Kate Merkel-Hess

"Generations of Chinese women have been rendered voiceless by the patriarchy. Their stories refuse soft burials."
So honored to have a review essay out in Banned Books Week @chinabooksreview.com on two of Fang Fang's most acclaimed novels, Soft Burial & The Running Flame, tr. @bairuiwen.bsky.social:

Looking forward to reading this!

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In this piece on "genre borrowing" I study why netizens use Sima Qian's "arrayed biography" (列传) form to write biographies of Li Wenliang & how the narrative devices of this ancient genre align with the logic of digital culture. Open access! @asc.upenn.edu journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

This is beautifully translated! I love the line “preached the Dharma so movingly that even the pebbles nodded.” Thank you for sharing it.

Mid-Autumn, Tiger Hill, Late Ming "Everyone was perfectly silent, even the mosquitoes."

For the Mid-Autumn Festival, I translated the 17th century failson, epicure, and memoirist Zhang Dai's account of the annual Mid-Autumn singing competition on Tiger Hill in Suzhou. www.burninghou.se/p/mid-autumn...

Very nice to see a piece by @laujessie.bsky.social of @nuvoices.bsky.social in @thetls.bsky.social

No convincing needed for me on the importance of both. My framing was more persuasive (getting people who might assume it isn't relevant to them bc of the venue to read it) than value-based or about disciplinary boundary-policing.

Of course! I simply meant that the ideas and reflections on computer vision/related ideas also have relevance for those of us who primarily work with texts. Perhaps I ought to have said: relevant and useful for all humanists.

Incredibly thoughtful piece on the uses (or lack thereof) of AI. Historians will find this thinking relevant too.

“We are told by leaders that we are the future. But when it comes to the ongoing pandemic, our present is being stolen right in front of our eyes.”

Incredible speech by Violet Affleck who warned about the ongoing dangers of COVID & Long Covid, & advocated for masks and clean air at the UN today!

In Memoriam: Paul A. Cohen (1934-2025) - Association for Asian Studies Paul A. Cohen, who died on September 15, 2025 at the age of 91, made significant contributions to both the interdisciplinary field of Chinese studies and the discipline of history. The most obvious wa...

My tribute to Paul Cohen as historian & mentor to many www.asianstudies.org/in-memoriam-... cc @lmansley.bsky.social

This powerful essay by @yangyangchen is in the special section on Authoritarian and Resistance

Thoughtful interview with Stanford Prof Matthew Sommer (by @mauracunningham.bsky.social) about Sommer's new book, which is on my to-read list for the fall. Lots of insights and observations for further thought just in this q-and-a.

The Japanese editions of BETRAYING BIG BROTHER: The Feminist Awakening in China just arrived! My book has now been translated into Italian, Korean, Portuguese and Japanese. The New York Public Library named Betraying Big Brother one of its “essential reads on feminism”: bookshop.org/p/books/betr...

I'm excited to share that my first monograph, "China's Date Debate: How Manchurian Scholars Rewrote World War II," is available for preorder through the University of Michigan Press, China Understandings Today series!

China’s Date Debate press.umich.edu/Books/C/Chin...

Glad to see this reposted, gave me a chance to give shout outs for good books that were largely under the radar, eg a set of Liang Qichao essays, an accessible book by @katemh.bsky.social w/a great title:Women & Their Warlords, also includes an early plug for a 2025 book: by @emilyzfeng.bsky.social

The Milk Tea Alliance · Columbia Global Reports Why are activists in Thailand, Hong Kong, and Burma willing to court danger to help one another? The political situations in Burma, Thailand, and Hong Kong are radically different. Only Burma is in a ...

🧵 I'm not doing a full-scale tour to promote my forthcoming very short trade book that discusses some inspiring activists in Thailand and exiles from Hong Kong and Burma globalreports.columbia.edu/books/the-mi... but I'll do events related to it in NYC June 9, DC June 10-13, some details below....

Smart piece by Violet Affleck on COVID, climate response, & disability activism:

"The climate resilience our society needs to build relies upon the skills and systems of pacing that disabled and chronically ill people have built to manage both their own symptoms and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic."

If you're in the Bay Area, the @hooverinstitution.bsky.social
book launch for my @stanfordpress.bsky.social biography of Xi Jinping's father will be on June 3: the day of the book's release. You can also join virtually.

www.hoover.org/events/party...

Cover of The Raider

Happy to report that I've got a new book out, The Raider.

Those Who Should Be Seized Should Be Seized by John Beck: 9781685891794 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books A shocking, on-the-ground investigation of the Chinese government’s brutal oppression of its Muslim citizens — the Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, and others — from Xinjiang to the streets of...

I don’t do this often but I highly encourage yall to preorder my friend John Beck’s book; out next month. It’s extremely good; like a modern day but real life ‘The Americans’

“Those Who Should Be Seized Should Be Seized”

www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/774464...

This. We are currently in a situation where our national defense against pathogens is on the ropes. I will continue to mask indoors in public, because I can only control my choices and not anyone else’s.

Read Winifred Dongyi Wang's essay about Pai Hsien-yung's "New Yorkers" and immigrant identity: buff.ly/raPftnP

Your periodic reminder that we are experiencing a mass disabling event.

"We’re facing an unsustainable rate of reinfection for an unsustainable percentage of the population with a virus that carries an unsustainably high risk of long-term damage."

This is a very thoughtful piece from Benjamin Breen, reflecting on how we do history and why AI isn't up to the task.

1 in 22 COVID survivors develop debilitating chronic syndrome A study suggests that catching COVID-19 significantly raises the risk of developing ME/CFS (formerly called "chronic fatigue syndrome"), a typically lifelong condition that can be debilitating.

The NIH recently published a study: one of every 22 covid infections triggers ME. People are not being warned that their whole life could just vanish. Journalism literally exists for situations like this. #JohnVsJonVsME
#GreatestMEdicalScandal
💗💝💕💝💗

www.livescience.com/health/coron...

YouTube video by Sesame Street Sesame Street: It's Not Easy Being Green (Kermit's Song)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=51BQ...

Yep. Vance is not going to be fazed by his critiques.