Category: Weekly Wanderings
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Weekly Wanderings: July 7, 2024
Greetings from Jakarta! I am in Indonesia for the briefest of long-haul trips—on the ground for six days, down to the hour—to work at the AAS-in-Asia conference this week. I arrived Saturday afternoon and will leave for the conference in Yogyakarta tomorrow morning, giving me one free day for some quick tourism. I walked around…
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Weekly Wanderings: June 30, 2024
At the AAS #AsiaNow blog, I have a new interview in my series of exchanges with authors (which you can now find all linked here at my website). This time, I talked with historian Douglas Ober about his first book, Dust on the Throne: The Search for Buddhism in Modern India. Ober takes on the…
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Weekly Wanderings: June 23, 2024
Recommendations China Stories “From Xinjiang With Love: China Show Tries to Give Region a Rosier Image” James T. Areddy, “Mandarin Leaves a Manhattan Courtroom Lost in Translation” In some ways, “vigilantes” are the opposite of what their name suggests: rather than rogue agents meting out street justice, they are individuals deemed trustworthy by authorities, working…
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Weekly Wanderings: June 16, 2024
A few years ago I ate dinner at The Delft Bistro in Marquette, the largest city on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. I could guess from the large marquee outside and the film-themed decor inside that the building had once been a movie theater, and that the restaurant’s owners had decided to pay homage to that history…
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Weekly Wanderings: June 9, 2024
Readings on the 35th Anniversary of the June Fourth Massacre James T. Areddy, “35 Years After Tiananmen, China’s Conduct Again Triggers Alarm” The magnitude of calamity during Tiananmen can render any sensible soul speechless. But for those of us who are spared the firsthand trauma and accorded the luxury of critical distance, bearing witness demands…
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Weekly Wanderings: June 2, 2024
June! How nice to see you. At the Association for Asian Studies #AsiaNow blog, I continue my series of interviews with new authors, speaking with ethnomusicologist Ying Diao about her book, Faith by Aurality in China’s Ethnic Borderland: Media, Mobility, and Christianity at the Margins. Recommendations China Stories ChinaFile Conversation, “The Future According to Xi…
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Weekly Wanderings: May 26, 2024
If you regularly scroll through Instagram, it’s almost impossible not to know that we’re in peony season. Explosions of pink and white and purple appear in post after post, everyone trying to find the best shot before the petals suddenly drop off and we’re once again peony-less until next spring. Maybe it was due to…
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Weekly Wanderings: May 19, 2024
Recent Goodreads Reviews Recommendations China Stories Gordon Corera, “The escaped dissident still pursued decades on by China”Helen Davidson and Chi Hui Lin, “Lai Ching-te, the political brawler who went from a Taiwan mining village to the presidency” The truth of whether the Wangs were small-time innkeepers or a secret weapon in Beijing’s decadelong effort to…
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Weekly Wanderings: May 5, 2024
No post from me this week, as the combination of work, travel, weak wifi, and a spring cold has left me with only the sketchiest idea of what’s going on in the world. I do have one link to share—an interview that I conducted for the Association for Asian Studies #AsiaNow blog with Amanda Lanzillo,…
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Weekly Wanderings: April 28, 2024
My brain felt chaotic and restless as I walked through the Toledo Museum of Art yesterday morning, taking in the works surrounding me in each room but not settling on anything long enough to fully consider it. Scuffed parquet floors creaked underneath my steps as I moved through rooms offering a special exhibit on African…
Maura Elizabeth Cunningham 