature and Culture, edited by Melvin G. Hill, offers an array of insightful perspectives on the intersections of science, technology, and Black subjectivity, particularly in works of African American literature and culture. Focused on American histories and experiences of race, these essays present compelling frameworks for examining Black identity and being in an effort to transcend and enhance the human-understood as "transhumanism"-through medical, algorithmic, digital, and other technologies. The collection's focus on transhumanism means that the essays also touch on the debates surrounding posthumanism and Afrofuturism. Several essays focus on the problems and possibilities that arise from miscegenation and reproduction, which the authors argue can be read as transhumanist technologies for modifying the human. In the case of the British colonies in the Caribbean, Md. Monirul Islam (Chapter One) shows how racial mixing was proposed as a new method of colonial subject formation and control, the thinking being that "miscegens" would embody both European intellect and African strength to improve production in the plantations. Miscegenation would also hinder any slave rebellions organized on the basis of skin color. In an instance of undermining the biological fixtures of race, Melvin G. Hill (Chapter Five) presents George S. Schuyler's Black No More (1931[reprint Dover 2011]) as an Afro-transhumanist novel in which its protagonist, Max Disher, who is Black, undergoes genetic transformation to become white. This subsequently upends the racial and racist binaries that define the United States, which later culminates in white nativist riots. These essays contend that the Black self, formed through histories of slavery and racism, is already a site for transhuman endeavors, imagination, and disruption.

Are animals technology? Rodent trainers in Tanzania readily think so. This suggests that thinking... more Are animals technology? Rodent trainers in Tanzania readily think so. This suggests that thinking about rats as technology can help scholars of the environment see that nature is always being transformed through social practices that rework environmental histories.

The Senses and Society, 2018

o k-review-walter-a-ro dney-a-pro mise-o f-revo lutio n/ Blo g Admin Book Review: Walter A. Rodne... more o k-review-walter-a-ro dney-a-pro mise-o f-revo lutio n/ Blo g Admin Book Review: Walter A. Rodney: A Promise of Revolution This book presents a moving and insightful portrait of Guyanese scholar and revolutionary Walter Rodney through the words of academics, writers, artists, and political activists who knew him or felt his influence. These informal recollections and reflections aim to demonstrate the importance of Rodney's work on oppression and exploitation. Given renewed discords about race in the United States, these essays appropriately return us to the many focal debates during a time when restless ideas about civil rights, socialism, and African independence provoked the imagination, writes Jia Hui Lee.

o k-review-philo so phy-and-resistance-in-the-crisis-greece-and-thefuture-o f-euro pe/ by Blo g A... more o k-review-philo so phy-and-resistance-in-the-crisis-greece-and-thefuture-o f-euro pe/ by Blo g Admin

In its twelve essays, this book covers encounters with transvestites in Oman, childbirth in Bhuta... more In its twelve essays, this book covers encounters with transvestites in Oman, childbirth in Bhutan, poverty in Cairo, and 'honour' killings in Scandinavia. Whether an anthropologist, a student of immigration law, or a policy maker, Wikan's essays will provide readers with a striking yet compassionate framework for understanding how people across time and place deal with global contemporary concerns, writes Jia Hui Lee.

o k-review-sexuality-and-so cial-justice-in-africa/ Blo g Admin

Teaching Sociology, 2014

blogs.lse.ac.uk /lsereviewof books/2013/11/15/book-review-animal-studies-an-introduction/ Blog Ad... more blogs.lse.ac.uk /lsereviewof books/2013/11/15/book-review-animal-studies-an-introduction/ Blog Admin Animal studies seeks to understand how humans study and conceive of other-than-human animals, and how these conceptions have changed over time, across cultures, and across different ways of thinking. This interdisciplinary introduction to the field foregrounds the realities of nonhuman animals, and is compelling and comprehensive, writes Jia Hui Lee. Paul Waldau convincingly argues for a deeper and more meaningful engagement with the world, and students of all social science disciplines should find this of interest.

Duke University Press eBooks, Aug 29, 2022

Somatosphere, 2021

One of the most significant challenges to confronting and mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic concer... more One of the most significant challenges to confronting and mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic concerns the manufacturing, circulation, and interpretation of what we call “contested truths.” By this term, we mean the many and varied ways in which official, institutional, and/or scientific facts and recommendations about COVID-19 are challenged, ignored, or subverted at multiple scales, from the individual to the state. On the African continent, these contested truths are frequently also political contestations over resources, economic priorities, and glaring global (health) inequalities inherited from colonization and neoliberal privatization. This series explores contested truths through discussions of biomedical expertise and authority, state power and violence, and religion and ontological multiplicity, situating these phenomena within ongoing legacies of colonialism, missionization, racism, development, securitization, and neoliberalization on the continent. How ‘truth’ is constructed, regulated, circulated, and contested during this pandemic will likely shape the way future public and global health systems are designed and perhaps even how information is disseminated for many years to come. At the crux of these, and our, discussions are questions about life—and the care, responsibility, and accountability required to support its vitality and flourishing.