Woo hoo! The new Wang Jiaxin retrospective making some waves!

A thread. The other day, I happened to clock the little AI-written bio attached to my name. It announced, quite confidently, that I was married, not to my husband, but to his brother. Particularly amusing, since my BIL is a proud member of the LGBQT community. I love him, but I am NOT his type. 🧵

Updates from my continued experiments with Google AI Mode: "You are completely right, and I apologize. I hallucinated a connection, glued two entirely different people together based on a shared name, and built a false narrative around it." 1/2

The US version of beloved VIOLENT PHENOMENA antho of essays on translation is out today! With a foreword from Bruna Dantas Lobato. Congrats @jeremytiang.bsky.social Kavita Bhanot, and all fellow contributors. www.harpercollins.com/products/vio...

Heard Google turned up the AI this morning, decided to take it for a test spin. 1) I am not married to that person, 2) but that person is a real colleague who now has a pretty solid emotional distress libel case against Google, 3) that's not her picture, 4) the 'evidence' links are fake.

Translation people have to listen to this. Feeling even more committed to the niches, the small spaces, the little presses where this kind of blossom first grows.

We got an "update" to our PeopleSoft grading software and now it predictively suggests, in non-alphabetical and shifting order, your most common grades according to how often you have given them so far in the class. Exiting the age of common sense, entering the age of average sense.

My translation of ADRIFT IN THE SOUTH, the debut memoir of Chinese worker-poet Xiao Hai 小海, out with Granta Magazine Editions today. A landmark work of the migrant worker literature movement, it showcases one of China’s liveliest emerging voices. #XiaoHai #chineseliterature #translatedliterature

My colleague Allen Carlson will be teaching his gateway class "What Is China?" online starting May 1, perfect for people who want an interdisciplinary, contemporary, transnational introduction to Chinese politics and society. Course description + syllabus here: classes.cornell.edu/browse/roste...

Found myself making the argument that a student using AI inpainting (i.e. starting a paragraph with her idea, finishing it with the AI's) was not improving her writing, but submitting to the ideology of the AI, which is related to the average ideology of the data-set. Two neat recent sources:

Original essay here for anyone interested! www.chinesepen.org/blog/archive...

It's here! _Orphans of the Times_, translations from the pathbreaking Bei Dao and Li Tuo-edited book 《七十年代》. Fiction writers (Han Shaogong! Ah Cheng), poets (Zhai Yongming!), and artists (Xu Bing!) reflecting on their lives in memoirs of the PRC's turbulent 1970s. cup.cuhk.edu.hk/CUHKP/Orphan...

Highly recommend this episode of the Sinica podcast with @kaiserkuo.bsky.social and translator Eleanor Goodman, about the brilliant poetry of Zheng Xiaoqiong, the Chinese labor poetry movement generally, and the joys and challenges of poetry translation: www.sinicapodcast.com/p/the-poetry...

The bear in the middle's celebrating five years of the Hong Kong National Security Law. The family at the bottom's caption: "National Security -- Family Security" Top right: "Only with national security is there development." Question: are Hong Kongers bears in this, and non-HKers...human?

Post your warning sign

Post your warning sign

He lies if they ask him how he does it. To leap on top or to the side. To dodge the ceaseless lottery. —Luis Muñoz, translated by Idra Novey and Garth Greenwell. Read the full poem: https://bit.ly/4vcQ3Ck

After two years of sustained effort, I am delighted to share that the first #Cantonese language course is now being offered across the University of Toronto's tri-campus system. My sincere thanks to all who have supported this initiative along the way!

Louise Glück

I don't see this said enough: the widespread use of generative AI is not only making our jobs as educators harder logistically, but also emotionally. It is genuinely sad to be suspicious of students when you have spent so much time building a pedagogy based on trust and not being a cop. It sucks.

Replace every how-to-publish panel with one on the material realities of publishing. This is where I’m at.

Good read

The number of Americans studying in China - and thus prepared to give informed future advice on China - is at a critical new low.

My traditional Easter reading, from James Tate.

what if we got a 100% blockrate on it. what if they designed an AI and we unanimously said "nope"

Girl Scouts and DSA alike

Ithaca showing up, all of downtown is packed!

in simple terms... meritocratic nationalism makes one deeply unhappy. this is also quite related to the Zhang Xuefeng phenomenon. bsky.app/profile/chen...

