Tristan Brown
tristangbrown.bsky.social
Tristan Brown
@tristangbrown.bsky.social
Associate Professor of Chinese History @MIT
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Oh this broke my heart today —

“I feel so cheated and so sad that I don’t get to keep living the wonderful life I had with this kind, funny, handsome genius I managed to find.”

“A Battle with My Blood” by Tatiana Schlossberg
A Battle with My Blood
When I was diagnosed with leukemia, my first thought was that this couldn’t be happening to me, to my family.
www.newyorker.com
November 22, 2025 at 6:27 PM
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'Iran’s capital must be moved because the country “no longer has a choice,” President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Thursday in remarks carried by state media, warning that severe ecological strain has made Tehran impossible to sustain'

#Iran 🇮🇷
Iran president says capital move now a necessity as water crisis deepens
Iran’s capital must be moved because the country “no longer has a choice,” President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Thursday in remarks carried by state media, warning that severe ecological strain has mad...
www.iranintl.com
November 21, 2025 at 4:52 AM
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Check out @nuvoices.bsky.social virtual writing workshop: Writing Across Borders with essayist and academic @yangyangcheng.bsky.social!

This workshop will examine the limitations of the dominant discourse on China, and discuss how to write against and beyond state-centric frameworks.
🔥Spots are still available!

NüVoices is proud to present an upcoming writing workshop with Yangyang Cheng on writing about Chinese current events, culture, and society.

📅6 Dec 2025, 12 – 1:45 PM
📷$40 USD ($20 for students/members/grads) Details: nuvoices.com/2025/10/27/v...
November 20, 2025 at 4:46 AM
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A copy of the NEW BOOK by 2023-24 CASBS fellow Micah Muscolino, "Remaking the Earth, Exhausting the People," has entered into the Center's renowned Ralph W. Tyler Collection 📖

About this @uwapress.uw.edu book: uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295...

And check out Micah's awesome shout-out in the book (🧵)
November 18, 2025 at 1:12 AM
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Our forthcoming volume on the environmental history of China's era of high socialism has a cover.

Paul Pickowicz, who took the photo when he visited China in 1971 as part of a Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars delegation, also contributed the book's epilogue.
October 31, 2025 at 11:15 PM
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My new article is out! A Daoist mountain synced pilgrimages with crane migrations—governing landscapes and conserving biodiversity for centuries. Rethinking nature/culture today. Read open access: doi.org/10.3390/rel1...
November 7, 2025 at 10:01 PM
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Looking forward to reading @rianthum.bsky.social ‘s important new book, Islamic China. Pre-order your copy today! www.hup.harvard.edu/books/978067...
November 1, 2025 at 12:21 PM
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The Porcelain Tower of Nanjing (南京大報恩寺琉璃塔), built in the Ming dynasty, once dazzled the world as a “wonder of the Middle Ages.”
Clad in glazed tiles that shimmered in sunlight and lantern light alike, it rose as both devotion and spectacle. Its fame even reached Andersen, 1/2
#art
September 22, 2025 at 5:03 PM
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"Tamra Maew manuscripts pair illustrations of these auspicious pets with poetic descriptions and notes on what mystical benefits the owner might hope to accrue, which may range from riches to good health."
The Cat’s *Maew*: Thai Treatise on Auspicious Felines (19th Century)
A manuscript that pairs illustrations of cats with poetic descriptions and notes on what mystical benefits their owners might hope to accrue.
publicdomainreview.org
September 19, 2025 at 2:32 PM
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1. An amusing interpretation of the Mongol invasion of Poland in 1341 from the pen of the Dominican Galvano Fiamma in distant Italy.

#mongolsky
#tengri

“De Tartaris, qui invaserunt Christianos
Ab Oriente Tartari, qui solo lacte et carnibus vescuntur,
September 18, 2025 at 6:03 PM
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'What a fascinating book, illustrated with some wonderful images, some of them quite unexpected!'

