Aoife Cantrill

If AI bots looked like this we might actually like them. Photo by Emilipothèse at Unsplash.

AI bots are taking Oxford University websites offline by attempting to scrape scholarly databases. Bodley's Librarian, Richard Ovenden, said: “It's the result of massive bot activity, downloading data at a scale which our infrastructure has found challenging.” status.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/detailed/

Couverture de revue lettrée en bleu clair sur fond blanc : Texte SINOPHONIES Shu-ici SHIn Le concept de «sinophonie» Piette-Mong LIm Les études sinophores, recherche d'un dehors (de la Chine) Coraline JORTAY Décoloniser les études taiwanaises ? Camille Wu Des féminismes incommensurables: Tarwan, Chine, Hongkong Entretion avec Shu-mei SHIn «La Chine a été, et est, un empire!» Pierre-Henri CASTEL Spinozifer la psylacanyse? Francis WOLFF La puissance du temps Benoît BASSE La justice doit-elle savoir pardonner? Philippe BERTHIER Concordia discors: Breton et Graca Julicn BOUTONNIER Journal d'un tfort: Vinclair et le prosimètre REVUE GÉNÉRALE DES PUBLICATIONS FRANÇAISES ET ÉTRANGÈRES

Vient de paraître : le dernier numéro de Critique dédié aux études sinophones coordonné par Pierre-Mong Lim, "Sinophonies"

Avec un entretien avec Shu-mei Shih +divers articles pour comprendre le dialogue qu'elles entretiennent avec les études francophones, féministes, postcoloniales et décoloniales

really exciting that Taiwan Travelogue is nominated for the International Booker! I wrote about Yang Shuang-zi's earlier work, baihe/GL, translation history and intergenerational textuality in 2023 -- open access here ✨ www.euppublishing.com/doi/full/10....

In July 1981, the CCP turned 60. Coincidentally, the July issue of Lianhuanhua bao run a comic that contextualized three generations of party members and asked what it actually meant to be a Communist. Read it in original and in my new #ChinaComx translation here: chinacomx.github.io/translations...

Taiwan Travelogue — a Booker-longlisted novel on the tricks of translation At the heart of Yáng Shuāng-zǐ’s rich, heady book is the uneasy bond between a Japanese author and her Taiwanese interpreter

“A multi-layered meditation on language & longing & the many ways in which we travel only to arrive where we started.” My review of #InternationalBooker2026 long-listed TAIWAN TRAVELOGUE byYáng Shuāng-zǐ’s @ftweekend.com @andotherstories.bsky.social @thebookerprizes.com
www.ft.com/content/0164...

Capitalism Compressed Hege Høyer Leivestad explores the ultimate itinerant object in histories of global capitalism: the shipping container.

OTD in 2019, MSC Gülsün, then the largest container ship in the world, was launched.

From the HW archive, Hege Høyer Leivestad explores the shipping container from the ground, and what histories of capitalism might be found in the docks.

‘With sumptuous food writing, laugh-out-loud dialogue and metafictional twists, this novel was impossible to put down.’
– #InternationalBooker2026 judges

Out today in UK and Europe, the International @thebookerprizes.com longlisted Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ (tr. Lin King)🍜

Pronting errors In The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1901), Sigmund Freud argues that slips of the tongue and the pen constitute moments when repressed thoughts break through.

so good. enjoyed this too on printed errors, to spur on your complying adamsmyth.substack.com/p/pronting-e...

I got a discount code for sales of my book in March!

Why did Chinese scientists in 1975 embark on an expedition to discover mermaids?

My new #ChinaComx translation offers answers! It is also a great example of how the Reform Era drive toward mass science popularization was realized on small scale.

Read it here: chinacomx.github.io/translations...

Calls for Papers Calls for Papers Here you can find the call for papers for the journal issues we are currently working on. The initial pitches should be no longer than 300 words and explain the key argument of your p...

|| NEW CALL FOR PAPERS || To mark the 50th anniversary of Mao Zedong’s death, we are planning an issue on memories and lessons from the Mao era. We invite contributions revisiting overlooked experiences, questioning established interpretations, or reflecting on what Maoist China can teach us today.

