This Friday and Saturday (UK time) we'll be hosting a public symposium on "Global Samurai" at SOAS University of London, as part of the programme of the British Museum exhibition "Samurai"
Event page, including programme and registration information: www.britishmuseum.org/events/globa...
Out today in the UK buijones.com/books/everyt... โฆ cc @uselesstree.bsky.social @fromtga.bsky.social (should be available at Blackwellโs on Broad Street ) @prashantrao.bsky.social @peterfrankopan.bsky.social (and some London bookstores too)
Just back from #AAS2026 in Vancouver - saw some brilliant research papers, caught up with old friends and met some wonderful people.
Excited to be heading to Vancouver next week for #AAS2026๐ซ
Come see our panel 'Beyond Immigration Controls: The Politics of (E)migration in Transnational East Asia' - 3.30pm in VCC room 112.
I'll be introducing my research on displaced stateless Europeans leaving Mao-era China in the 1950s-1980s.
Monday repost: historians of modern China - come and join us in beautiful York #skystorians
Three-year Lectureship in the History of Modern China - please share widely!
jobs.york.ac.uk/vacancy/lect...
#China #Skystorians #History
Good news for the weekend! Four posts in History at York:
Lecturer (Modern Middle East after 1800)
Lecturer (Medieval History c.1100-1450)
Lecturer (Modern China)
Associate Lecturer (Modern British History and Public History)
Find out all about them here:
features.york.ac.uk/history-jobs/
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, you might like to check our the resources page on my website: jonhowlett.com #universityofyork
Nine marshals are pictured in a large group. The marshals wear blue uniforms and appear heroic but poised. The horses are brightly coloured and appear in wild postures.
My personal favourite 'Nine Marshals' image is this one from 1992: That there are nine marshals and seven horses makes this feel like it was made by an AI in a hurry, but I love the clash between the wild energy of the horses and the composure of the marshals.
Marshal Ye Jianying's horse is a brown with a white diamond on its forehead. Ye looks into the distance.
This 1983 series was part of a wider effort to consolidate the Chinese Communist Party's legitimacy after the Cultural Revolution, using figures like Ye Jianying (pictured) to tie the post-Mao reform project to earlier successes. Ye had ordered the arrest of the Gang of Four in 1976, ending the CR.
Marshal He Long wears a blue military uniform and rides a grey horse. The Great Wall of China is in the background and the horse walks through fields of orange flowers.
As the curator notes, ten generals were made Marshals of the PRC in 1955, but one of them, Lin Biao, was not to be mentioned alongside these heroes of the revolution due to his role in the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), when the others were purged - including former bandit He Long (pictured)
Marshal Nie Rongzhen in a blue military uniform on a large brown horse. There are flowers in the foreground and a rainbow in the background.
With the Year of the Horse approaching at a canter (sorryโฆ), I was delighted to stumble on this excellent 1983 series of paintings of the Nine Marshals of the People's Republic of China at the brilliant Chineseposters.net. chineseposters.net/themes/nine-... #China #History #Chinesenewyear #horses
General He Long in a blue military uniform riding a powerful dappled grey horse against a background of orange flowers. The Great Wall of China stretches into the distance in the background.
As the curator notes, ten generals were made Marshals of the PRC in 1955, but one of them, Lin Biao, was not to be mentioned alongside these heroes of the revolution due to his role in the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), when the others were purged - including former bandit He Long (pictured)
Two full PhD scholarships in Hong Kong history at the University of Bristol:
www.hkhistory.net/2025/11/17/h...
My daughter Emily (7) is raising money for youth homelessness charity Centrepoint. Please support her if you can!
www.justgiving.com/page/howlett...
If your Thursday needs a boost, can I recommend the delightful Jin Shengtan's ้่ๅ "Thirty-three Nice Things", translated by @bokane.org?
www.burninghou.se/p/whats-good
โ if thatโs not nice, what is?
For the Mid-Autumn Festival, I translated the 17th century failson, epicure, and memoirist Zhang Dai's account of the annual Mid-Autumn singing competition on Tiger Hill in Suzhou. www.burninghou.se/p/mid-autumn...
Brilliant new research from York's @mrmhurst.bsky.social on the 88,000 Hong Kong colonial government records that remain at Hanslope Park, contributing new insights on how outgoing colonial officials handled records towards at end of the British Empire. #history
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Matthew Hurst presenting a keynote speech in front of a powerpoint presentation reading Hong Kong Colonial Government Migrated Archives at Hanslope Park
Brilliant to see York PhD student @mrmhurst.bsky.social win the @chinesestudies.bsky.social Early Career Researcher Prize last week for his work on the Hong Kong colonial government migrated archives at Hanslope Park - huge congrats Matthew!
Great to be welcomed so warmly in Whitehall at the Treasury today putting Uk-China relations in historical perspective (not my usual Tuesday!)
You can find out more about YARN here and join if you are affiliated with York:
www.york.ac.uk/yarn/
Monday's third annual York Asia Research Network PhD Conference was brilliant - we had 16 speakers from across ten different departments and centres. Their exciting work took us from conserving ponds in northern India to Shakespeare in China and melon seeds in medieval Merv. Thanks everyone!
The British Association for Chinese Studies has announced the call for its 2025 Early Career Researcher Prize
www.facebook.com/bacsuk.org.u...
Two first pages from a 1981 Chinese version of Russ Manning's Star Wars comic strip from 1979.
In 1981, the Chinese science-fiction monthly ๅฅฅ็ง (Aomi) featured Russ Manningโs first run of Star Wars comic strips. Collected and re-arranged to fit a fullpage format, the comics remained virtually identical to their American originalโif not for one key difference. Letโs look at one exemplary strip.
Join us at the University of York on 2 April for a research seminar by @viviankonghk.bsky.social with the intriguing title 'In and Out of Marginality: An Anglo-Chinese 'Brothel Keeper' in Cornwall, Hong Kong, and London, 1889-1942'.
www.york.ac.uk/history/abou...
#York #history #chinesehistory
Thanks for reading. If you would like to know more, there is a great webpage on this story with lyrics and images here: 78rpmshellacroundabout.com/rose-rose-i-...
74 years later, it is tempting to see the songโs sudden popularity as evidence of the worldโs attention turning eastward in the early 1950s, albeit the Western gaze was still informed by colonial-era Orientalist ideas about China and SE Asia, as evidenced by Shanghai Rose's transformations. (7/8)
The songโs sudden popularity came only two years after the Communist takeover of China in 1949. By that time Yao Li had fled into exile in Hong Kong, but Chen Gexin (pictured) remained in mainland China. He was tragically persecuted for his bourgeois background and died in a labour camp. (6/8)