Been playing with this huge database of Chinese cigarette package art for a solid half hour. Derby New USA Blend: www.ciggies.app/sku/1070; Zhongnanhai 8mg tar: www.ciggies.app/sku/27; and 555s -- I'm pretty sure I've never had a real one of these: www.ciggies.app/sku/2154

the proud boys' lawyer thinks he redacted the email addresses of the over 2000 people who donated to the fundraiser for the lawsuit, but here's the thing: no he did not lol

Just got to see this article and highly recommend it. Weekend before last Lea Pao (who opens the article) and I co-organized "One Poem: Reading Fast and Slow," a conference stream at the ACLA. It went great, some observations in the thread below: www.theguardian.com/technology/n...

J. H. Prynne, on reading

Seeking panelists for a guaranteed roundtable at next year's MLA convention in Los Angeles: "Reducing Technology Dependence in Chinese Language and Culture Pedagogy" 1/3

Not your average “I got a new job” post. A measured and powerful act of courage—read the thread!

holy hell rattle.com/as-if-haunte...

Rereading part of the Classic of Mountains and Seas for the Strange class. Here are so good bits: "There is an animal here which looks like a wild cat, and it has a white tail and a mane. Its name is the bum-bum. If you rear it, you can take it to cure melancholy."

Epstein’s economic power among academics was made possible by a capitalist system that makes higher education dependent on the charity economy rather than a public good supported by taxing the rich

I have spent my entire adult life being lectured by Republican politicians and conservative legal movement types about how important it is to preserve the sacred constitutional right to self-defense of *specifically this person* and then secret police murdered him in the street

Here is the newly-unsealed State Department memo confirming -- finally -- that the detention of Tufts student Rümeysa Öztürk was based on an op-ed. No antisemitic activity. No support of terrorism. An op-ed in a student newspaper. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

I keep coming back to this. I asked my son about the Pokemon hat: it's Marill, a water mouse. He described Marill fans as "sweet people who like cute things." This is the kind of hat you buy your kid if it's cold out and you want dressing up for school to feel happy and fun.

A 5-year-old preschool student was taken with his father by federal immigration agents shortly after arriving home from school, Columbia Heights school leaders said Jan. 21.

全糖半糖微糖無糖我都可以，反正就是一定要去冰 | solidarity with protesters against the ICE terrorists, solidarity with americans against the fascist US state (in taiwan when we order drinks we say 去冰 to ask for no ice)

People are calling this post a godtier opener for 2026 because it captures the undeniable tension in the patriarchal institution of marriage in China. The post has got over 1.3M likes within a day, and has been censored and uncensored for over 5 times. As of now OP’s account has also been banned.

You might not think you want to read anything from the Journal of Critical Accounting, but this essay about how the fascist state seized control of Italy's University of Ferrara feels highly relevant: impoverish a school, destabilize it with regulation, then buy it out. doi.org/10.1016/j.cp...

Just got back to the department and this was the center of the conversation-in-progress in the Asian Studies office; strongly considering de-Canvasifying my spring course (as well as other things I won't post about). Highly recommended, thanks Matt and @ehayot.bsky.social

Tidying up the Pokémon clone I made with the kid last spring and all of a sudden realized what I want to bring to the new year

What a time to decide to learn less about the world. dailytarheel.com/article/univ...

[𝐍𝐄𝐖 @asiancha.bsky.social 𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐀𝐘] In an exclusive essay, Nick Admussen reads the game 𝟏𝟎𝟎𝟎𝐱𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐈𝐒𝐓 through immunity and memory, situating trauma, gender, and forgetting within the history of Hong Kong protest and the Chinese diaspora. @nadmussen.bsky.social ⧉ 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝: chajournal.com/2025/12/17/1... 。。

[𝐍𝐄𝐖 @asiancha.bsky.social 𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐀𝐘] In an exclusive essay, Nick Admussen reads the game 𝟏𝟎𝟎𝟎𝐱𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐈𝐒𝐓 through immunity and memory, situating trauma, gender, and forgetting within the history of Hong Kong protest and the Chinese diaspora. @nadmussen.bsky.social ⧉ 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝: chajournal.com/2025/12/17/1... 。。