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Nate Ledbetter

@nhledbetter.bsky.social

3.2K followers 260 following 10K posts

ABD, Princeton, East Asian Studies. Instructor, Asian History, Rider University. Perpetually writing my dissertation (warfare in 16th C. Kyushu, Japan). He/Him/あいつ/"That Nagashino Guy." At some point I'll start posting useful stuff here. Maybe.

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Nate Ledbetter @nhledbetter.bsky.social · Nov 9

Since I've got double the followers from a week ago, guess it's time for an intro thread. A post per topic I habitually post about:

I'm a PhD candidate at Princeton, very slowly working on a dissertation on 16th C. warfare in southern Japan (centered around the Shimazu family). 1/

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Nate Ledbetter @nhledbetter.bsky.social · 15h

Or literally any conflict in China, starting with Shihi Huangdi and ending with the Taiping. Or maybe those very non-violent Mongols.

Nate Ledbetter @nhledbetter.bsky.social · 15h

Kanibucho is WAY cooler and more attractive.

Nate Ledbetter @nhledbetter.bsky.social · 16h

Not soon enough.

Nate Ledbetter @nhledbetter.bsky.social · 16h

I need this character in the next season of Aggretsuko.

Mondo Mascots @mondomascots.bsky.social · 21h

Kani Bucho, an office boss with an entire crab for a head, is the mascot for Yokobiki, a company that makes metal roller shutters for store windows.

A mascot in a blue suit with a red crab for a head enters a building.

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Nate Ledbetter @nhledbetter.bsky.social · 16h

Not a problem!

I'll report back here tomorrow to see what the students thought of it (assuming they read it...)

Nate Ledbetter @nhledbetter.bsky.social · 16h

I had not posted it. Wasn't sure if I should, as I don't want to cause a pile up over just my complaints, but:

Antony Black. The "Axial Period": What Was It and What Does It Signify? The Review of Politics, Winter 2008, Vol. 70, No 1, pp. 23-39.

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Nate Ledbetter @nhledbetter.bsky.social · 16h

There are kernels of "hmm, okay maybe" but the idea that somehow Axial-Age thought resulted in 2000 years of "restraint" in warfare broke me.

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Nate Ledbetter @nhledbetter.bsky.social · 16h

The author is both making a case against Jaspers's "Axial Period" concept on basically "Axial is the wrong term" grounds while then accepting almost all of the claim that Judaism, Socratic/Platonic thought, Buddhism, and Confucianism all had "moderating" influences; they then extend that to warfare.

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Nate Ledbetter @nhledbetter.bsky.social · 16h

Clearly, because Count Dagmar Hammerskull had read Plato.

Nate Ledbetter @nhledbetter.bsky.social · 16h

For reference, here's the preceding paragraph.

"The new ideologies had a softening, moralizing influence on strong monarchy and empire"

Again...what?

Postbreakthrough ideologies became interdependent with large states, at first, somewhat transiently-in the Hellenistic world and in India under Ashoka-then in the stronger states of China and Rome. China developed as an imperial monarchy with sacred functions, its tradition and way of life imbued with Confucian ethics and rites. Stoic thought was not so firmly established in the Roman Empire but one might compare an 'imperial' Christianity with imperial Confucianism. The new ideologies had a softening, moralizing influence on strong monarchy and empire and provided an ethical rationale for them. One might say that both China and Rome were based on an implicit combination of a Machiavellian-Hobbesian rationale of superior force-this was powerfully expressed by the pre-Han realist thinkers-and a Ciceronian-Lockean rationale of rational consent by thoughtful citizens.

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Nate Ledbetter @nhledbetter.bsky.social · 16h

It was going so well, too. Sigh.

(essay I'm having students read for tomorrow's class, as we debate the usefulness of grand concepts like "the Axial Age.")

Nate Ledbetter @nhledbetter.bsky.social · 16h

This is why we don't take concepts like "the Axial Age" seriously.

Nate Ledbetter @nhledbetter.bsky.social · 16h

*stares in historian of warfare*

Um...what?

"In this new era, the savage intertribal wars of early human history, the state-sponsored massacres of preimperial China, and the extreme violence of Roman policy as we find it (for example) in Tacitus, became things of the past. Conflict became institutionalized as war, with rules. The new systems functioned, on the whole, for a long time

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Nate Ledbetter @nhledbetter.bsky.social · 16h

Careful, a bunch of journalism majors from just north of Chicago may break into your house and take everything from you.

Nate Ledbetter @nhledbetter.bsky.social · 17h

OH YES. Thanks for this. This is very much the theme I'm exploring with them.

Nate Ledbetter @nhledbetter.bsky.social · 17h

Jet Li is fine (just like the 27 Donnie Yen adaptations of the Chen Zhen story from "Fist of Fury") but I like using the original (as much as Lee movies were) because it ties into where we go later with Mao. I have a news article they read about how it was Mao's favorite movie, and ties well.

Nate Ledbetter @nhledbetter.bsky.social · 18h

Hence the Peking Opera clips--I spend a few minutes to discuss how martial arts movies in China draw on Peking Opera choreography and visual themes.

Nate Ledbetter @nhledbetter.bsky.social · 18h

The good news is that for my Modern East Asia class, it's Bruce Lee Week. I love Bruce Lee Week.

(We watch Fist of Fury as a representation of nascent Chinese nationalism in the face of Japanese aggression)

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Nate Ledbetter @nhledbetter.bsky.social · 18h

The irony here for me is I was literally teaching how to reverse outline this week. Sigh.

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Nate Ledbetter @nhledbetter.bsky.social · 18h

In a normal democracy, I would absolutely vote for the politicians NOT clogging up my YouTube feed with ads, making it practically impossible for me to use YT clips in class. Just let me show my students some Peking Opera, dangit.