Researching China isn’t easy. With many foreign sites blocked, journalists depend on domestic platforms. Even under tight controls, Chinese apps are the main window into the country. Chu Yang’s latest guide explains how to research Xiaohongshu (Rednote). www.bellingcat.com/resources/20...
"Once the prophecies of the strategic initiative have been brought to fulfillment, budget deficits will shrink, prestige and reputation will grow, that weird smell on the first floor of the student center will dissipate, and you’ll never be frazzled or beleaguered again."
Utterly appalling. I continue to find the swiftness of these meetings part of the cruelty - it's something about the high-handedness with which our lives are overturned, with not even a sop to anyone's feelings, let alone treating us as intelligent adults.
Morning, Womble! I really enjoyed Slow Gods. Reminded me of Iain M Banks, which I mean as high praise. I am currently reading Translation State, Ann Leckie, which I missed when it came out.
In the wake of listening to Eight Days of Diana, I've been reading Reflections, her collection of critical writing/talks on writing, both of which are giving me new appreciation for the depths of her work.
She's so good. I was the right age for a whole lot of them to get republished in the wake of Harry Potter, but its been a pleasure to go back as an adult and realise they were just as rich as I remembered (possibly even more so).
Austen's a good shout though. I think I reread every Diana Wynne Jones novel I loved as a kid the first summer we went through this.
Historical disasters are safely in the past, and I find puzzling through Classical Chinese satisfying. On the flip side, I am a historian of 19th century China and it is worrying that it now feels like a luxury to just spend time with my archive...
Can't wait to read this.
You too - its so tiring. Sometimes I think I'm inured to it, and sometimes I have to go take refuge in reading of safely historical disasters for a while, but I can see the impacts on all my colleagues. We ought to hear soon if it'll be three in three years for us, but nothing clear at the moment.
Solidarity. Been through this - or at least a cousin of it - two years running now.
🇹🇼 Tens of thousands of political documents from Taiwan’s years of one-party rule have been fully declassified by its top intelligence agency. All pre-1992 records have been transferred to the National Archives for public view with no redactions.
focustaiwan.tw/politics/202...
This is an excellent (and gently cynical -- far more gentle than 魯迅先生 himself) NYT article on the de-naturing of the great Chinese critic-writer in Xi Jinping's "empire of tedium" (as Geremie Barme calls it).
For academics too.
I really just need my own time bought, but so many grants (and my own institution) make it so very hard to do that. It also feels like there is a dearth of the medium-size pots that most arts and humanities research would want. Its either micro or huge.
As major news outlets cut off the Wayback Machine, journalists and advocacy groups are rallying to protect the Internet Archive’s vast collection of web pages. www.wired.com/story/the-in...
Morning Womble! Trying to take a weekend (mostly) away from screens, and anything that feels like work, so I am reading Bernal Diaz del Castillo's True History of the Conquest of New Spain. Wilder (and far more brutal) than any fiction I've read lately.
From today, for thousands of couples and families staying together in the UK just got even more expensive.
Visa fees are rising again — quietly wrecking lives.
We know that around 60–70% of many visa fees are profit
This is not cost recovery, it is excessive charging at the expense of families💔
'The UK’s two richest universities already attract a disproportionate share of educational philanthropy....overall, huge disparities in fundraising serve to increase the gap that already divides the oldest and most selective institutions from the rest'.
Good morning! I'm currently reading On the Calculation of Volume, which feels right for the odd out-of-time sense of being an academic on Easter break.
Congratulations!
Today, MSF is going public with something we've been fighting behind closed doors for months: Gilead will not sell us their new HIV drug, lenacapavir.
The sticking point isn't even price, they just refuse to sell.
Open letter linked + explainer 🧵1/
www.doctorswithoutborders.org/latest/gilea...
Thanks to @chinafile.bsky.social for doing the interview with me. One dilemma many of us CCP critics are grappling with these days is how to keep our criticism of the CCP from being weaponized by the wrong people for their own agenda.
I have no idea if this is in fact news, not my field. But this was an entertaining lecture from Prof. Glenn Richardson for the Historical Association.
Breaking news from the University of Plymouth: Cardinal Wolsey was framed! Also apparently a cat guy.
I had a really lovely time at AAS. However, I really could have done without the traditional post-AAS head cold, much as I know this is a risk of all conferences. I have three lectures to write this week, and my lecture-writing companion cat won't come near me as I can't stop sneezing.
Good afternoon! Good to hear Intergalatic Feast is out, I really enjoyed Interstellar Megachef. I'm currently reading Slow Gods (excellent), likely the last thing I will try to finish before submitting my Hugo nominations.
新瓶舊酒 orientalism
