Michael Röllinghoff
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roellinghoff.bsky.social
Michael Röllinghoff
@roellinghoff.bsky.social
Assistant professor of Japanese Studies at HKU. I write about settler colonialism, empire, and Indigenous sovereignty in Hokkaido and the transpacific. PhD from UToronto. Postdoc at UTokyo. 👨🏻‍🏫

Views mine, like/repost ≠ endorsement.
Reposted by Michael Röllinghoff
This by the excellent @jburnmurdoch.ft.com confirms my view that political trends are being driven by the halting of the upward economic conveyor belt - striking charts: www.ft.com/content/30a4... Welcome to the age of zero-sum politics
Welcome to the age of zero-sum politics
A stalled economic conveyor belt is behind the rise of anti-system, anti-growth parties on both the right and left
www.ft.com
December 19, 2025 at 7:31 AM
Reposted by Michael Röllinghoff
Readers and bookshops: please boycott any publisher that replaces literary translators with the non-reading, uncultured, lying, manipulative plagiarism regurgitator.
French publishing house Harlequin decided to use AI translation instead of human translations.

All their freelance translators (some of whom had been working with Harlequin for +30y!!!) were told they would no longer receive work from Harlequin
December 19, 2025 at 9:17 AM
Reposted by Michael Röllinghoff
Thrilled about this new grant we are offering for under-represented early career scholars. The first cycle is for scholars in history and area studies. Please spread the word widely. @universitypress.cambridge.org

*********************************

Read more here: 🔗 cup.org/4pF5xvr
Amplifying voices
New Cambridge grant to help under-represented scholars publish
cup.org
December 17, 2025 at 9:29 PM
Reposted by Michael Röllinghoff
BREAKING: Skate Canada is boycotting Alberta over the province's ban on Trans women competing in women's sports.

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
Skate Canada to stop holding national, international events in Alberta | CBC News
Skate Canada says it will no longer host major events in Alberta following a review of the province's legislation on the participation of transgender athletes in women's sport.
www.cbc.ca
December 16, 2025 at 6:54 PM
GenAI is going to force post-secondary educators to go back to a kindergarten style of marking: did this student try their best? Did they show improvement? Were they a positive presence in the classroom?

Or we do pre-K and just circle one of the following to determine their GPA: 😀😐😔😭
You Kids Are Soft. You Lack Discipline! GIF
ALT: You Kids Are Soft. You Lack Discipline! GIF
media.tenor.com
December 17, 2025 at 4:23 AM
Reposted by Michael Röllinghoff
New book from IEHS members Eric M. Adams and Jordan Stanger-Ross:

Challenging Exile: Japanese Canadians and the Wartime Constitution (University of British Columbia Press, 2025)

www.ubcpress.ca/challenging-...
December 17, 2025 at 12:45 AM
Reposted by Michael Röllinghoff
The Carney-Smith ‘grand bargain’ is a fire sale of our future.

The former UN #climate envoy is trading Indigenous rights and Canada’s climate legacy for a financially toxic tar sands pipeline deal with #Alberta.

New from @richardbrooks.bsky.social:

ricochet.media/climate/the-...

#cdnpoli
The Carney-Smith ‘grand bargain’ is a fire sale of our future
The former UN climate envoy is trading Indigenous rights and Canada’s climate legacy for a financially toxic tar sands pipeline deal with Alberta
ricochet.media
December 15, 2025 at 11:00 PM
Reposted by Michael Röllinghoff
Excited to dive into this newly published history of Pusan/Fukuoka as "imperial region" bound together by the fluid borderland of the Tsushima Strait. Many congrats to @hannahjshepherd.bsky.social , who will be hosting for a book talk @modernjapanhist.bsky.social in May! mjha.org/event-6433046
November 18, 2025 at 3:51 PM
Reposted by Michael Röllinghoff
We have now announced TWO full PhD studentships at Bristol's Hong Kong History Centre @uobrishistory.bsky.social @uobartsmatter.bsky.social! Please spread the word to anyone you know who are working towards/have a Master's degree, and are interested in pursuing further research in HK history.
Hong Kong History Centre Studentship

𝐋𝐨𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: Dept of Hist, University of Bristol
𝐄𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲: UK and International (including EU)
𝐅𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠: Tuition Fees and stipend
𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬: Sep 26 – Sep 30 (full-time)

Details:
www.hkhistory.net/2025/11/17/h...
December 8, 2025 at 8:48 AM
Reposted by Michael Röllinghoff
◤◢◤既刊書紹介◢◤◢

