Jeff Wasserstrom
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jwassers.bsky.social
Jeff Wasserstrom
@jwassers.bsky.social
Teaches history at UCI, writes on China for the TLS, LARB, Dissent, WSJ, & other venues, 1st book on East AND Southeast Asia came out in June from Columbia Global Reports https://globalreports.columbia.edu/books/the-milk-tea-alliance
Reposted by Jeff Wasserstrom
Read our excerpt from "You Must Take Part in Revolution" by Melissa Chan and Badiucao: chinabooksreview.com/2025/11/20/r...
November 21, 2025 at 1:01 PM
Reposted by Jeff Wasserstrom
We're off for Thanksgiving this week, but regular posting will resume next week. In the meantime, why not save your spot for our next book talk at Asia Society NYC on December 16, with Nan Z. Da and Stephen Greenblatt talking about Shakespeare, China and tyranny? asiasociety.org/center-us-ch...
November 24, 2025 at 1:02 PM
Reposted by Jeff Wasserstrom
Great to get to talk about Hong Kong in 2019 & after with Ching Kwan Lee, author of the important new @harvardpress.bsky.social book Forever Hong Kong, podcast moderated expertly by @yangyangcheng.bsky.social for @madeinchinajournal.com madeinchinajournal.com/2025/11/24/e...
Episode 6 | Hong Kong in Protest, Redux
In 2019, more than a million people poured onto the streets of Hong Kong, with many returning week after week. The song ‘Glory to Hong Kong’ soon emerged as the movement’s unofficial anthem. What bega...
madeinchinajournal.com
November 26, 2025 at 3:26 PM
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🚨 journo job! 🚨
Replace me! - after 13 years at the Guardian and six years on the incredible China team, including five in Taiwan, I’m leaving at the end of this year. I’ll get sentimental about it later but for now: Here’s the job ad. I recommend it!
workwithus.theguardian.com/job-search/e...
China Correspondent
Join our team at the Guardian and be a part of a diverse and inclusive global organisation that delivers award-winning, investigative journalism, and holds power to account. Our team of journalists, c...
workwithus.theguardian.com
November 27, 2025 at 12:37 AM
Great to get to talk about Hong Kong in 2019 & after with Ching Kwan Lee, author of the important new @harvardpress.bsky.social book Forever Hong Kong, podcast moderated expertly by @yangyangcheng.bsky.social for @madeinchinajournal.com madeinchinajournal.com/2025/11/24/e...
Episode 6 | Hong Kong in Protest, Redux
In 2019, more than a million people poured onto the streets of Hong Kong, with many returning week after week. The song ‘Glory to Hong Kong’ soon emerged as the movement’s unofficial anthem. What bega...
madeinchinajournal.com
November 26, 2025 at 3:26 PM
Reposted by Jeff Wasserstrom
|| NEW EPISODE || Six years after Hong Kong’s mass protests, @yangyangcheng.bsky.social talks with sociologist Ching Kwan Lee and historian @jwassers.bsky.social about the struggle’s enduring significance, its transnational afterlives, and what it teaches us amid today’s democratic backsliding.
Episode 6 | Hong Kong in Protest, Redux
In 2019, more than a million people poured onto the streets of Hong Kong, with many returning week after week. The song ‘Glory to Hong Kong’ soon emerged as the movement’s unofficial anthem. What bega...
madeinchinajournal.com
November 26, 2025 at 8:34 AM
Reposted by Jeff Wasserstrom
Great panel discussion the other night at Humboldt University IAAW about the #MilkTeaAlliance. Thanks to @jwassers.bsky.social and other panelists! Refreshments = Milk tea from Myanmar, Hong Kong, Taiwan, & Thailand 😀
November 20, 2025 at 7:34 PM
Reposted by Jeff Wasserstrom
Arnika Fuhrmann's IN THE MOOD FOR TEXTURE analyzes how Chinese pasts and the aesthetics of colonial modernity are revived in Bangkok through film, literature, architecture, fashion, and nightlife to shape present visions of Asia. Preorder for 50% off and read the intro now: buff.ly/j7Qgtg1
November 4, 2025 at 2:17 PM
www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sho... —good reads give away provides a chance to get a special book that mixes reportage & travel writing, with some adventure thrown in, sheds insights into todays Russia, coming soon from @wwnorton.com
Book giveaway for Volga Blues: A Journey into the Heart of Russia by Marzio G. Mian Nov 03-Dec 01, 2025
Enter to win one of 10 free copies available. Giveaway dates from Nov 03-Dec 01, 2025. A risky undercover reporting trip along Russia’s great mother–rive...
www.goodreads.com
November 3, 2025 at 8:01 PM
Great to see @indexoncensorship.org publish these prison letters by a Thai activist (w/valuable contextualizing comments by @turtelista.bsky.social ); the letters contain elements of interest to those particularly interested in other places, like Korea, as well journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....
Jailed for criticising the royal family - Tyrell Haberkorn, Sophon “Get” Suratitthamrong, 2025
journals.sagepub.com
November 1, 2025 at 5:28 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
Great to see @indexoncensorship.org publish these prison letters by a Thai activist (w/valuable contextualizing comments by @turtelista.bsky.social ); the letters contain elements of interest to those particularly interested in other places, like Korea, as well journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....
Jailed for criticising the royal family - Tyrell Haberkorn, Sophon “Get” Suratitthamrong, 2025
journals.sagepub.com
November 1, 2025 at 5:25 PM
Rian Thum will be at UCLA Nov 10 talking about his impressive new book, Islamic China: An Asian History www.international.ucla.edu/cnes/event/1...
UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies
The UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies fosters interdisciplinary research and public engagement on the Middle East and North Africa, promoting academic events, language training, and educational pro...
www.international.ucla.edu
October 31, 2025 at 5:35 PM
👇 Wide ranging and insightful piece by @spoem.bsky.social that places Yu Hua's latest work into the context of his previous works of fiction and writings by other important figures of his generation, via @chinabooksreview.com
@chinabooksreview.com just published my review of Yu Hua's 余华 *City of Fiction*《文城》(2021, tr. 2025).

