Important to understand the basic principles of Chinese history: when determining whether territories like Tibet, Xinjiang, etc. are historically integral part of China, it's essential to treat dynasties ruled by Inner Asians (like Yuan and Qing) as Chinese.

Really should have stopped assigning To Live (movie version) in classes after becoming a father - now basically the whole second half of the film turns me into a sobbing mess

Personnel Management and Political Reform in Early Nineteenth-Century China - myself, Amy Gordanier, and Hou Yueran presenting, with David Porter @dcporter.bsky.social offering comments. 10:30 am on Saturday 3/14.

In case you missed it, Kerry Brown wrote a book that plagiarized Shelley Rigger’s classic book title. I, along with others who were asked to review Kerry’s manuscript, said verbatim to change the title. In the most tacky and unprofessional fashion, he stole her title anyway.

I have to now be uncharacteristically sincere and say that I was actually very impressed by the Canadian citizenship ceremony, especially the genuine effort to incorporate indigenous perspectives/traditions and that I am very pleased to now be a Canadian

Those who knew me at a certain earlier stage of my life will be pretty amused to learn that this afternoon I will be voluntarily swearing an oath of allegiance to a monarch (and specifically to a king named Charles).

An LLM-produced essay is tangible proof that a student doesn’t care, and yet responding to it properly requires hour upon hour of careful work. It’s asymmetrical and overwhelming.

Chaos is when your partner reshelves a Wade Giles-romanized Lu Xun translation under H

Incidentally, many of these are terrific places to eat regional cuisine (the lobbies, which are linked to hotels/restaurants, not the detention systems).

This is happening!!!! December 2: just in time for Christmas present season. I am still in the anxiety stage, not yet in the Saoirse Ronan as Jo March watching her book get published scene-stage, but I'm glad other people are excited already!

I think Paul, of blessed posting memory, is entirely right here, and I say this *even though* the young people I know remain highly literate and engaged, because I think his sample is way more representative than mine. musgrave.substack.com/p/a-post-lit...

The basic structure of so much commentary, some in the guise of academic study, reduces to: (1) generative AI products are detrimental to the goals of education (2) therefore, the goals of education must change. Without the tacit axiom that AI has authority behind it, that just doesn’t follow.

My review of @historianzhang.bsky.social's excellent Power for a Price is officially out in @hisjournalha.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

Comment détruire le réseau des universités de recherche du Québec le plus rapidement possible.

Wow, what a nightmare - I can see this becoming a big problem for those of us in Canada who work in fields where local library resources aren't great. Of course at the moment it doesn't matter for Canadians because the Canada Post strike has killed all ILL entirely anyway

Current headline practices are going to be such a pain in the ass to deal with for future historians

I'm making a highly principled stand on a matter of relatively small import and refusing to write a book review of a book whose press won't send me a hard copy.

Strategy for dealing with AI in my giant intro class next term, while not completely giving up on my desire to actually teach skills: students are evaluated entirely by in-class exams, except that there will be a small optional writing intensive section for anyone who actually wants to learn

Survey: I'm teaching "Introduction to Chinese Culture" this fall for which I'm trying to combine a historical survey with a weekly focus on a different genre of writing/performance/film. For Qing, I'm thinking I may go with 志怪小說 and 蒲松龄. So what are your favorite stories in the Giles translation?

It’s not just the dollars. It’s the goodwill the US generates, the connections we create student by student—what a devastating loss

At @chinabooksreview.com, @thejourneybird.bsky.social writes about the boom-and-bust cycles of China travel guides, from their first heyday in the 1920s to the "extinction event" of Covid shutdowns.

I've managed such a high level of obliviousness to my surroundings that I only learned Beijing is under a severe flood warning because the archives sent me an automated text about how they'll be closed tomorrow.

Observations on (visibly) foreign tourists in Beijing: 1. none of them go the 恭王府, tons of them go to 雍和宫. 2. I don't remember such a high percentage being Russian. Also, just generally I hear much less English (though certainly not none) relative to other European languages than used to be the case

Over the past week I've finally started saying Canada when random Chinese people ask where I'm from. After five years there, it feels correct, and also makes the usual follow up question asking for more specificity much easier.

