Professor, Political Science
School of Social Sciences

Professor, Asian American Studies
School of Humanities

Race and politics, Asian American politics, Black politics, human-animal studies

Claire Jean Kim is Professor of Political Science and Asian American Studies. Her first book, Bitter Fruit: The Politics of Black-Korean Conflict in New York City (Yale University Press, 2000) is the recipient of the American Political Science Association's Ralph Bunche Award for the Best Book on Ethnic and Cultural Pluralism and a Best Book Award from the American Political Science Association Organized Section on Race, Ethnicity, and Politics. Her second book, Dangerous Crossings: Race, Species, and Nature in a Multicultural Age (Cambridge University Press, 2015), is the also the recipient of a Best Book Award from the American Political Science Association Organized Section on Race, Ethnicity, and Politics. Her third book, Asian Americans in an Anti-Black World (Cambridge University Press, 2023), is the recipient of the Best Book Award in the category of Social Science, awarded by the Association for Asian American Studies. It was also selected for NPR's Books We Love list for 2023. Dr. Kim has delivered numerous keynote and plenary talks within the U.S. and abroad. She has written many journal articles, book chapters, and essays, and she was co-editor of a special issue of American Quarterly entitled Species/Race/Sex (2013) and co-organizer of the Race and Animals Institute at Wesleyan University in 2016. She was the recipient of a grant from the University of California Center for New Racial Studies, and she has been a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey and the University of California Humanities Research Institute. In 2025, Dr. Kim was the recipient of the Don T. Nakanishi Award for Distinguished Scholarship and Service in Asian American Politics, given by the Western Political Science Association. She has been a guest commentator on MSNBC, PBS, and NPR, and her popular writing has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, The American Scholar, and Ms. Magazine. She is regularly interviewed on podcasts, documentary films, and various media on topics relating to race, animals, and ecology. Dr. Kim is also a poet whose work is published in Triquarterly, The Ilanot Review, Ghost City Review, and The Missouri Review, among other places.

Asian Americans in an Anti-Black World (Cambridge University Press, 2023)

Dangerous Crossings: Race, Species, and Nature in a Multicultural Age (Cambridge University Press, 2015)

Bitter Fruit: The Politics of Black-Korean Conflict in New York City (Yale University Press, 2000)

Link to this profile
https://faculty.uci.edu/profile/?facultyId=2453

Last updated
02/16/2025