Hannah Theaker
@htheaker.bsky.social
Lecturer in History and Politics, University of Plymouth, researching histories of Islam, rebellion and minoritization in China; documenting the contemporary sinicisation of Islam in China
does anyone know of any work that’s been done on career trajectories of (UK humanities) academics who have been made redundant? eg information about how many go into school teaching, early retirement, independent research? appreciate this is complex, sensitive and much data is too recent
New in @ForeignAffairs: @tendor and I argue that China’s new ethnic-unity law does not abolish minority autonomy on paper. It does something more insidious: it gives statutory force to assimilation while hollowing autonomy out in practice. www.foreignaffairs.com/china/next-p...?
The Next Phase of China’s Minority Crackdown
Forced assimilation is now the law.
foreignaffairs.com
Some context for recently reported promises to move toward granting access to public services where you live, not just where you're from.
China Digital Times@chinadigitaltimes.net · 2w agoTranslation: “Education for Migrant Workers’ Children Can’t Wait Any Longer” "Whether from a moral standpoint (ending the tragic separation of 100 million people from their parents or children) or a practical one (demographic crisis and technological upheaval), there is no room for further delay."
Congratulations to the government on saving 2700 jobs by nationalising British Steel. Now, about the 18,000 university jobs lost in the last 18 months, with more coming…
Just a heads up! @khoreo.bsky.social is 5 days from the end of their kickstarter and the mag hasn't funded. L pointed out last month that if we want nice things, we have to communicate that via dollars. Let's retain this important magazine! khōréō Year 6 www.kickstarter.com/projects/kho...
khōréō: Year 6
Help us sustain and grow an award-winning magazine of speculative fiction and migration!
kickstarter.com
If I were the King of Universities (which, heaven forbid), I would place this finding at the exact centre of every single policy decision from teaching to research to estates to capital investment. At every level in every process, the question would be: are we as humane as education demands we be?
Your morning Must-Read thread, history of the 1st national-level report on AI, in 1973. Remains utterly applicable and just as devastating today.
#UKHE! You know how we're told that 'students want less choice' against what we know to be reality & against pedagogical & disciplinary needs? Finally found the Nous report that supposedly backs that up, & it's based on a survey that asks about the *choice of major* nousgroup.com/assets/docs/...
First they came for the languages. In the hope that no one would have the words to say what was happening. 1/9🧵
University of Aberdeen's plans to cut modern language degrees were 'rushed' - review
The University of Aberdeen says it accepts there were "missteps" in its process in 2023.
bbc.co.uk
from Chapter 27 of Jin Ping Mei: "There are in this world three sorts of people who fear the heat, and three who do not."
The Heat
Critical support for Comrade The Scoffing Scholar of Lanling
burninghou.se
As ever, @davidstroup.bsky.social says things more eloquently than I do. This is a great thread, but I would reiterate that this law simply institutionalises much that was already happening - the removal of non-Chinese education, the criminalisation of everyday ethnic and religious behaviours.
David Stroup@davidstroup.bsky.social · last mo.🧵: This new law, in keeping with previous ones lines the HK National Security Law, asserts that the PRC can extraterritorialize its jurisdiction over speech and actions related to its national unity. Essentially it’s stating that it can police how people abroad speak about ethnic policy. /1
🧵: This new law, in keeping with previous ones lines the HK National Security Law, asserts that the PRC can extraterritorialize its jurisdiction over speech and actions related to its national unity. Essentially it’s stating that it can police how people abroad speak about ethnic policy. /1
Eli Friedman@elifriedman.bsky.social · last mo.This law is a real nightmare, creates a legal grounding for the state's assimilationist colonial campaigns
This petition needs as many signatories as the Exeter one. Please sign and share — don’t let Hertfordshire managers get away with this just because a Russell Group one took the spotlight. #UKHE
Joanna Bourke@joannabourke.bsky.social · 3mo agoShocking news about redundancies in the Humanities at the University of Hertfordshire, despite their exceptional research activities. I have signed the petition against these actions: it would be great if you would as well: c.org/kDQynZV7J4 @bbkhistorical.bsky.social @bisa-bkk.bsky.social
Today I am feeling incandescent rage at the way successive governments have absolutely failed higher education in this country and are basically wilfully refusing to do anything about it even though universities are huge employers and economic drivers of so many cities across the country.
PODCAST "A Hundred Years of CCP Borderlands Policies": How the notions of borderlands, nation-building, and ethnic policies have been intertwined throughout 100 years of #CCP existence with @rollandnadege.bsky.social, @bennoweiner.bsky.social, Robert Barnett, @jleibold.bsky.social: bit.ly/3QzsUdL
'It is hard to overstate the role that higher education needs to play. Three-quarters of people working in the creative industries have degrees, and the jobs the audits suggest will be in greatest demand – software developers, designers, advertising executives, architects – are highly skilled.'
