Jottings from the Granite Studio

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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For anyone who works in academia, or anybody concerned about the culture of anti-intellectualism in American culture…or really anybody who wants a good laugh while at work–check out this priceless bit from Stephen Colbert. Wait for the bonus at the end when the poor afflicted student mentions the grade he received for the class. (BIG [...]

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This is not the kind of story that makes tenured faculty wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat clutching an empty box of ramen noodles…but for Ph.D. students, it’s a fairly commonplace tale of woe that offers all the encouragement of an iron bar to the back of the head.
Back [...]

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Ming dynasty historian Craig Clunas, author of the classic Superfluous Things: Material Culture and Social Status in Ming China, has been named chair of the Art History department at Oxford University. Clunas’ work explores the intersection between material and social culture, most notably in his application of Bourdieu’s theories of ’social capital’ to describe elite [...]

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Story in Spiegel Online profiling Duong Van Ngo, a 77-year old trilingual resident of Saigon (excuse me, Ho Chi Minh City) who claims to be the last of the city’s public letter writers. In the old days, these fixtures outside post offices and ports would draft and sometimes translate letters and documents and even scribble [...]

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Brilliant post on Danwei yesterday in keeping with the theme of Spring Festival. It is an annotated translation of interviews about Spring Festivals of years past collected by oral historian Sang Ye. The stories tell not only of the great hardships (floods, starvation) but also of the little joys (roasting a pig in the communal [...]

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According to this morning’s edition of Inside Higher Education, it’s not that easy getting in and once you’re there, be prepared to stay awhile.
Citing a study by the American Historical Association, IHE reports:
History departments in the United States with doctoral programs received an average of 74.1 applications for the fall 2007 term and anticipate enrolling [...]

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And I’m not talking about the elections…I have a stack of ‘em on my desk and they’ve gotta find their way back to the students by the time I get on the plane to LA this weekend. Right now, the exams are just sitting there in my inbox staring at me–like some sort of evil [...]

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Dave asked recently where the name 花崗齋之愚公 (Hua Gang Zhai zhi Yu Gong) comes from. In the old days, it was not uncommon for scholars to name their studio or office where they wrote. Usually the name had some connection with the location or had a classical allusion. I chose Hua Gang (Granite) Zhai (Studio) [...]

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What to do when you have a paper due on Monday and you’re still hungover on Sunday night? Why, plunk down Mom and Dad’s visa and order a custom job delivered to your computer from God knows where and written by chimps. (“At $9.95 a page, you expected poetry?” NYT 9/10/06)

“Using her own name and [...]

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