a cartoon dog is sitting at a table in front of a fire with the words it 's fine everything is fine Alt: a cartoon dog is sitting at a table in front of a fire with the words it's fine everything is fine

13 weeks into my History of East Asia course, 2 weeks to go. All we've got left is the twentieth century.

He's in good company with Confucius.

I know it's poor form to assign my own writing to students, but at least I did it for April Fool's?

Brad Beaven, Visions of Empire?

www.cambridge.org/core/books/v...

🛎️ Postdoc opportunity 🛎️
2-year Postdoctoral Fellowship in history of medicine and medical humanities at Johns Hopkins University. Deadline April 5th.
#histmed #histstm

hopkinshistoryofmedicine.org/2026/03/06/j...

no notes

My paper explores continuities in hydraulic politics across the long nineteenth century by looking at the relationship between the salt trade and the Daqing River, whose channel the Yellow River usurped when it changed course in 1855.

2026 Spring Symposium

On 4/3 I'll be presenting virtually at KU's symposium on Environmental and Economic Challenges in Global Asia. View schedule and register at the link below. My paper is titled, "A Trans-Diluvian History of Environmental Fragility and Resilience on the North China Plain."

ceas.ku.edu/2026-spring-...

Looks like there’s a storm blowing from paradise…

I got into a PhD program without an MA but then left with an MA to move with an adviser. It was hugely beneficial for (re)starting the PhD.

Doing the Arrow War in one class and Tie Xuan in another. Interesting times indeed.

While at AAS, I learned about the recent passing of David Buck. To say his 1978 book on Jinan has been an influence on my work would be an understatement. It really deserves more attention as exemplary of a pivotal moment in the historiography of modern China/Chinese cities.
uwm.edu/history/uwm-...

23 Ways You’re Already Living in the Chinese Century The robotics explosion. The energy revolution. The cultural takeover. It’s everything you wanted for the United States—but done better in China.

Evergreen, or should I say red

www.wired.com/china-issue/

Anyone else airport-reading their way to #aas2026?

Street view of historic Walden Building in Vancouver with text announcing 2 days left for AAS 2026 conference.

During #AAS2026, we will have an Accountability Officer on site to respond to any violations of the AAS Code of Conduct. Review our policies and learn how to report violations:

www.asianstudies.org/conference/conference-co...

I'll take it over tornado/hail.

You’ve gotten a special call-out on the value of reading things by people who don’t teach in history departments and how “historiography” is built off networks of people who actually know and talk to each other!

Next year adding:
6. Sex, Opium, and Sorcery: A Lifetime at the End of China’s Last Golden Age, 1768–1838

Also on catalog:
7. Modern Japan
8. Premodern China
9. Modern China

Academic history colleagues, list all the different courses you teach.
Mine so far are:

1. History of East Asia
2. Premodern Japan
3. Civil War and Reconstruction in 19th Century China (for majors)
4. Empire and Nation in Modern China (grad)
5. Globalization and Modern East Asia (UG research)

The big question: What might Cohen's book have looked like if he could have drawn on scholarship like Meyer-Fong, @wooldridge.bsky.social, Jin Huan, @thianun.bsky.social, @sudasana.bsky.social, Goossaert, etc.? Can students develop research questions to bridge that historiographical gap?

Meanwhile, my historiography class on Civil War and Reconstruction in 19th Century China is getting a bit experimental. The students have caught up(ish) with recent historiographical trends (via Meyer-Fong What Remains). Now we're going back in time to Cohen's classic work on Christianity in China.

After discussion of Peter Thilly's book on the opium trade and Eric Schluessel's Land of Strangers, my Empire and Nation in Modern China class moving on to the 1911 Revolution with Zheng Xiaowei. From rites to rights.

York History Department - Academic Jobs Uncover the past to define the future. We are seeking research-led historians to join our world-class, collaborative community. Discover career-defining opportunities within one of the UK’s most disti...

We are advertising 4 jobs at York for historians (1 year medieval, 2 years modern Britain and public history, 3 years modern China, and open ended modern Middle Eastern) features.york.ac.uk/history-jobs/

I will not go down the Alysa Liu-Eileen Gu comparison rabbit hole. I will not go...

I do hope someone does, though, and does it in a way that gives full justice to both the complex historical and geopolitical contexts surrounding them and their own individuality.

Will revisionist historians later question narratives of our decline, instead finding signs of adaptability, resilience, and transformation? Will they be right? More pressingly, will it matter to us?

I'm fascinated by that space where things are clearly dumb, but maybe not as thoroughly dumb as they sometimes seem and will be seen as in retrospect.

When it's clear that things aren't right. But exactly how wrong they will go and how they will get there is shrouded by contingency.

Trump is 79. The Qianlong emperor was 81 when he held audience with George Macartney.

I don't think US empire has reached its nadir. But it feels like we're in a moment that produces events that historians will later interpret (perhaps problematically) as leading toward that nadir.

Me: [explains early 19th century Qing fiscal chicanery to wife]

Wife: But it worked out in the end?

Me: no.......

And this week we’re on to representation/information with Laura Hostetler and @emok.bsky.social