you cannot even afford to live in your own poem Johannes Göransson
Nick Admussen
@nadmussen.bsky.social
Associate Professor of Chinese literature at Cornell, poet, translator. My current project is "On Stricture: Chinese Poetry and American Culture." More (incl links to open-access research) at nickadmussen.com.
Glad to announce that the Cornell University department of Asian Studies is hiring -- the position is a three-year visiting assistantship in contemporary Taiwanese humanities: asianstudies.cornell.edu/visiting-ass.... 2/2, assistant professor salary and benefits, many disciplines welcomed!
Visiting Assistant Professor in Contemporary Taiwanese Humanities
Position announcement
asianstudies.cornell.edu
Things I learned from the online Tiananmen Massacre museum, #15: Wang Fei performed a protest duet with the guitarist from Beyond in 1989, called "An Unsettled Heart" 为平复的心： www.youtube.com/watch?v=JD-Q.... Source (the whole museum is terrific) here: 8964museum.com/art/en/a-c01....
王菲《王靖雯》專輯_未平復的心 [動態歌詞]
YouTube video by milly music
youtube.com
Little AI update. First, Google AI mode is still bringing the heat. Definitely the absolute best at being absolutely, unrepentantly shit at almost everything it does, while simultaneously being the least avoidable chatbot in the world. They are absolutely gonna get sued over this stuff eventually.
Very proud to present two translations of the Taiwanese poet Tang Juan in the brand-new sixtieth issue of the translation journal Asymptote: www.asymptotejournal.com/poetry/two-p.... They are good ones! And Tang Juan recorded audio, so you can hear him read them! A moment on Asymptote, too: 🧵
Two Poems - Asymptote
Autumn Rain                        My essays are dust—where should they go?
asymptotejournal.com
My translation of Xiao Hai's poem "Made in China" appears in an extended profile / interview with him in @observeruk.bsky.social! Read the interview here: observer.co.uk/culture/inte...
Underappreciated difficulty of parenting: are you freaking out about the venal (go to your room), the existential (let's have a hug), or -- here's the tough one -- the horror of existence as it is manifested in the meaningless humiliations of daily life? Because I got nothing for that last one.
McSweeney's@mcsweeneys.net · last mo.1984 I bet it makes you angry when Winston doesn’t submit to your will. Sometimes when people don’t submit to our will, we want to torture them with rats. I’m going to sit with you until you feel calmer, and then we can figure out a way to get Winston to submit without using rats.
Victor had a ton of material on Dungan 東干 (and probably a lot of other things!) in his home that he had planned to do something with someday. Not sure who will/can take it, but when his basement flooded 10+ years ago he saved that before he saved his childhood photos.
Brendan O’Kane@bokane.org · last mo.Translating 里 as “tricent” today in memory of Victor Mair, a generous scholar and a kind and decent man.
"The shortest essay I ever wrote, maybe the shortest essay anyone has ever written, was 'Little Essay on Form.' It went like this: 'We build the corral as we reinvent the horse.'” —Stephen Dunn
Woo hoo! The new Wang Jiaxin retrospective making some waves!
Poetry Daily@poetrydaily.bsky.social · last mo.Today's Feature: What Sparks Poetry: Wang Jiaxin on "In the Native Place of Laozi" from At the Same Time: New and Selected Poems published by @arrowsmithpress.bsky.social Read here: poems.com/poem/in-the-...
A thread. The other day, I happened to clock the little AI-written bio attached to my name. It announced, quite confidently, that I was married, not to my husband, but to his brother. Particularly amusing, since my BIL is a proud member of the LGBQT community. I love him, but I am NOT his type. 🧵
Updates from my continued experiments with Google AI Mode: "You are completely right, and I apologize. I hallucinated a connection, glued two entirely different people together based on a shared name, and built a false narrative around it." 1/2
The US version of beloved VIOLENT PHENOMENA antho of essays on translation is out today! With a foreword from Bruna Dantas Lobato. Congrats @jeremytiang.bsky.social Kavita Bhanot, and all fellow contributors. www.harpercollins.com/products/vio...
