Interview: Keren Wang on Comparing US and Chinese Responses to the Pandemic, for Upcoming Webinar "COVID-19 and International Affairs" (17 April 2020)

In the run up to the Webinar Conference Roundtable, Coronavirus and International Relations, a number of participants and contributors agreed to give short interviews around the conference themes and their own interventions. All Zoom interviews will be posted to the Coalition for Peace and Ethics You Tube Channel COVID-19 Conference Playlist. For our first interview, Flora Sapio spoke to the issues of COVID-19 in Italy and its wider implication. For our second interview, Larry Catá Backer spoke of COVID-19 and meaning making. Yuri Gonzalez was interviewed about COVID-19 and the developing situation in Cuba, which has been able to project medical assistance outward even as it faces the challenges of a developing state.  Alice Hong provided insight on COVID-19 from the perspective of a foreign student in the US. And GAO Shan spoke to the way that the COVID-19 pandemic from a comparative context of Wuhan (where his family lives) and the US Midwest (where he now resides).

For our next interview Keren Wang speaks to the issues of the way that the Pandemic was framed and experienced in the US and China. He considers the ways in which each system framed the pandemic in ways that could be understood. He noted how differences in those understandings could produce very different responses. Dr. Wang also considered the ways in which the official and popular discourse about the pandemic sometimes aligned and sometimes deviated in some substantial respects. The effects on both the internal organization of national responses, and on their international relations of states, have been both profound and to some extent quite different.

Dr. Wang is an Assistant Teaching Professor in Communication Arts and Sciences, Pennsylvania State University ( Ph.D., The Pennsylvania State University (2018); M.A., The Pennsylvania State University (2013); B.A., Drexel University (2010)). He studies rhetorical theory, political communication, and history of ideas that shape globalization and its discontents. Publications include ​Legal and Rhetorical Foundations of Economic Globalization: An Atlas of Ritual Sacrifice in Late-Capitalism (​​1st ed​. ​Oxford: Routledge, 2019). To learn more about his research and teaching interests please see his personal website: http://sites.psu.edu/kerenw/ 

 

The interview may be accessed HERE:   Keren Wang interview here.

Conference Concept Note HERE

Registration (Free) HERE

Conference Website HERE.