History Commons^™

Coming Distractions: Postcards From Tomorrow Square

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

China Beat has been faithfully following James Fallows’s reports for the Atlanticfrom first Shanghai and now Beijing since he moved to China in 2006. His reports have covered topics from China’s international image to the financial crisis to theGreat Firewall, and he blogs regularly at the Atlantic‘s website. Fallows’s reports have now been gathered together in a collection, Postcards from Tomorrow Square, that will be available for purchase tomorrow. Over email, Fallows chatted with Kate Merkel-Hess about the new book and his thoughts about reporting from China.

Kate Merkel-Hess: Your forthcoming book Postcards from Tomorrow Square is a collection of …

Reading Round-Up: 12/18/09

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

China Beat will be going on vacation for the next two weeks, and will return in 2010. Before we sign off for the holidays, here are a few stories that have caught our eye lately:

1. In the Business Standard, Pallavi Aiyar writes that the “Ghosts of Beijing Lurk in Brussels.” Moving from Beijing to Brussels, Aiyar was anticipating a departure from the relentless cycle of urban destruction and construction that had marked her years in China:

Imagine my surprise when I arrived at Schuman, the headquarters of the European Union and a 10-minute drive from downtown Brussels, to scenes …

In Case You Missed It: Learning From Hangzhou, Maura Elizabeth Cunningham

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

I took this photo on my first day in Hangzhou when I arrived there in July 2005 for a six-week Chinese language course. I didn’t find the billboard especially interesting, but one of my friends hails from Kohler, Wisconsin, and I thought he might enjoy seeing that his hometown is known in a Chinese city that I’m fairly certain he had never heard of before I announced I would be spending the summer there. At the time, I didn’t give much thought to the billboard itself, or the thousands of other advertisements affixed to the sides of buildings, encircling construction …

China-Related Talks Around The World

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

1. On December 14-15, the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism at the University of Southern California will be holding a “Colloquium on China Media Studies” (RSVP required). For those not able to attend, the event will be live-streamed at the above link, beginning at noon PST on December 14.

2. Ken Pomeranz will be giving two talks in Japan next week:

December 16, 2009: Kyoto University. Participant in the “Changing Nature of ‘Nature’: New Perspectives in Transdisciplinary Field Science” conference sponsored by the Global Center of Excellence on a Sustainable Humanssphere.

December 18, 2009: Tokyo University. “Land rights and …

Around The Web: Janus-Faced Links

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

As December moves on, assessing the highs and lows of 2009 takes up more and more of our time — and this year, we have the added task of summing up the entire “00” decade. Below, some recent stories that say goodbye to 2009 (a little bit early), and one that says hello to 2010 (also a bit early).

1. We’ve recently seen several “best books of the year” lists, but not many of their selections have links to China — reflecting the fact that 2009 was something of an off-year in the China-related publishing field (especially compared to the …

The Tibet Question

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

“A Peking University student takes notes at a lecture titled ‘the Tibet question’ (you can just make out the Chinese for that at the top-right of his page). This student hardly ever put his pen down, while a few seats down from him another dozed happily.” —Alec Ash

On The Web: Local Connections, National Reflections Webcast

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The National Committee on U.S.-China Relations will hold its third annual CHINA Town Hall: Local Connections, National Reflections tonight, beginning at 8p.m. EST. In addition to a nationwide webcast by Kurt M. Campbell, there will be discussions in nearly 40 cities across the U.S. and China, focusing on topics tied to the interests of the local community (a full list of locations and speakers is available at the above link). The webcast will be available for all to view online tomorrow at the National Committee’s website.

Holiday Gift Guide 2009

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

If shopping for holiday gifts has you stymied, China Beat is here to help. We’ve put together a list of China-related books that will make great gifts — and all of them are appropriate for the general-interest reader.

For: The Nostalgic Reader

Earnshaw Books has been reprinting a number of older books, including many expat memoirs from early 20th century China. We’ve previously reviewed Shanghai: High Lights, Low Lights, Tael Lights, an entertaining glimpse into 1930s Shanghai penned by Maurine Karns and Pat Patterson. The press is also releasing a three-volume set of drawings by White Russian cartoon artist Sapajou, …

Reading Round-Up: December 3, 2009

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

1. We’ve discussed Lu Xun quite a lot lately, and more great Lu Xun-related stories keep coming our way. At Inside-Out China, Xujun Eberlein writes about her own memories of reading Lu Xun as a high-school student during the 1970s. Eberlein also comments on Lu Xun’s work as a translator, as well as the fact that “His scathing style was extensively mimicked by the Red Guards for faction fighting during the Cultural Revolution, a consequence he wouldn’t have dreamed of.”

