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Opening new perspectives in transpacific studies, Etsuko Taketani examines the genealogy and contours of the aerial imaginary and the corollary shifting planetary imaginary that evolved in a transnational space she names the “Black nuclear Pacific.” Following the first dropping of an atom bomb on humans and the subsequent military occupation of Japan by the United States, Black-Japanese encounters happened on a scale unimaginable before World War II. Analyzing texts by a diverse range of artists, writers, and political thinkers who had formative interactions with occupied Japan—including the NAACP’s Walter White, lawyer Edith Sampson, Josephine Baker, Langston Hughes, Lorraine Hansberry, and Malcolm X—Taketani uncovers African American cultural expressions that include a quasi–alien abduction narrative, the literary creation of a new tribe in the image of a rainbow, a Black futuristic apocalypse, and a racial fantasy of the Mother Plane. Aerial Archives of Race tracks the Black networks and exchanges with Japan that provoked new ways of thinking about (human) races on planet Earth.
Opening new perspectives in transpacific studies, Etsuko Taketani examines the genealogy and contours of the aerial imaginary and the corollary shifting planetary imaginary that evolved in a transnational space she names the “Black nuclear Pacific.” Following the first dropping of an atom bomb on humans and the subsequent military occupation of Japan by the United States, Black-Japanese encounters happened on a scale unimaginable before World War II. Analyzing texts by a diverse range of artists, writers, and political thinkers who had formative interactions with occupied Japan—including the NAACP’s Walter White, lawyer Edith Sampson, Josephine Baker, Langston Hughes, Lorraine Hansberry, and Malcolm X—Taketani uncovers African American cultural expressions that include a quasi–alien abduction narrative, the literary creation of a new tribe in the image of a rainbow, a Black futuristic apocalypse, and a racial fantasy of the Mother Plane. Aerial Archives of Race tracks the Black networks and exchanges with Japan that provoked new ways of thinking about (human) races on planet Earth.
Price: $34.95
Pages: 238
Publisher: University of California Press
Imprint: University of California Press
Series: Transpacific Studies
Publication Date:
09 December 2025
Trim Size: 9.00 X 6.00 in
ISBN: 9780520416772
Format: Paperback
BISACs:
Etsuko Taketani is Professor of American Literature at the University of Tsukuba, Japan.
Contents
Introduction
1. Aerial Mapping: Walter White, the Black Pacific, Occupied Japan
2. Prison Planet: Edith S. Sampson, the Alien Other, Race Abduction
3. The Aerial Fairy Tale: Josephine Baker, the Rainbow, Occupation Babies
4. The Black Nuclear Pacific: Langston Hughes, Hajime Kijima, Lorraine Hansberry, "All the Little Bombs—and the Big Bombs"
5. Futuristic Remains of a Found-Lost Nation: Malcolm X, Mother Planes, Japanese Speculative Fiction
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Introduction
1. Aerial Mapping: Walter White, the Black Pacific, Occupied Japan
2. Prison Planet: Edith S. Sampson, the Alien Other, Race Abduction
3. The Aerial Fairy Tale: Josephine Baker, the Rainbow, Occupation Babies
4. The Black Nuclear Pacific: Langston Hughes, Hajime Kijima, Lorraine Hansberry, "All the Little Bombs—and the Big Bombs"
5. Futuristic Remains of a Found-Lost Nation: Malcolm X, Mother Planes, Japanese Speculative Fiction
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index