​New on the site this time:
 
A snide commentary on people complaining about the Shanghai lockdown by China cheerleader Zhang Weiwei:  “Say No to ‘Spiritual Americans.’”
 
An interesting piece on “absentee farmers”—i.e., the millions of villagers who have moved to China’s cities during reform and opening:  Huang Zhihui, “From Absentee Landlords to Absentee Farmers:  The Transformation of Farmers’ Living Patterns and Rural Revitalization in the Context of Reciprocal Relations between Towns and Villages.”
 
Another piece on online youth culture, meant to complement the last update’s texts on the Industrial Party (see here and here):  Pan Nini, “How the ‘Little Pinks’ were Born:  Analyzing ‘Fan Patriotism’ in the Internet Era.”
 
Enjoy!

Back home after a wonderful stay in Paris.  Thanks again to Anne Cheng for giving me the opportunity to lecture at the Collège de France.  For French-speaking followers of the blog, the lectures are available online here.  Please forgive the slight delay in updating the site this time, but I tested positive for covid the day after getting home.  Not the best home-coming gift, but surely better than getting sick while in Paris.  In any event, it is a mild case, but covid + jetlag did knock me out for a day or two.

New on the site this time :

Two texts that talk about the Industrial Party 工业党 in China, an online community that preaches the supremacy of industrialsm and technocracy.  The Industrial Party, like the Little Pinks, is part of the online nationalist noise that is omnipresent on China’s Internet, affording us a glimpse into the interaction of nationalism, ideology and online life in contemporary China.

Lu Nanfeng and Wu Jing, “Historical Transformation and Grand Narrative: A Political Analysis of the ‘Industrial Party,’ an Online Intellectual Trend”

Zhou An'an and Wu Jing, "The whole country is working hard, and I'm just one of those workers" 

In addition, Freya Ge and I translated a text on mental health problems among China’s high school and university students, which is troubling to say the least.

Xu Kaiwen, “How Hard it is to Become a Mentally Healthy Student, Given ‘Hollow-Heart Disease’ and the Anxieties of Our Age?"