“People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage.” (John Kenneth Galbraith observed). www.nytimes.com/2026/10/12/o...

Opinion | Wildfires Are Unfightable Now (Gift Article)

This year’s fast moving, virtually irrepressible wildfire events are not the seasonal burns of decades past.

nytimes.com

How often do you get ancient parricide, infanticide, assassination, bad debt, and oral sex all in a single issue of a scholarly journal? The pecular thrills of the deep dive.

American Society for Premodern Asia@aspa1842.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Issue 146:3 of JASPA is out online www.lockwoodonlinejournals.com/index.php/ja...: preface as genre, king Wen the parricide, insolvent debtors in Babylonia, infanticide ca. 600, Sanskrit grammar on 'and', oral sex in Sanskrit erotics, Hebrew & Egyptian soldiers as lions, & diverse accounts of Shimr

"We are on the cusp of a dramatic shift in perspective": global antiquity and global Middle Ages are getting more attention. We at ASPA have been right on it for the last 184 years! aeon.co/essays/uncov... @aeon.co

India's potent new youth movement, the "Cockroach Janta Party," is satire turned serious protest. The state's attempt to silence them on xTwitter failed. Will their success grow? www.npr.org/2026/07/20/nx-s1-5889515/india-gen-z-cockroach-party-protests @cockroachjparty.bsky.social

India's Gen Z 'Cockroach People's Party' started as satire but is serious about change

They call themselves the "cockroaches" and they're on the march — demanding action against corruption, amid a shortage of opportunities for young people in India.

npr.org

The Indian govt has trumped up a phantom pretext for defunding the venerable Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS). It will be a major loss: the CSDS has been a hub for serious thought and analysis. indianexpress.com/article/opin...

Yogendra Yadav writes: Demolition of CSDS has begun, due process can wait

As in bulldozer justice, the formal justification is an act of post-facto creativity. Once the target, the punishment and the excuse were fixed, the ICSSR appointed a committee to prepare grounds for ...

indianexpress.com

Springer Verlag, one of a handful of leading academic publishers, is honoring the chief billionaire opponent of democracy. (h/t @elisafreschi.bsky.social)

Astrid Deilmann@astriddeilmann.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Der Springer Verlag driftet immer mehr ins antidemokratische Spektrum ab. Nun zeichnet er den erklärten Demokratiefeind, Palantir-Gründer und Trump-Förderer Peter Thiel mit dem Axel Springer-Award aus. Klarer kann Döpfner nicht machen, dass er nicht auf Seiten der europäischen Demokratie steht.

I really appreciate Frank Bruni's clear-headed assessment of the harms caused by grade-inflation in the US: pernicious and irresistible ... unless a "deflationary" policy change is coordinated across academe, as he recommends. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/13/o...

Opinion | I Teach at an Elite College and I Inflate Grades. Help Me. (Gift Article)

Easy A’s are an easy out.

nytimes.com

Jarrah Sastrawan's new book (also in OA pdf) is a fascinating and groundbreaking study of how cultural knowledge was produced and transmitted, textually and otherwise, in 5th–15th-c. Java, with valuable insights on historiography.

The Precarious Past in Premodern Java by Wayan Sastrawan - Paper

Scholarship is a powerful tool for changing how people think, plan, and govern. By giving voice to bright minds and bold ideas, we seek to foster understanding and drive progressive change.

ucpress.edu

And now Carlo Ginzburg, leading exponent of microhistory, has passed today. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_G...

Carlo Ginzburg - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In the last few days, we have lost some important voices. Robert A.F. Thurman, a former teacher of mine at Columbia, is one. A close friend of the Dalai Lama's and a co-founder of Tibet House. savetibet.org/ict-mourns-t...

ICT mourns the passing of Robert Thurman, an iconic Tibetan Buddhist scholar and lifelong advocate for Tibet

June 17, 2026 The Tibet world suffered a major loss

savetibet.org

We are ruled by monsters.

Women Who Fled Iran Are to Be Deported to Central African Republic, Lawyers Say

nytimes.com

Issue 146:2 of JASPA (former JAOS) is out online lockwoodonlinejournals.com/index.php/ja... on: Karna in Jain epic, Song of a Yue Person, Old Persian Hinduš & Gandāra, Chan in Tangut, Hymn to Ninurta as Savior, Uriah the Hittite, Shah Safi Safavi, al-Ghazālī on pleasure, & Jingjiao stele Christians

Reconnecting Balinese Manuscripts with Local Voices: WikiSami University Workshops in Bali diff.wikimedia.org/2026/03/28/r...