A poster with the text: "This talk examines how Japanese settlers reimagined and branded Mt. Asahidake, Hokkado's highest peak, to advance colonial goals. For the Ainu, it was a sacred and distant realm, but after Hokkado's annexation in 1869, settlers replaced Ainu cosmologies with new narratives. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Hokkaido government, educators, journalists, and alpine clubs sought to bring the mountain closer everyday life by promoting its sublime beauty and accessibility, while the Imperial Japanese Army elevated it as a symbol of Japanese spirit. These redefinitions transformed Mt. Asahidake into a symbol of Japanese imperial identity, illustrating how mountains served as tools of dominance and regional assertion within the empire. Chris Tsui Shuen Lau is a historian of modern Japan and a postdoc at the University of Tübingen, Germany. Her research focuses on cultural, social, colonial, and global history. Her current project explores modern mountaineering in the Japanese empire, using Mt. Asahidake in Hokkaido and Yushan in Taiwan as case studies to investigate how mountains were reimagined and repurposed for colonial objectives."

Tomorrow at HKU! All are welcome.

A talk by Chris Tsui Shuen Lau: "From Ainu Cosmologies to Imperial Symbols: The Colonial Narratives of Mt. Asahidake in Hokkaido, 1900s-1930s"

Date: March 4, 2026 (Wed)
Time: 17:00-19:00
Venue: CRT-5.41, 5/F, Run Run Shaw Tower,
Centennial Campus, HKU

"Solitude is an elemental necessity of intellectual life, but it has been replaced by a technocratic vision of learning."

Joshua Hall on the work of literary critic Mark Edmundson: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/mark-edmundson-literary-criticism-american-university-humanities-essay/

Taoiseach of Ireland announces the first Childers Professor of Irish History, 20 February 2026. YouTube video by Cambridge History Faculty

Watch now on YouTube: Taoiseach of Ireland @micheal-martin.bsky.social announces Professor Alvin Jackson as first Childers Professor of Irish History @cam.ac.uk

Speeches also from Vice-Chancellor Deborah Prentice and @lucydelap.bsky.social

@trincolllibcam.bsky.social

🔗 youtu.be/rNynCzuh0CA?...

Blue book cover reading "Immunity on Trial: Ethiopian Courts, Chinese Corporations and Contestations over Sovereignty", Miriam Driessen

Introduction section of the book (available following the link on the publisher's website). It reads: "Introduction Everyone had retreated to rest in the scarce shade when Benli Li mounted a loader parked on the construction site.! He was bantering with an Ethiopian laborer under his direction and dared him to step into the machine's bucket. The worker complied, perhaps hesitant to go against his expatriate manager's request or eager to prove his courage. The Chinese foreman ignited the engine. The machine shot forward. Within moments, the young man lost his balance and landed on the ground. Unable to bring the machine to a halt, Li drove over him. On July 24, 2016, the Supreme Court of Amhara, Ethiopia, summonsed the twenty-six-year-old site supervisor to a hearing of its mobile bench at Debre Tabor, a mountain town in South Gondar. The state prosecutor demanded a prison sentence, charging Li with homicide caused by severe negligence. Li, however, did not appear, and the local police failed to find him. Months went by before the court arranged a new hearing. Yet again, the police officers of Farta Wereda, the rural county in which the incident occurred, visited the Chinese camp and returned empty-handed. They requested another adjournment. "This time", they wrote in their note to the Supreme Court, "we promise that we will bring him to court."3 They failed yet again. As procedure requires, the court then turned to the national press agency. It placed a public summons in the English-language newspaper The Ethiopian Herald and its Amharic counterpart Addis Zemen, calling"

Happy pub day to @driessenmiriam.bsky.social 's "Immunity on Trial: Ethiopian Courts, Chinese Corporations, and Contestations over Sovereignty," a labour of love and heartbreak, with fieldwork in Ethiopia spanning 2011-2020, by a brilliant colleague who's one of the finest anthropologists I know ✨💫

Recently on the Formosa Files Podcast: Austrian Traveler’s 1898 Journey Through Early Japanese Taiwan - Kaohsiung Times Three-part series presents the first known English translation of Adolf Fischer’s 1900 travelogue, offering rare outsider observations on colonial Taiwan from Dadaocheng to Takao.

Formosa Files: first English translation of 1898 Austrian traveler in Formosa
www.kaohsiungtimes.com/recently-on-...