Violent Phenomena
“These essays, deftly blending the political and the personal, offer fresh, galvanizing, and passionate perspectives on literary translation.”—Jhumpa Lahiri...
harpercollins.com
Heard Google turned up the AI this morning, decided to take it for a test spin. 1) I am not married to that person, 2) but that person is a real colleague who now has a pretty solid emotional distress libel case against Google, 3) that's not her picture, 4) the 'evidence' links are fake.
Translation people have to listen to this. Feeling even more committed to the niches, the small spaces, the little presses where this kind of blossom first grows.
Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻♀️@chenchenzhang.net · 3mo ago♥️ powerful speech by Lin King, translator of Taiwan Travelogue @linkinglionking.bsky.social
We got an "update" to our PeopleSoft grading software and now it predictively suggests, in non-alphabetical and shifting order, your most common grades according to how often you have given them so far in the class. Exiting the age of common sense, entering the age of average sense.
My translation of ADRIFT IN THE SOUTH, the debut memoir of Chinese worker-poet Xiao Hai 小海, out with Granta Magazine Editions today. A landmark work of the migrant worker literature movement, it showcases one of China’s liveliest emerging voices. #XiaoHai #chineseliterature #translatedliterature
My colleague Allen Carlson will be teaching his gateway class "What Is China?" online starting May 1, perfect for people who want an interdisciplinary, contemporary, transnational introduction to Chinese politics and society. Course description + syllabus here: classes.cornell.edu/browse/roste...
Summer 2026 - China & Asia Pacific Studies
Browse China & Asia Pacific Studies on the Summer 2026 Class Roster.
classes.cornell.edu
Found myself making the argument that a student using AI inpainting (i.e. starting a paragraph with her idea, finishing it with the AI's) was not improving her writing, but submitting to the ideology of the AI, which is related to the average ideology of the data-set. Two neat recent sources:
Original essay here for anyone interested! www.chinesepen.org/blog/archive...
黄子平：七十年代日常语言学
一、起床啦！起床起床！ 那些年每日里天蒙蒙亮，听到的第一声吆喝就是这“起床起床”。其实并没有所谓“床”，苗村黎寨，男女各占一个大谷仓，一溜稻草铺地的大统铺，阔气点的最多垫块塑料布隔隔湿气。兵团建制，明明是个种橡胶的农场生产队，偏要叫做某师某团某连。连长姓康，脸上有疤，因此显得有点凶狠，却是个耿直寡言的四川汉子。众人平日尊称连长，意见大发时，当面或背后就直接唤他“康疤”，他也不恼。那些年...
chinesepen.org
It's here! _Orphans of the Times_, translations from the pathbreaking Bei Dao and Li Tuo-edited book 《七十年代》. Fiction writers (Han Shaogong! Ah Cheng), poets (Zhai Yongming!), and artists (Xu Bing!) reflecting on their lives in memoirs of the PRC's turbulent 1970s. cup.cuhk.edu.hk/CUHKP/Orphan...
Highly recommend this episode of the Sinica podcast with @kaiserkuo.bsky.social and translator Eleanor Goodman, about the brilliant poetry of Zheng Xiaoqiong, the Chinese labor poetry movement generally, and the joys and challenges of poetry translation: www.sinicapodcast.com/p/the-poetry...
The Poetry of Zheng Xiaoqiong: A Conversation with Translator Eleanor Goodman
A live event co-hosted by NYRB Poets and Equator Magazine, recorded May 4, 2026.
sinicapodcast.com
The bear in the middle's celebrating five years of the Hong Kong National Security Law. The family at the bottom's caption: "National Security -- Family Security" Top right: "Only with national security is there development." Question: are Hong Kongers bears in this, and non-HKers...human?
Austin Ramzy@austinramzy.bsky.social · 3mo agoNational Security Law anniversary stickers handed out at kindergartens in Hong Kong
He lies if they ask him how he does it. To leap on top or to the side. To dodge the ceaseless lottery. —Luis Muñoz, translated by Idra Novey and Garth Greenwell. Read the full poem: https://bit.ly/4vcQ3Ck
After two years of sustained effort, I am delighted to share that the first #Cantonese language course is now being offered across the University of Toronto's tri-campus system. My sincere thanks to all who have supported this initiative along the way!