A diary kept by Chinese writer Lin Yutang between 1929 and 1932 has just come to light, and provides insight …

The Forbidden City And American Presidents

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

With all of the attention generated by Barack Obama’s speed-touring of Beijing sites, we became interested in finding out a bit about previous presidential sightseeing itineraries. There were some useful summaries on the web of what Nixon and company had said about the Great Wall, but what about the Forbidden City as a presidential tourist attraction, past and present? This complex of palaces, which are the subject of a recent book by Geremie Barmé that we’ve praised already on this blog, would seem a more problematic place to include on the go-to lists for foreign dignitaries, given its links to …

Breaking The Chains: A Dissection Of The Caribbean's Tourism Mirage, Megan Nellis

Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

Le Théâtre Amateur Marocain. Trajectoire D’Un Théâtre Alternatif, Omar Fertat

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Modern Moroccan theatre was born with non-professional artists and has remained intimately linked to this milieu. Unlike professional playwrights, non-professional artists have never bowed to the demands of political authorities, whether it be the French administration or the local Makhzen. They used this artistic medium as a forum for debate and resistance against the oppressor. This freedom of expression operated not just at the political level but also at the aesthetic level. Since non-professionals were not constrained by the need to please an audience fond of social comedies and melodramas, they could explore more risky avant-garde paths. In spite of …

Le Roman Africain : Drame Or Histoire, Bernard Mouralis

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

For a long time, African novelists claimed filiation with realism. But there is in realism a deep contradiction between the will of describing the social world and the will of changing it. From this contradiction, the paper studies : the relation between theatre and novel ; the question of citizenship in the novel ; the place of the novel in front of knowledge and action. The novel shows dynamics and characters living in the time. So, it tends to wander from the principle of knowledge and self-consciousness.

Mutations Politiques Et Processus De Légitimation Culturelle : Considérations Sur Le Théâtre Populaire Camerounais, Pierre Fandio

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

All forms of theatre have never been perceived the same way in contemporary Cameroon. Whereas the written theatre relatively received an acceptable treatment from the official instances of recognition, the non-written one has always been excluded. This communication sets out to show how, from this marginalized position and palpably inspired at the same time from the Italian commedia dell’arte, the French vaudeville and the African traditional dramaturgic shape, a new and popular form of theatre came to existence. Thanks to the exceptional capacity of adaptation and innovation of its discourse and thematic, the offer of this “street dramaturgy” rather matches …

La Dramatisation De L’Écriture Chez Sony Labou Tansi, Georges Ngal

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

As an author always articulates his writing with idioms that reflect a specific time period and a given social group, Sony Labou Tansi talks about “tropicalité”, and gives himself the goal to create multiple “tropicalités”.

L’Écriture De La Perte Chez Assia Djebar, Lila Kermas

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

This study proposes a reflexion on the feeling of “loss” as a source of literary creation. The different tensions generated by an hybrid identity of a character in a quest, especially in La disparition de la langue française (“disappearance of the French language”) by Assia Djebar ; what matters here is to see how the feeling of crisis and the split reveals itself and how it dissolves in and through (the process of) writing.

De La Parole Poétique À La Parole Politique Dans Les Oeuvres Théâtrales D’Aimé Césaire Et De Sony Labou Tansi, Virginie Darriet-Féréol

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Aimé Césaire and Sony Labou Tansi wished for acting and voicing for their people both on the political and literary level. By choosing the drama, they presented the language. By creating a new language, a new literature, a new artistic aesthetics, consequently a new trend of thinking, their writing served policy.

L’Art De L’« Écrire » Chez Patrick Chamoiseau, Savrina Parevadee Chinien

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

In the works of Patrick Chamoiseau, the act of writing is a main, recurrent theme. The narrator, often, tries to define himself through his writings which have their own autonomy in the novel. This character questions his writing and is torn by the dissatisfaction he feels to get close to the “breath” of the creole storyteller : the chasm between orality and writing creates suffering. He, then, advocates l’“écrire”, closer, according to him, to the utterance of the storyteller and free of the “constraints” of an occidental writing, which he considers as stamped by the ideology of the Universal.

Hugo Chavez: Socialism And Dictatorship, Kathryn E. Corridan

Pell Scholars and Senior Theses

Hugo Chavez is in the process of transforming Venezuela's democracy into a socialist dictatorship. He has diminished democratic institutions, processes, and law. He has practiced demagoguery in order to win popular support, while stifling the critical media. He has reorganized Venezuela's economy to support socialism and provide him with more income and power.

Poetry And The Politics Of History: Revisiting Ee Tiang Hong, Kirpal Singh

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The Malaysian poet Ee Tiang Hong was troubled by the fundamental changes being introduced by the leaders to ensure that Malaysia (which Ee always referred to as Malaya) became centrally a Malay nation. Not only was Ee trying his best to dissociate himself from what he termed the “mimicry of foreign birds” (i.e. the language of the colonial masters) but he was more critically searching for a new idiom which would give freshness to the rendition of the Malayan experience. While this struggle was in process, the tragedy of May 13 (1969) struck: here was a blatant illustration of the …

Chongqing Castle

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

“In Chongqing, the old town of Ciqikou looms over a more modern addition by the riverbank. This kid was more interested in her bouncy throne than in the juxtaposition of her city’s ancient past and booming present.”