‘In 1995, thousands of people attended a three-day outdoor festival in the ruins of a Banqiao distillery.The Taipei International Post-Industrial Arts Festival (臺北國際後工業藝術祭) featured some of the most notorious Taiwanese and international noise groups of that time[..]abrasive noise, and bodily senses’

The New York Review of Books: Massacre Under the Starry Flag Vicente L. Rafael The history of a single photograph reveals how an atrocity in the Philippines was forgotten by its American perpetrators. October 23, 2025 issue

We’ve lost Vince Rafael today. One of his last published works was this essay about the celebration and subsequent erasure of an atrocity in the U.S. colonization of the Philippines www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

I created a deep linked table of contents (titles searchable) for the over 50 issues of "Tokyo Gazette" (1937-1942) that can be found on @archive.org - great source for students to critique: froginawell.net/tokyo-gazette/ Done with major LLM help and OCR, main titles checked over manually. #japan

Yan Ge | It cannot read the human heart A friend in China messaged me on WeChat. ‘What are your thoughts on the plagiarism scandal?’‘What scandal?’ I...

‘“This plagiarism scandal is exposing a structural problem in Chinese literature,” my friend said. “Literature should never be funded by the government. Public financial aid only corrupts artists.”’

Yan Ge on the Chinese plagiarism scandal exposed on RedNote.

www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/fe...

Q&A with Maria Stepanova about "The Disappearing Act" We’re eagerly awaiting the publication next week of The Disappearing Act by Maria Stepanova, translated by Sasha Dugdale. Today we’re sharing a special pre-release interview with Maria Stepanova, one ...

‘My own personal choice is to continue writing – simply because that is the only thing I can do to counterbalance the distortion. Someone has to use Russian as a language of love’

- Maria Stepanova on Disappearing Act
@fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social

shop.pushkinhouse.org/blogs/booksh...

In memory of Professor Murray Rubinstein [Obituary] Professor Murray A. Rubinstein Historian of Taiwan, Religion, and Identity Ph.D., New York University (1976) Professor Emeritus, Baruch College, City University of New York Senior Research…

Sharing this obituary on behalf of the European Association of Taiwan Studies as we remember Professor Murray Rubinstein in our own way and honour his profound contributions to Taiwan Studies and to our scholarly community: eats-taiwan.eu/news/in-memo...

History Workshop in Turbulent Times How can history offer illumination and hope at a time of global upheaval and chaos?

"We have a challenge here in the face of appalling things happening around the world not to give in to a politics of despair because that's exactly what the people in power want us to do."

Laura C. Forster, Julia Laite, Laura Schwartz, Anne Irfan and Jo Kelcey on doing history in turbulent times.

𝐂𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐛𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐬—𝐂𝐡𝐚: 𝐀𝐧 𝐀𝐬𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐋𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐉𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐩

𝐇𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐊𝐨𝐧𝐠 & 𝐈𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝:
𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐰𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐇𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬, 𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐋𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬, & 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐅𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐬

⧉ 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: chajournal.com/2026/02/17/c...
。。。。。

The interface of the Taiwan cross-database archival search website got a full revamp in the wake of the opening of the new National Archives -nice!

Now if so could fix the zillion 國家寶藏基金會 results that have been coming up for years no matter the keyword that would be amazing 😅
across.archives.gov.tw

Required Reading: The Life of Everyday Texts in the British Empire by Priyasha Mukhopadhyay

Priyasha Mukhopadhyay

Congrats to Priyasha Mukhopadhyay, whose book Required Reading won the @modernlanguage.bsky.social's Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for South Asian Studies! Explore her groundbreaking look at how ordinary writing shaped the way colonial subjects understood their place in empire: hubs.ly/Q03Yb5cj0

Ad for hunting gear/guns that ran in the Japanese settlers' newspaper 京城日報 in colonized Korea (1925). Many elite male settlers emulated the sporting practice of White hunters (complete with dogs), while Korean access to firearms remained strictly limited.

JOB> Bicentenary Research Fellowships in Humanities, University of Manchester www.jobs.manchester.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

Muban Educational Trust The Muban Educational Trust was established in 1997 by Christer von der Burg and the late Verena Bolinder-Müller. It is a small charity based in south-west London and is dedicated to the preservation,...

There's a bunch of high-quality stuff about #Chinese #printmaking and #graphics on the Youtube channel of the Muban Educational Trust, quite the resource:
www.youtube.com/@mubaneducat...