📌 buff.ly/8aDUwqf
📚 buff.ly/PLscD2p
September 19, 2025 at 9:16 AM
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Another reason I love this route: it passes Taiwan’s largest Muslim cemetery. Hajji Shi Wen-Ting from Xinjiang rests here, among Hui, Uyghur, and other refugees — reminders that Taiwan itself became a land of refugees after 1949.
September 17, 2025 at 9:29 AM
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Qeshqer Héytgah Katta Baziri(喀什艾提尕尔大巴扎:Rendering of the redevelopment project)
Aug. 13, 2003, Kashgar

#LVLUM-0060
September 15, 2025 at 7:19 PM
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we must tear down Online and replace it with the Internet of Parrots.

www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/s...
Scientists Taught Pet Parrots to Video Call Each Other—and the Birds Loved It
Wild parrots tend to fly in flocks, but when kept as single pets, they may become lonely and bored
www.smithsonianmag.com
September 12, 2025 at 5:54 PM
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"Fool me once,..."
September 11, 2025 at 3:43 AM
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TT Assistant Professor Position in Modern Southeast Asian Humanities at UC-Berkeley!

Further details below --
Assistant Professor -Modern Southeast Asian Humanities - Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies
University of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now!
aprecruit.berkeley.edu
September 10, 2025 at 5:19 AM
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"A governing party’s will to power is destructive of both its own ideals and of the society that birthed it." Anne Stevenson-Yang reviews Robert Suettinger’s "The Conscience of the Party" and Joseph Torigian’s "The Party’s Interests Come First." lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-will-to-power-in-china
September 10, 2025 at 3:15 PM
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"Echoes of Great Brightness" conference will be live-streamed, on 16 and 17 September, and you can watch a great roster of speakers on art of the Ming and art of the non-Ming, online: the link is here: web.cvent.com/event/a4ff13...
Echoes of Great Brightness: The Ming Dynasty and Beyond.
An International Conference in Honour of Craig Clunas.
web.cvent.com
September 7, 2025 at 1:41 PM
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From Sanmenxia and Three Gorges to the Yarlung Tsangpo Dam, China has long relied on monumental hydropower to prove state capacity. @zenel25.bsky.social and @pguer.bsky.social show how such projects, while promising development and security, often deepen the very insecurities they claim to resolve.
The Technopolitics of China’s Yarlung Tsangpo Dam Project and the Paradox of Hydropower | Made in China Journal
Three years after announcing their intent to construct a mega-dam along the Yarlung Tsangpo (Brahmaputra) River as part of the Fourteenth Five-Year Plan, Chinese officials gave their approval to proce...
madeinchinajournal.com
September 4, 2025 at 11:42 AM
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Most of Chinese Camp has burned to the ground, according to Chronicle photojournalist @stephenlamphoto.bsky.social. Some residents of the historic Gold Rush town stayed to fight the blaze, despite evacuation orders.
#CAwx #CAfire
www.sfchronicle.com/california-w...
September 3, 2025 at 4:16 AM
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There will be many casualties from UChicago ending ('pausing') PhD admissions in Humantities, but one which I am keenly aware of: this is close to a death sentence for teaching cuneiform in the United States (esp. Sumerian, Hittite, Elamite, Eblaite, Luwian) and it will affect the whole world.
“Chicago has long helped to keep alive tiny fields & esoteric areas of humanistic study... Without the univ’s support, & the continued training of grad students who can keep these bodies of kn going, entire spheres of human learning might eventually blink out.” www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...
If the University of Chicago Won’t Defend the Humanities, Who Will?
Why it matters that the University of Chicago is pausing admissions to doctoral programs in literature, philosophy, the arts, and languages
www.theatlantic.com
August 27, 2025 at 2:02 PM
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August 20, 2025 at 5:50 PM
TT job announcement: The Anthropology Program of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, invites applications for a tenure track faculty position at the rank of Assistant Professor in the anthropology of China. Link below.
Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
apply.interfolio.com
August 19, 2025 at 4:21 PM