—Alec Ash

Lu Xun And Translation

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

I recently wrote an essay called “China’s Orwell” for the Asian edition of Time Magazine. In the article, I deal with the conundrum of Lu Xun’s enormous influence within China yet continued relative obscurity outside of the Sinophone world. Among other things, I ponder the possibility that an attractive new collection of his complete fiction, which features spirited translations by Julia Lovell and was published as part of the Penguin Classics series (click here for a “Paper Republic” interview with the translator about the book), could help right this imbalance by introducing figures such as Ah-Q to Western readers who …

Obama In China: Final Thoughts

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

President Obama’s trip to China is now in the past, though there might be a postscript when the U.N. Climate Change Conference convenes in Copenhagen next month, as how China and the U.S. would cooperate (or not) in dealing with environmental issues was a major topic during Obama’s meetings with Chinese leaders. As a final look back at Obama’s first trip to China, here are several readings that put his visit in a larger context:

1. Timothy Garton Ash writes about “Two Ways for West to Meet China”, arguing that Western countries could choose between two strategies when dealing with …

China’S Lincolnophilia, Alan Wachman

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Abraham Lincoln’s stance on national unity during the U.S. Civil War and his opposition to the institution of slavery have been summoned up by PRC officials, media, and elites in efforts to explain and legitimate their own response to those they disparage as “separatists” in Taiwan and Tibet.

To Beijing, vigorously opposing separatism and preserving Chinese territorial integrity is a cause no less noble than was Abraham Lincoln’s resort to war as a way of preventing the secession of southern states. In its quest for moral authority, Beijing has recalled the rhetoric and …

Vietnam Blocks Facebook, Caroline Finlay

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Writer Caroline Finlay has written for China Beat in the past about Southeast Asian news stories that have a China angle. Here, she draws parallels between Internet controls in Vietnam and those in China. She’s written about speech issues in Vietnam before, for instance see “Vietnam Youth Given Rare Chance to Protest–Against China” from May 2008.

Facebook users have begun having difficulty logging on to the social networking site, the Associated Press and the Inter Press Service reported on November 17th.

News agencies are citing an unverified document that says it’s from Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security and states, “For …

“Caijing Is Dead, Long Live Caijing”, Scott Kennedy

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In the past few weeks, the coverage of the fall of Caijing and the exodus of its staff has read almost like an obituary. During its eleven years in production, Caijingbenefitted from protection from patrons as well as the deft leadership of its editor, Hu Shuli, who has a sixth sense for knowing where the boundaries of permissibility sit and how to move them. The result was a record of breaking myriad stories of serious corruption and poor governance. Over the years, a couple issues were temporarily held up for “technical” reasons, but Caijing appeared to have regularly escaped the …

The Good, The Bad, And The Boring: Barack Obama’S China Trip In Review, Maura Elizabeth Cunningham

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Barack Obama spent fewer than three days in China, but his first trip there has been a week-long story in the news world, as countless journalists, academics, and pundits have shared their thoughts about what this visit could do for U.S.-China relations. Now that the president has left the PRC, how did it all go? Obama Administration officials are speaking highly of it, claiming that Obama was forceful in private meetings with Hu Jintao and the rest of the Chinese leadership. And perhaps the devil is in the details, as political scientist David Shambaugh says, speaking favorably of the joint …

Around The Web…

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

1. Many of us around here have been spending time over the last couple of years thinking about the growing number of China-India connections (as well as their historical antecedents), so we’re always pleased to find another blog from an Indian journalist or writer covering China. But “China India Citizens’ Initiative” takes the genre a step further, encouraging people-to-people dialogue between Chinese and Indians. Recent post topics include the role of the Dalai Lama, coverage of the Berlin Wall anniversary, and issues in Chinese-Indian trade.

2. Alec Ash of Six (who also contributes bi-weekly photos to China Beat), drew our …

Coming Distractions: The Wobbling Pivot

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Prominent Qing specialist Pamela Crossley of Dartmouth College has a new book coming out in February, The Wobbling Pivot, China Since 1800: An Interpretive History, which is aimed at general readers and is designed to be suitable as well for classes devoted to modern Chinese history. One theme in the book that is likely to be of special interest to those who follow this blog is her frequent discussion of similarities and differences over time in patterns of unrest and the way that the state and its representatives respond to challenges from below. Focusing largely on tensions and modes of …

Short Takes: More On Obama In China

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

All around the internet, China-watchers are commenting on Barack Obama’s inaugural China trip. Some links to check out:

1. At 11:40 PM Eastern Standard Time tonight, President Obama’s town hall meeting with students in Shanghai will go live on the White House website.

2. Ian Johnson of the Wall Street Journal asks “Is Barack Obama Unpopular in China?” Johnson explains that it seems initial enthusiasm for the president has dropped off in recent months:

Internet polls provide anecdotal evidence that China is just not as enamored with the U.S. now as in years past, when the U.S. was seen as …