Conference call for papers: Art, tradition, environment. Qinghai China, 13-18 Sep. 2026.
Exploring mutual importance of place and the creation of art and maintenance of artistic traditions. Includes multiday fieldtrip to Rebgong, a Tibetan Buddhist monastery town.
islanddynamics.org/conferences/...
Conference: 'Art, tradition, environment: Folklore in place', Qinghai, September 2026.
Exploring mutual importance of art and place. With visits to Hui Muslim sites in Xining and multiday fieldtrip to Tibetan Buddhist monastery town of Rebgong.
folkknowledgeplace.org/post/3562-ar...
Conference announcement: 'Supernatural animals, mystical beasts, and uncanny creatures: Folklore in place', 9-13 November 2026, Guangzhou, China
-Deadline for abstracts: 28 February 2026-
folkknowledgeplace.org/post/3461-su...
#folklore #animals #China #legends #myths
I have a new article out with Ping Su in the British journal 'Folklore' on 'An experience-centred approach to animal folklore in Denmark: Challenging rationalistic interpretations of supernatural animal narratives'. doi.org/10.1080/0015...
New article: 'Ritual labour and maintenance of tradition in a village temple: An occupational folklore approach to Chinese religion', published with Qi Pan in 'Folklore: Electronic Journal of Folklore'.
#folklore #China
folklore.ee/folklore/vol...
Conference call for papers: 'Knowing place through film and audiovisual media', 9-12 February 2026, Alta, Norway
Academic conference on how films, series, and other audiovisual media and arts serve to represent, imagine, understand, and produce place and home.
folkknowledgeplace.org/post/3087-kn...
New 'Island Studies Journal' article:
'If Islands Did Not Exist, It Would Be Necessary to Invent Them: Grappling with Divergent Ascriptions of Islandness in Island Studies'
By Adam Grydehøj, Ping Su, Ulunnguaq Markussen, & Asinate Mausio
islandstudiesjournal.org/article/137602
Island Studies Journal celebrates its first two decades with the publication of Volume 20, Issue 1. This issue consists of 13 articles on islands in Asia, Europe, North America, and the Atlantic, including a special section on 'Islands in speculative fiction'. islandstudiesjournal.org/issue/12263
What is Xīn Shēng | 心声 Project? Over the past few years, WeChat has gained a reputation for circulating right-wing political mis- and disinformation. This has been particularly harmful to the Chinese diasporic community, who have had limited access to reputable, in-language reporting. Xīn Shēng Project (formerly WeChat Project) provides alternative, progressive perspectives on the most widely circulated issues on WeChat and beyond: affirmative action, policing, systemic racism, LGBTQ+ issues, and more. Our bilingual articles cross the language, generational, cultural, and informational barriers within our community and families
this is amazing. just came across the Xinsheng project, an initiative by 1.5 gen Chinese Americans and college students to counter right-wing misinformation rampant on WeChat.
www.xinshengproject.org/about
Blue Humanities has just launched: bluehumanitiesjournal.org. Studies of oceans, rivers, lakes, and other aquatic spaces. This peer reviewed, non-fee charging open access journal has its intellectual roots in Asia’s long tradition of thinking with water and has its editorial office is in Hangzhou.
I'm teaching a class on Jews and the problems of racialization next year, and I'm realizing that I'm going to have to teach these two Elon Musk tweets juxtaposed to each other.
New 'Island Studies Journal' article:
'Understanding Islandness Effects through the Challenges of Water Infrastructure: A Case Study on the Kinmen Islands'
By Mei-Huan Chen
doi.org/10.24043/001...
New 'Island Studies Journal' article:
'Economic Globalisation and the Islands of the Indian Ocean: An Econometric Analysis'
By Zafiira BeeharryYaşam Demir
islandstudiesjournal.org/article/1259...
Beewolf Press is launching the diamond open access journal 'Blue Humanities' in 2026. With its roots in Asia and its editorial office in Hangzhou, the journal is dedicated to critical studies of marine, river, lake, wetland, and other water-related environments.
More information coming soon!
Reviewing academic texts, I find myself repeating a mantra.