"Along with other contemporary Chinese works with such graphic violence, Yu’s novel does political work by purging the traumas of China’s bloody 20th century."
chinabooksreview.com/2025/10/30/f...
Yu Hua: Fictional Cities | China Books Review
The bestselling Chinese novelist foregrounds individual suffering in the chaos of modern Chinese history. In his latest novel in translation, gratuitous violence shows the limits of fiction.
chinabooksreview.com
October 30, 2025 at 10:42 PM
Reposted by Jeff Wasserstrom
@chinabooksreview.com just published my review of Yu Hua's 余华 *City of Fiction*《文城》(2021, tr. 2025).

"Along with other contemporary Chinese works with such graphic violence, Yu’s novel does political work by purging the traumas of China’s bloody 20th century."
chinabooksreview.com/2025/10/30/f...
Yu Hua: Fictional Cities | China Books Review
The bestselling Chinese novelist foregrounds individual suffering in the chaos of modern Chinese history. In his latest novel in translation, gratuitous violence shows the limits of fiction.
chinabooksreview.com
October 30, 2025 at 5:09 PM
Reposted by Jeff Wasserstrom
@yangyangcheng.bsky.social has written insightful and powerful pieces on science, culture, and current events as it relates to China and the U.S.
Most recently, she traced the stories and struggles that face Chinese women in science for @madeinchinajournal.com madeinchinajournal.com/2025/10/08/b...
Beyond Representation: On Being a Woman in Science in China | Made in China Journal
In the autumn of 1995, Ye Shuhua made a speech. During the NGO Forum at the United Nation’s Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing, the 68-year-old astronomer took to the microphone and cal...
madeinchinajournal.com
October 29, 2025 at 5:01 PM
Reposted by Jeff Wasserstrom
So very looking forward to teaching this virtual workshop on writing across and beyond borders! Ticket sales go towards supporting @nuvoices.bsky.social, of which I'm a longtime reader and listener, and big fan😍
Details and sign-up:
nuvoices.com/2025/10/27/v...
🚨How can we write about China-US relations without a Cold-War binary or Orientalist rhetoric? Check out our upcoming virtual writing workshop with @yangyangcheng.bsky.social!