和田敦彦『読書の歴史を問う 書物と読者の近代 改訂増補版』(文学通信)
An Inquiry into The History of Reading: Readers and Print Culture in Modern Japan
ISBN978-4-909658-34-0 C0000
A5判・並製・328頁
定価:本体1,900円(税別)
December 8, 2025 at 9:47 AM
Reposted by Michael Röllinghoff
Universities will keep sexual predators on the faculty because their "hands are tied by tenure." Turns out protesting genocide is all it takes to loosen those unshakable chains.
Tenured US professor fired over pro-Palestinian protests contests dismissal
Sang Hea Kil is first tenured faculty member fired from a public university in connection to the protests
www.theguardian.com
December 6, 2025 at 4:04 PM
Another version of this headline could be "Canadian firm selling military equipment to ICE."
ICE ordering fleet of 20 armoured vehicles from Canadian firm | CBC News
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement earmarked millions of dollars for a bulk order for 20 armoured vehicles from Canadian defence manufacturer Roshel that are built to resist bullets and bomb bla...
www.cbc.ca
December 3, 2025 at 6:23 AM
Reposted by Michael Röllinghoff
The "next frontier" for "reconciliation" is Canada using repeating the well-worn paths of settler colonial expansion employing both old and new language to justify running rough-shod over Indigenous rights and jurisdiction.
November 30, 2025 at 1:23 PM
Reposted by Michael Röllinghoff
This is the most alarming story I’ve read today. Giving up the fight before it’s started
November 30, 2025 at 9:57 AM
I literally made a career out of it.
November 28, 2025 at 10:09 AM
If people actually believe that the Japanese have a custom of "renting families" then presumably they'll believe pretty much anything.
November 28, 2025 at 1:15 AM
Reposted by Michael Röllinghoff
The open secret that Thomas King is not Indigenous at all is finally verified, and honestly it's a relief. Having him just confess this instead of going out kicking and screaming like so many before him causes a LOT less harm to Indigenous communities.

It still sucks though.
November 24, 2025 at 11:15 PM
Reposted by Michael Röllinghoff
I wrote a book about US media’s complicity in the Gaza genocide. It's available for pre-order. It’s a data-driven and, I hope, thorough account of how center-left media sold the American public on mass death in Gaza.

Out 4/21. 100% of royalties go to @mecaforpeace.bsky.social.
How to Sell a Genocide - Pluto Press
A gripping exposé of how the corporate media fuelled genocide in Gaza
www.plutobooks.com
November 24, 2025 at 7:29 PM
Reposted by Michael Röllinghoff
I think the shortest version of why LLMs are an anti education technology is that education is fundamentally about making shared context to understand ourselves, each other, and the world

And by design LLMs destroy shared context
November 23, 2025 at 12:57 PM
I accidentally took the kids to the (brilliant and gorgeous!) Hong Kong anime, Another World. I had to take them out after beheadings, backs whipped raw, bodies thrown into fires, etc.

The 9 year old was shook.

The 6 year old: “Really? I was okay with it…”
a little girl is smiling in front of a burning house with the words hmmmm written on the bottom
Alt: a little girl is smiling in front of a burning house with the words hmmmm written on the bottom
media.tenor.com
November 23, 2025 at 12:18 AM
Reposted by Michael Röllinghoff
Relying on ChatGPT to teach you about a topic leaves you with shallower knowledge than Googling and reading about it, according to new research that compared what more than 10,000 people knew after using one method or the other.

Shared by @gizmodo.com: buff.ly/yAAHtHq
November 21, 2025 at 11:48 AM
Question for scholars:

I have three citations in a row. Two are from a compendium from 1885, and one (the middle one) is from a source collection from 1981. I've discovered ALL of the sources I quote are included in the 1885 book. Do I switch them all over, or cite based on where I found them?
November 21, 2025 at 8:35 AM
Reposted by Michael Röllinghoff
Okazaki Katsuyo's graph of Marx's pre-capitalist economic formations
November 20, 2025 at 11:02 PM
Reposted by Michael Röllinghoff
True that. and the sweet little town where it was filmed just might get you some pie.
Hot take: the Pacific Northwest isn't famous for coffee because of Starbucks. It's famous for coffee because of Twin Peaks.
a man in a trench coat and tie is drinking a cup of coffee .
ALT: a man in a trench coat and tie is drinking a cup of coffee .
media.tenor.com
November 20, 2025 at 4:14 AM
Reposted by Michael Röllinghoff
the gulf between the swift brutality with which places like harvard treated students protesting genocide and the endless, endless latitude those same institutions have given people like larry summers tells you everything you need to know
November 20, 2025 at 1:36 AM