Still time to submit comments to the FCC in opposition to Reflect Orbital's request for approval to help put a million orbital data centers into space: aas.org/posts/advoca... (SpaceX also has filed to do so, but the deadline for public comments has passed.) If you care, speak up!

Issue 146:1 of JASPA (former JAOS) is out online lockwoodonlinejournals.com/index.php/ja...: on quranic reading in Andalus, holy tombs in Cairo, Tamil temple endowments, vratyas in Atharva Veda, military bounties in China, Mori Ōgai’s Dancing Girl, child-slaves in Egypt, Sumerian wordplay, & more!

This talk by Vasudha Narayanan on connections between India and Cambodia in 1st millennium religion and art will be worth tuning in for. www.sai.uni-heidelberg.de/en/events-at...

My article on kinship ties, Buddhism, and early medieval states has just been published. Available open access: doi.org/10.1163/9789...

"Under the Spell of the Batur Volcano," a fascinating study by Brigitta Hauser-Schäublin of a Balinese Hindu temple beside Lake Batur in the caldera of a volcano came out days before I drove a scooter up the twisting road from the coast to see it (pics below). OA Book link: brill.com/display/titl...

Issue 145:4 of the JAOS is out online doi.org/10.7817/jaos... , with articles on: Yahwists in Elephantine, oracular law in Assyria, syntax in Qur'anic interpretation, r vs rr in Khotan, Mongol text of the 1413 Tyr stele, Old Chinese parts of speech, Song dynasty incense trade, and more!

11 in-depth studies on inscriptions from early Āndhradeśa in South India, touching on coins, pottery, grant charters, memorial stones, and religious pluralism (Buddhist, Jainist, and Hindu). Open Access download from Brill: brill.com/edcollbook-o... (this is v. 2, the studies; v. 1, also available).

The American Society for Premodern Asia web portal is now live on our new domain name: www.aspa1842.org

Astonishing finds excavated at Berenike in Egypt include Buddha images & other artifacts from India and some made locally in Indian style, plus a bilingual Sanskrit & Greek dedicatory inscription found near a marble Buddha head in an Isis temple courtyard. publications.dainst.org/journals/jdi...

Important group of new studies on the "Kawi culture" that grew out of the use of the Old Javanese in the 8th-15th c. as a cosmopolitan vernacular by speakers of various languages, esp. in Java & Bali. Lots of exciting new work in this field. Wacana 26(3), free download: scholarhub.ui.ac.id/wacana/

Edel Rodriguez’s “Mayor Mamdani” (November 4, 2025) www.newyorker.com/culture/cove...

Few examples suvive of written statute law from early S&SE Asia, but I propose that one might infer the existence of generally applicable, enforceable laws from immunities granted in charters: "Customary Legalism: Rules of Law in Early India, Java, and Bali" www.ioc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/news/news.ph...

東文研セミナー 「Customary Legalism: Rules of Law in Early India, Java, and Bali (A Lecture by Prof. Timothy Lubin)」が開催されました

報告 2025年9月24日に、当研究所訪問研究員であるTimothy Lubin教授（Washington and Lee University）を講師とする東文研セミナー「Customary Legalism: Rules of Law in Early India, Java, and Bali 」を開催した。

ioc.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Rioting and arson have engulfed Kathmandu in the wake of the govt's aborted attempt to censor or block access to social media. These brave souls sat out to protect Nepal's cultural heritage.

Provincialising Dharma: Studies on Legal Issues in the Himalaya, a collection of essays exploring the Himalayan regional dimensions of dharma, historically & today, is out: www.asiainstitutetorino.it/cis/CIS_10.pdf including my piece, "Sacred Law as a Device of State-Building in Gorkhali Nepal."

JAOS 145.3 is out: doi.org/10.7817/jaos..., articles on: autobiog of becoming, Ming women's anger, an old term for foreigners in China, cuneiform word lists, neo-Babylonian chronicles, the epic of Aqhat, Tabari's poetic license, bustling Buddhist monasteries, the aims of Sanskrit doxography, & more!

"‘Yala Toilet Frog’ named for departing Tea Board chairman." “I’m deeply gratified...” says Pethiyagoda. "If [those I've annoyed find] a frog in the toilet, I'm sure their actions will speak louder than words. Or they can simply drop the matter.” archives1.dailynews.lk/2018/03/21/l...

Issue 145:2 of the JAOS is out online: doi.org/10.7817/jaos... with articles on: Regal code-switching in the Deccan, r-clusters in Gandhari, omens in Song shu, 3 Qing compendia on cats, the Semitic perfect tense, Joseph in Egypt, counting lines in Erra, basmala as cosmic design, and gendering sex!