Day 10 in the archives and I am finally seeing a clear path to an article I'm excited about writing for my new project (an article that hopefully will be the first step to a second book).

Thought I keep having in the archives: why do 題本 have such weird/distinctive/ugly handwriting compared to 奏摺? Not at all hard to read (that's only 錄副奏摺 and rescripts by Yongzheng and Qianlong), but just like someone was trying to come up with the world's stupidest font.

Hey @princetonupress.bsky.social - I think it's a great idea to share the story of Xinjiang in English with the world. You got off to a great start when you published Sean Roberts's book The War on the Uyghurs - maybe continue in that vein: press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

Should we be surprised from the press that published this garbage? press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

there is no jurisprudence at work here. the republican court believes that anything a republican president is presumptively constitutional, even if it directly violates the unambiguous constitutional text and causes total chaos in law and policy.

Apparently the NY Times needs remedial instruction on what "gilded" means (in the context of the "Gilded Age")

#SkyStorians #History New book review! David C. Porter on Lawrence Zhang's Power for a Price: The Purchase of Official Appointments in Qing China (CUP, 2023), doi.org/10.1111/1468...

Reading Daniel Barish's book "Learning to Rule" as the parent of a toddler really gives me great sympathy for those Qing officials tasked with serving as teachers to the 4 year old Guangxu emperor. Very glad my son is not an emperor (except, perhaps, in his own head).

I’m shocked having someone write your essay doesn’t make you smarter

New review of Slaves of the Emperor just came out in the AHR. Thanks to @manjurambi.bsky.social for the very clear explanation of the book's arguments and contributions! academic.oup.com/ahr/article/...

When I was applying to do my Fulbright in China 10 years ago, I remember that toward the end of the process we had to submit a study plan to our prospective host institution, for which we were encouraged (by the US side) to think carefully about the political implications of what we wrote

Let's have some fun. In this NYT story, we see a picture of an OpenAI billboard on a college campus, suggesting the following prompt: "Give me a guide for mastering this Calc 101 syllabus. In two weeks. Small steps please." What happens when we actually use ChatGPT to do this? THREAD!

Has anyone expressed sympathy or concern for international students majoring in the humanities yet

Another reason why Rubio’s announcement is ridiculous: so many people have these kinds of connections to the party that are basically formalities or requirements for study/employment. This is not a carefully vetted security operation. This is an indiscriminate ban, and it’s incredibly bad policy.

She concludes by saying schools need to make sure they're teaching students "what it means to promote freedom and liberty" and apparently their way of doing that is banning students and silencing protected speech.

The current situation of international students at any university in the US: 1. You absolutely cannot express an opinion on one of the worst ongoing global atrocities, unless you are cheering for its continuation.

6800 people who already probably have leases for next year, spent years of their lives working to get to where they were now upended because Trump and Noem and Stephen Miller want to crush a major export sector of this economy, oh, and also a source of cures for diseases and knowledge of all sorts.

Also: I assume Harvard will try to sue fast and fix things, but the cruelty this letter unleashes *today* will induce lasting fear and panic not just on the 6800 international students at Harvard, but also on all international students in this country, even if there is a swift TRO. Why stay here?

The United States has been lucky enough to develop a set of research and educational institutions that are the envy of the world and that bring immense economic and cultural benefit to the country.

This is the stuff of authoritarian regimes. There isn't even the pretense that this is anything but persecution, unbound by law.

Job 📣 3-year funded PhD position in modern Chinese history with a broad focus on crime/Qing legal history) Part of an ANR team led by colleagues at EFEO, Academia Sinica, and Université Nice Côte d'Azur, and based in Paris, France. Deadline: May 30, 2025

I would say I'm glad to only work on dead people and musty tomes, but I assume we're about a month out from DOGE deciding to save $50,000 from the budget by burning the entire rare books collection of the Library of Congress to heat federal buildings

Cato has published my comprehensive review of the ~240 Venezuelans the US government renditioned 2 months ago to Salvador’s notorious prison. We identified FIFTY who came legally, never violated any immigration law, but are imprisoned at the US government’s request and at US taxpayer expense.

Guess we need to start getting ready for the inevitable AI-inspired Hong Xiuquan www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...