Category: Weekly Wanderings
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Weekly Wanderings: September 3, 2023
It’s a long weekend here in the United States as we mark Labor Day and the unofficial end of summer, and I’ve been on vacation for the past week. So in lieu of chatter and recommendations from me, please enjoy some snapshots from my wanderings around Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Feature photo: Waiting in line to…
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Weekly Wanderings: August 27, 2023
I’m usually a fast reader, but I took my time last week with a collection of essays by historian and journalist Timothy Garton Ash. In Homelands: A Personal History of Europe, Garton Ash blends his firsthand observations of political movements in various European countries (mostly in the former Soviet bloc) with broader analysis of European…
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Weekly Wanderings: August 20, 2023
Following freelance journalist Jen A. Miller on Twitter (whatever, X) and Instagram led me to purchase a “Passport to Your National Parks®” a few weeks ago. Why? First of all, I love both notebooks AND checklists. More seriously, Miller’s posts made a convincing case that filling her book with passport stamps helped her expand the…
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Weekly Wanderings: August 13, 2023
My knowledge of U.S. Presidents in the late 19th century is … a little shaky. If pressed, I could probably name all of the men who came between Grant and McKinley; no promises I’d have them in the correct order, though. The single thing I previously knew about James A. Garfield was that he served…
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Weekly Wanderings: August 6, 2023
Just links this week—I’ve been in Philadelphia, visiting with family and friends, and am getting ready to head home to Ann Arbor. China StoriesKeith Bradsher, “Anger Builds in Towns Deliberately Flooded, in Part, to Save Beijing”Chang Minxiao and Fan Yiying, “In China’s Dance Schools, a Dangerous Obsession With Weight Loss”Kit Fan, “‘I don’t know if…
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Weekly Wanderings: July 30, 2023
In recent weeks I’ve driven round-trip from Ann Arbor to both Grand Rapids and Cleveland, and I’m currently in Pittsburgh en route to Philadelphia, so I’ve had lots of time to catch up on podcasts while behind the wheel. Here are some highlights of my playlist during these road trips: Drum Tower, “The Cage,” a…
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Weekly Wanderings: July 23, 2023
I’m in Cleveland this weekend, hiking the trails of Cuyahoga Valley National Park (ahhhh) and watching the Phillies lose 1-0 to the Guardians (agggghhhh). I can say with reasonable certainty that I haven’t spotted Chinese Foreign Minister and Xi Jinping protégé Qin Gang in Ohio—so that’s one place where he isn’t. But where is Qin…
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Weekly Wanderings: July 16, 2023
Last weekend, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen traveled to China for a series of meetings. Among those Yellen talked with were a group of female economists and entrepreneurs, with whom she shared stories of being “almost the only woman in the room.” Unfortunately, the women who met with Yellen then became targets of an internet…
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Weekly Wanderings: July 9, 2023
The ongoing decimation of Twitter coincides with my own desire to get back into a regular writing practice, so I’ve been slowly reviving this blog. I’m making a minimal commitment here: a photo and short gloss on Wednesdays, and a “Weekly Wanderings” round-up of stories/thoughts/recommendations each Sunday morning. If and as I can, I’ll post…
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Weekly Wanderings: June 24, 2023
Lots of self-promotion and work talk this week, but sometimes a bunch of things come together at once … Greetings from Daegu, Korea, where I’m working at the 2023 AAS-in-Asia conference, co-hosted by the Association for Asian Studies (my employer) and Kyungpook National University. For the past few months, every time I told someone from…
Maura Elizabeth Cunningham 