So here is for everyone, what my (PhD) students get to hear:
1) think of your reader
2) demonstrate first, then declare
3) use active language
4) write short sentences
4) treat humans - including yourself - not as actors
#anthropology
"Think of the reader." The absolutely crucial point that so many scholars at all levels miss. It doesn't matter how brilliant your ideas are if readers are too bored to finish the paper or too confused to understand it.
'Hao Dong Xi' (2024), a comedy about being a middle class, divorced mother (and other forms of womanhood) in urban China. Society sets women impossible standards, and knowing this doesn't mean knowing how to fix it. The lesson: You don't need to be perfect to be OK. www.imdb.com/title/tt3180...
New article in 'Folk, Knowledge, Place':
'"I have become a warrior in the Xiang Army" : Legacies, nostalgia, and identity in Chinese regional hip-hop'
By Xihuan Hu
folkknowledgeplace.org/article/1270...
New 'Folk, Knowledge, Place' article:
'Down with the tide: How wilderness and islandness are represented in two novels from Ireland and Iceland'
By Chiara Mastronardo
folkknowledgeplace.org/article/1270...
In 'Encountering folk, knowledge, and place', Yaso Nadarajah and I introduce our motivations for and the background of this new, and radically open, journal project: seeking new ways of knowing in the pluriverse. doi.org/10.24043/001...
Join the Island Studies conversation! #wedoislands
go.bsky.app/HnTxhpJ
New article in 'Folk, Knowledge, Place':
'Belonging to the land: Indigenous Māori narratives of home and place'
By Cinnamon Lindsay-Latimer, Tanya Allport, Mel Potaka-Osborne, & Denise Wilson
folkknowledgeplace.org/article/1257...
'Island Studies Journal', Volume 19, Issue 2 has just been published: islandstudiesjournal.org/issue/11123
15 papers on islands around the world, including special sections on 'Island transport challenges' and 'Policy-oriented research and island management'.
I have visited similar places, including one very grim example in Pingtan. This kind of speculative tourism development continues, and it points to deep flaws in project conceptualisation and financial management. We need research-led tourism policy.
www.sixthtone.com/news/1016241
New 'Island Studies Journal' article:
'Insular Perspectives of the State: Territorial Policy and Management as Seen From Guaitecas'
By Álvaro Román, Katherine Bassaletti, & Javiera Larraín
doi.org/10.24043/001...
Guaitecas, islandness, Chile, local politics, centre-periphery dynamics, #islands
A few years late, I have come across Rapti Siriwardane-de Zoysa's great article 'Decolonizing seascapes: Imaginaries and absences on an island hub', published in 'Postcolonial Interventions' in 2021. doi.org/10.5281/zeno....
excerpt (part 1 of 2) from the Flann O'Brien novel The Third Policeman: 'Why did your spear sting when the point was half a foot away from where it made me bleed?’ ‘That spear,’ he answered quietly, ‘is one of the first things I ever manufactured in my spare time. I think only a little of it now but the year I made it I was proud enough and would not get up in the morning for any sergeant. There is no other spear like it in the length and breadth of Ireland and there is only one thing like it in Amurikey but I have not heard what it is. But I cannot get over the no-bicycle. Great Crikes!’ ‘But the spear,’ I insisted, ‘give me the gist of it like a good man and I will tell no one.’ ‘I will tell you because you are a confidential man,’ he said, ‘and a man that said something about bicycles that I never heard before. What you think is the point is not the point at all but only the beginning of the sharpness.’
More context for the Flann O'Brien quote from The Third Policeman (1967) that I've been using as a metaphor for how we can perceive the heinous attacks on trans rights, and how cis folks and others might not understand how not only will their rights also be violated, *it's already happening*
Hey folklorists, help me add to this folklorist starter pack. Suggest accounts and I’ll try to add them: go.bsky.app/HnHejQX
Hi! I am happy to be added.
this took a long time. I'm so happy to share my latest paper in @risjnl.bsky.social, looking at racial entanglement, masculinism, and gendered East/West binaries in global reactionary discourse (via another look at Chinese anti-baizuo discourse).
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...