📅6 December 2025, 12 – 1:45 PM
💲$40 USD ($20 for students/members/grads)

For more details: nuvoices.com/2025/10/27/v...
October 29, 2025 at 5:20 PM
Reposted by Jeff Wasserstrom
If you love @yangyangcheng.bsky.social's writing as much as I do, check out her upcoming virtual writing workshop with NüVoices!
🚨How can we write about China-US relations without a Cold-War binary or Orientalist rhetoric? Check out our upcoming virtual writing workshop with @yangyangcheng.bsky.social!

📅6 December 2025, 12 – 1:45 PM
💲$40 USD ($20 for students/members/grads)

For more details: nuvoices.com/2025/10/27/v...
October 29, 2025 at 7:33 PM
Reposted by Jeff Wasserstrom
13. "The Milk Tea Alliance: Inside Asia's Struggle Against Autocracy and Beijing" (2025) by @jwassers.bsky.social has Myanmar content. @liasciortino.bsky.social & Linn Lat Tar Yar edited "Living the Coup: Collective Diary of Daily Life in Myanmar" ('25) @SEAJunction obor.or.id/living-the-c...
October 29, 2025 at 5:55 AM
Reposted by Jeff Wasserstrom
7. Burma resource watcher @clarammond.bsky.social wrote an extraordinary political travel book, “On the Shadow Tracks: A Journey through Occupied Myanmar” (2024) which follows a trajectory of railway lines (neglected, built with forced labor) to reveal decades of military misrule & abuse.
October 29, 2025 at 5:55 AM
Reposted by Jeff Wasserstrom
1. This History Thread is about recent (2023-25) books on Burma (Myanmar.) It includes books on WW2, ethnic issues & the anti-coup revolution. A pre-order announcement of my new book "Where the Mithuns Are: Essays on War, Art and Beasts" is at the end. #WhatsHappeningInMyanmar 📚
October 29, 2025 at 5:55 AM
👇Speaking at LSE today at 5
After writing 2 essays for @jodemocracy.bsky.social together without meeting in person, Wichuta Teeratanabodee & I finally met yesterday, ahead of sharing a stage tomorrow at an LSE event www.lse.ac.uk/seac/events/... (she & I are collaborating on a 3rd commentary now, with a 3rd coauthor this time)
Tales of Two Cities: Prodemocracy Protests and Beijing’s Lengthening Shadow in Bangkok and Hong Kong, 2015-2025
www.lse.ac.uk
October 27, 2025 at 8:31 AM
Reposted by Jeff Wasserstrom
Opps missed an event for Monday: 😅

LSE Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre host Wichuta Teearanabodee & @jwassers.bsky.social for talk:
"Tales of Two Cities: Prodeomcracy Protests and Beijing's Lengthening Shadow in Bangkok and Hong Kong, 2015-2025

That's all the events we have for this week.
13/
October 26, 2025 at 8:31 PM
After writing 2 essays for @jodemocracy.bsky.social together without meeting in person, Wichuta Teeratanabodee & I finally met yesterday, ahead of sharing a stage tomorrow at an LSE event www.lse.ac.uk/seac/events/... (she & I are collaborating on a 3rd commentary now, with a 3rd coauthor this time)
Tales of Two Cities: Prodemocracy Protests and Beijing’s Lengthening Shadow in Bangkok and Hong Kong, 2015-2025
www.lse.ac.uk
October 26, 2025 at 4:18 PM
Staying in Cambridge now with good people to see & talk to about things on my mind like Orwell, great views like this, in London tomorrow to meet up with people to chat & do this Milk Tea Alliance event at 5 www.lse.ac.uk/seac/events/...
October 26, 2025 at 8:01 AM