Jottings from the Granite Studio

I wrote about this last month based on a piece by Paul Mooney in The National, but this week Inside Higher Education has a longer take on the denial of visas by the Chinese government for scholars and historians working in areas deemed sensitive by the manpurse-toting narrow-minded intellectual gerbils who staff Zhongnanhai Glorious All-Wise [...]

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One new feature I’m trying to kick off here at The Granite Studio is an entirely biased and hugely subjective review of some of my favorite historians of China.  These are the writers and scholars who influenced me when I began studying Chinese history and who continue to serve as inspirations as I continue my [...]

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As many already know, Jonathan Spence, perhaps the best known historian of China in Europe and North America, will be giving a series of radio lectures for the BBC 4.   The talks, on the subject of “Chinese Vistas,” will be made available online as podcasts after they air.
Say what you want about Professor Spence, [...]

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Yeah, I’ve been remiss the last couple of months about writing. My bad. No excuses. Well…no good ones. Teaching. Research. Life. The fact that the PSB’s working definition of ‘undesirable foreigner’ seems to include those actively researching Chinese history. Whatever. Truth of the matter is that I blog as a hobby [...]

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From Jorge Cham’s masterful and frighteningly on target strip, Piled Higher & Deeper.

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Sorry for the quiet month but on top of my usual research I am teaching two classes (Qing history and modern Chinese philosophy) so as the semester moves into the silly season, my free time ain’t what it used to be.
But no worries because the New York Times has published this little gem to [...]

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And so a moment I thought I would never live to see has happened twice this decade…the Red Sox have won the World Series. Unfortunately with my teaching and my research schedule I had to watch most of the games on the Internet rebroadcast…except for game 4, for which Wu Ming spilled the beans over [...]

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From the Shenzhen Daily:

Veteran journalist Li Yuanjiang, who founded China’s first press group and was later sentenced to prison for accepting bribes, has become the first person in Guangdong to complete a Ph.D. in prison.
Li, former president of the Guangzhou Daily Press Group, has so far served three years of a 12-year term in Sihui [...]

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Fascinating essay in the Boston Globe’s “Ideas” section this past Sunday written by Yale Professor Anthony Kronman. Professor Kronman argues that American universities have given up on teaching the big, fundamental questions to their students in favor of specialized, practical, subject-based curriculum in increasing vogue over the past century. What is the meaning of life [...]

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I’m now on Facebook which is ridiculous. If blogging is the cocaine of internet time wasting, then Facebook is crack. Seriously. Last night I spent an hour of quality research time creating “Simpson-character” likenesses of YJ and me. Yikes.

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