Thank you Joshua and Pietro! Look forward to reading this fantastic issue!

Dear friends and colleague in London: I am giving a talk titled "Specter of Acoustic Internationalism: 'Voice of Malayan Revolution' in China, 1969-1981" at SOAS on November 11th (Tuesday) 5:15-7:00p.m, welcome to register and attend, and share your comments! Thanks!: www.soas.ac.uk/about/event/...

Dear friends and colleagues in Hong Kong, welcome to attend the book launch event (Socializing Medicine: Health Humanities and East Asian Media) at UChicago Hong Kong Center on Friday, November 7, 2025. You can find more details and register in the weblink: uchicago.hk/event/book-l...

Thanks for publishing this piece! Writing this essay was an inspiring political journey! Thanks Matt, the editors, and all my progressive Canadian friends!

Visited a unique museum: the Paris Sewer Museum (Musée des égouts de Paris); so many themes converged beneath the city’s polished surface: labor, infrastructure, waste, hygiene, smell, and resistance...This also reminded me of Polish filmmaker AndrzejVajda’s film Kanal (1957).

Friends and colleagues in Paris, welcome to my presentation, "The Kite, the Wind, and the Monkey King: Sino-French Cinematic Journeys, 1950s–1980s," at Maison Suger, October 9th (Thursday), 7-8p.m., look forward to your questions and suggestions: fmsh.fr/en/events/kite…

Hybrid book launch event, Dutch time Thursday (09/25) 3:00p.m., Eastern time 9:00a.m., Beijing time 9:00p.m. Look forward to a productive discussion with colleagues. Welcome to register and participate: Socializing Medicine: Health Humanities and East Asian Media: www.iias.asia/events/socia...

Thanks Matt for editing the special issue, my article, "Dressing the Wounds: Medical Internationalism and Embodied Realism in Dr. Bethune (Zhang Junxiang, 1965)," is available for free download, look forward to your critique: www.academia.edu/129826352/DR...

Thanks Matt Croomb for editing this special issue, I contributed an article, “Dressing the Wounds: Medical Internationalism and Embodied Realism in Dr. Bethune”: utppublishing.com/toc/cjfms/34...

Shared by an Indonesian friend: www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05...

Look forward to attending the conference remotely tomorrow: International Symposium on 70 Years Since the Bandung Conference Tuesday 27 May 2025 10.00am to 4.00pm Hosted by the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre: www.lse.ac.uk/seac/events/...

Tomorrow evening in The Hague, welcome colleagues nearby.

Presenting a book chapter, entitled "Fire and Fury from Afar: Mexican Films in China and Sino-Latin American Cultural Diplomacy during the Cold War" at IIAS Leiden and online tomorrow afternoon 2:00p.m.(EST 8a.m.), welcome friends and colleagues to join: www.iias.asia/events/fire-...

Dear friends and colleagues, welcome to register to join my talk at IIAS in Leiden, the Netherlands and online on April 17th: "Fire and Fury from Afar: Mexican Films in China and Sino-Latin American Cultural Diplomacy during the Cold War": www.iias.asia/events/fire-...

Tsinghua Professor Yan Hairong's talk, "Chinese Capital Accumulation and the Belt and Road Initiative," at Iias Leiden this Friday (03/07) at 2:00p.m., welcome friends in Leiden and Amsterdam to attend and share with friends and colleagues: www.iias.asia/events/chine...

With permission from co-editors, I have uploaded our introduction to Socializing Medicine online for free access. Look forward to your thoughts--many of the issues we raise regarding medicine, health injustice, and audiovisual media remain highly relevant. Thanks!: www.academia.edu/127485109/_I...

Revolutionary books bought in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

After 4 years of collaborative efforts, our edited volume, Socializing Medicine: Health Humanities and East Asian Media, has been published by HKUP. Colleagues in North America can order through UCP website. Thanks for your support, look forward to your feedback: press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

Inspiring books I read in 2024:My Childhood; New Masters, New Servants: Migration, Development, and Women Workers in China; The Right to Be Lazy; Labor and Monopoly Capital; Dying for an iPhone: Apple, Foxconn, and The Lives of China’s Workers; Sound, Speech, Music in Soviet and Post-Soviet Cinema…

The ten most inspiring films I watched in 2024: Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat; Ni chaînes ni maîtres;About Dry Grasses;La Chimera;The Cord of Life;West Indies;POLISARIO, UN PEUPLE EN ARMES; Garm Hava (1973); Scenes of the Occupation from Gaza (1973,); The Red Army-PFLP: Declaration of World War (1971)

The bunkers once held by the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War, and the Memorial to the International Brigades at City University. The memorial bears a quote from Dolores Ibárruri: “You are history, you are legend, you are the heroic example of solidarity and the universality of democracy”

Fado in Lisbon.

Conferences next June: Kathmandu, Nepal and Dakar, Senegal.

Call for Abstracts: Edited Volume on "The Politics of the Soundtrack;" deadline: February 1, 2025; contact email: [email protected], welcome colleagues to contribute and please share widely, thank you: call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/12/...

Have bought 4 books to read before bed since late Oct; finished Gorky’s “My Childhood” and Gospodinov’s “Time Shelter.” Both interesting, the former sincere and incisive; the latter, too cynical to my taste. Cultural elites popular in the West from former socialist nations share this characteristic.

Since 2021, during the pandemic, some film historian and cinephile friends and I have been hosting bi-weekly online discussions on 1920s-1949 Chinese films, drawing scholars and students from China, the U.S., and beyond. I have learned so much. We have finished discussing over 50 early Chinese films

Visited the International Institute of Social History Amsterdam with other IIAS fellows. Thanks Elf for giving us the special tour. Will definitely go back to do research.

Our panel on “Solidarity Filmmaking in the 1960s and 1970s” for SCMS has been accepted. Look forward to seeing friends and colleagues next April in Chicago.

Recently finished reading the English translation of Gorky’s “My Childhood.” Once beloved and widely read in China, his autobiographical trilogy still holds a resonance. Revisiting the book, I found its power undiminished—It moved me to tears; also quote a sentence in an article I am working on.

Thanks Jian Fan and Isabella Zang for visiting IIAS Leiden to share their poignant documentary, “After the Rain” (2021). The film provides an intimate and humane portrayal of families who lost their children in the devastating 2008 earthquake and later chose to give birth to or adopt another child.

Went to the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam yesterday. Sara Gomez’s short documentaris were stunning, so nuanced and playful. They reveal clear connections to her doc-style fiction film One Way or Another, with recurring thematic and stylistic motifs. The two new docs were interesting.

Our edited volume, Socializing Medicine: Health Humanities and East Asian Media (edited by Pao-chen Tang , Yuqian Yan, and Ling Zhang, HKUP, 2025), is available for pre-order: a tiny effort of decolonizing knowledge production. Thanks to our brilliant contributors: press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...