Much fungi, many shrooms…

Thorium 👍 Uranium 👎

(Cause for hope?) ❝Democrats have outperformed in each special election since President Trump took office by an average of 8.5 points…double the margin required for Democrats to take back the House❞

🐌💋

pterodactyl vs fish

英雄廣場商業大樓

The Wing Chun master’s rooster

On my FB feed I’m seeing posts by @m4abhi of the lawyer’s strike at the Metropolitan Court in Ahmedabad. Here, is a screen grab of a short piece I wrote for DNA Ahmedabad in 2010 called “A Look at Why Chharanagar is the Land of Lawyers.”

Sophie gave me a new yoga prop, but I’m not sure how to use it?

Adiler

#AmAnth2018 Panel: Indexing Indigeneity in Taiwan

Indexing Indigeneity in Taiwan: Resistance and Adaptation in Taiwanese Visual Culture

  • Cosponsored by the Society for Visual Anthropology and the Society for East Asian Anthropology
  • Panelists: Skaya Siku, Futuru C.L. Tsai, P. Kerim Friedman, Tzu Tung Lee, Eliana Ritts, Darryl Sterk
  • Discussant: Marc L. Moskowitz

Date and Time

  • Friday, November 16, 2018
  • 10:15 AM - 12:00 PM

Session Abstract:

Taiwanese indigenous cultures have survived settler violence during the Qing, colonial occupation under the Japanese, forced assimilation under Nationalist (KMT) martial law, and the commodification of their cultures in an era of globalization. This amazing resilience is a product of both resistance and adaptation. This panel looks at these strategies through the lens of indigenous visual culture, including papers on fine art, documentary and feature film, television, and livestreaming on social media. Drawing on work in linguistic anthropology, these papers explore the wide variety of ways in which indigenous identities have been indexed (Silverstein 2003) through visual representation as well as the language in which those representations are embedded. Taiwanese indigeneity has played an increasingly iconic role in debates over Taiwanese national identity. Accordingly, these papers explore the shifting chronotopes (Bakhtin 1981) of indigeneity at work focus has shifted from more recent immigration to Taiwan (by Chinese settlers) to ancient migrations out of Taiwan (by Austronesian explorers). Within the larger framework of Taiwan’s shifting chronotopes, the six papers on this panel further tackle issues relating to the production, dissemination, and language of indigenous visual media in Taiwan. Two of the papers (Ritts and Tsai) explore the aesthetic choices made in the production process. Ritts asks what it means to make “slow TV” on Taiwan’s indigenous television station, while Tsai explores his own use of sensory ethnography in documenting ‘Amis spearfishing practices. Two of the papers (Friedman and Siku) explore the dissemination of documentary films by and about indigenous Taiwanese. Friedman explores the shifting chronotopes of ethnographic films over the history of the Taiwan International Ethnographic Film Festival (TIEFF), while Siku looks at how one indigenous filmmaker and activist, Mayaw Biho, has been making use of video livestreaming. The last two papers (Sterk and Lee) both look at the role of language in visual culture. Sterk explores the role of endangered languages in feature films, as well as how those films are interpreted by indigenous audiences, while Lee explores the shifting linguistic framing of indigenous art works for exhibition audiences. Although focused on Taiwan, these papers ask fundamental questions about indigeneity and visual culture while making innovative use of theoretical paradigms drawn from linguistic anthropology.

Some Brief Thoughts on Trump and Russia (with links)

It seems to me that Trump’s love of Russian is not about policy, but about a shared racist, patriarchal, world view. That, and his financial dependency on the Russian mob. I think that those things, along with Russian meddling in the election, are enough to explain Trump’s actions, without need to invoke the ‘pee tapes’.

What to do about Russian meddling? I agree with Seth Ackerman that rather than freaking out about “treason,” we should be looking at “practical steps to deal with the problem” which few people are doing… I suppose some think yelling “treason” enough will win Republicans over to impeaching Trump, but it seems hard to tell if that would work or just backfire? Personally, I would really like to see the US switch to paper ballots.

As far as the well documented history of the US interfering in foreign elections is concerned, I think Nathan Robinson is right that “Trump exceptionalism will kill every one of your brain cells.” And commentators should retain some perspective, but those on the left should equally be wary of descending into the kind of “whataboutery” that liberals so often use to undermine those issues the left holds dear.

UPDATES:

  • NPR considers whether “this administration has been much tougher on Russia than any in the post-Cold War era”?

Image source

Less than US$2 for a whole basket of vegetarian dumplings from a street vendor in Taipei! 素食小籠包🥟😋😍

In this heat, I don’t blame them for waiting for the light to change in the shade…

PhD student’s notes writing during our wide ranging, three hour long, discussion of indigenous sovereignty, social movements, and political anthro…

Doraemon has a toothache

Fried bread sticks (油條) getting made

Classy hotel for classy people

xkcd.com/2005/

Petition · Letter to the Leadership of the Association for Asian Studies

Centrists Are the Most Hostile to Democracy, Not Extremists

So today I learned that the Chinese translation of The Big Lebowski is “The Green Toe Murder” 《謀殺綠腳趾》. It makes sense, but sounds like a very different kind of film…

Really excited for this special issue of Boundary 2 on Taiwan to finally be coming out!

Taiwan’s government still hasn’t figured out if they are the empire or the rebel alliance … #may4th

Asian Tigers Leave Taiwan Behind