If the UK’s universities wither, so will its creative industries
By neglecting to adequately fund university teaching, the UK government is undermining its own growth ambitions for the creative sector, say Goldsmiths’ interim vice-chancellor David Oswell and, separ...
timeshighereducation.com
The Cheese and the Worms is triumphant as a pioneering book in microhistory and narrative history, but I have also especially loved it for Ginsburg’s willingness to remind us that history is _weird._
Michael Lobel@mlobelart.bsky.social · 2mo agoSad to learn of passing of eminent historian Carlo Ginzburg; his "The Cheese and the Worms" is one of the books that had the most impact on me as a grad student, as the writing is lively & builds insight from small, carefully observed details of the historical record en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Che...
Today, I came across this work on #ChineseArchitecture. Dating to the Republican period, the 中國建築學講義 contains beautiful illustrations of traditional temples, bridges & palaces. For #MarginaliaMonday check especially all the little sketches and notes! #ChinaBooks #Sinology
this is one of the slogans on the square I think often: "let's see who lives longer" even when all other hopes are exhausted, this is the last hope. individuals are fragile and temporary. the demand for justice and freedom will outlive us all. #June4th
#Tiananmen #June4 #China #photography #monochrome Photography Mr Chen, © custodian @gblee.bsky.social "Tsinghua University hunger-strikers" Tiananmen Square, Beijing, May 1989
Translations: On the Coal Mine Explosion in Liushenyu, Shanxi, That Killed 82 Miners and Injured 128
Public anger and attendant online censorship are running high after a May 22 gas explosion at Liushenyu coal mine in Shanxi province killed at least 82 miners
chinadigitaltimes.net
Sophie Richardson@sophiedrich.bsky.social · 2mo ago“A worker at the Liushenyu coal mine told Chinese outlet Lengshan Record that the company did not allow workers to enter the mine with tracking devices because they were illegally mining coal seams that had not been approved. ‘Wearing trackers would expose it,’ he said.” www.bbc.com/news/article...
A shortage of translators and interpreters, cull of modern languages at UK universities, cuts to East Asian studies and Chinese specifically at Sheffield Uni ...
The Guardian@theguardian.com · 2mo agoChinese dissident says he was berated by ‘pro-regime’ interpreter for UK police
I've been studying the Qing for 40 years and it just never occurred to me to place a bet at Polymarket on a rise in anti-Qing sentiment.
Brian Hioe@brianhioe.bsky.social · 2mo agoI’m like lol
NEW: Xinjiang has the highest detention capacity in the world, according to FT analysis - enough space for almost 1 in 40 people in the region - more than five years after the Chinese govt announced the camps had closed.
‘The region currently has capacity to detain around 627,000 people without overcrowding — almost one in 40 of the local population — making it the world’s largest detention system relative to population’ Shocking piece on the treatment of the Uyghurs in China www.ft.com/content/119d...
How China is breaking apart a people and its culture
The campaign of repression against the Uyghurs has entered a new phase
ft.com
and a very happy Glorious Twenty-Fifth of May to you all
Matthew R Francis@bowlerhatscience.org · 2mo agoTruth! Justice! Freedom! Reasonably-Priced Love! And a Hard-Boiled Egg! Long Live the People's Republic of Treacle Mine Road!
New by Jarmila Ptáčková & Uddhab Pyakurel: the #China–Nepal frontier has become an increasingly asymmetrical space of control: pandemic-era closures enabled Beijing to tighten border mobility rules, w/ consequences for Himalayan frontier communities journals.openedition.org/ebhr/3675 #surveillance
Hierarchies of cross-border mobility on the Sino–Nepalese border
Introduction More than 5,000 kilometres of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) border passes through the Himalayas, separating the PRC from India, Nepal and Bhutan. Nepal and the Tibetan territo...
journals.openedition.org
the FT has two pieces on the slow-motion collapse of UK higher ed. 4/5ths of unis are doing voluntary layoffs; 38% are doing compulsory. Meanwhile Britain and its flatlined productivity growth sleepwalks through its unprecedented loss of advanced capabilities www.ft.com/content/8097...
Timid librarian in plea to save my workplace from making a huge mistake. A whole floor of Cardiff University's main library is under threat of being repurposed to teaching facilities with the removal of 7km of shelving holding valuable books. Pls share x you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/sa...
Save the second floor of Cardiff University's Arts and Social Studies Library (ASSL)
Dear current patrons, past patrons, and future patrons of Arts and Social Sciences Library (ASSL) at Cardiff University. On Friday 17th of May, library staff of the ASSL were informed by University Li...
you.38degrees.org.uk
