Jay Carter

States of Play podcast Episode 9: How Xi Jinping's Father Helped Shape China An interview with the author Joseph Torigian about his book on Xi Zhongxun

Thanks @samolsen.bsky.social for interviewing me for a new episode of the States of Play podcast: How Xi Jinping's Father Helped Shape China

samolsen.substack.com/p/states-of-...

The electric company is criminally underrated

That was how we lost last dog. Paralyzed at 4 years old. No apparent injury. Still miss her.

Well, shall we go?

So you’re saying that 70 years ago tonight there was Waiting for Godot and therefore no more waiting for Godot?

The Chinese Communist School of Hard Knocks: How Xi Jinping's Father Shaped China's Current Tough Guy Leader Episode 1603: Joseph Torigian on Xi Jinping's father, childhood and tough guy qualities

New "Keen on America" podcast released this Sunday morning with @ajkeen.bsky.social on my new biography of Xi Zhongxun, father of Xi Jinping

keenon.substack.com/p/the-chines...

Economist Amartya Sen won a Nobel in part for asking: Why did India avoid the mass famines that killed tens of millions in China? His answer: a free press. Journalists could expose suffering and shame governments into action. Silence and avoidance, by contrast, can be deadly.

As god is my witness, I knew turkeys could drive

The universities are indoctrinating students!

Actual universities:

Oh my goodness this is good

I can’t believe Olivia is 5! #pupdate

The Spring & Autumn Annals, Part 1 Just hours before publishing this, I learned of the passing of Ozzy Osbourne, who was a figure of towering influence in my metalhead youth.

#Mandorock This latest post by @kaiserkuo.bsky.social about Spring & Autumn reuniting to created a new album, has me buzzing in anticipation. I hope there's a t-shirt—say, by Plastered 8—to go with it.
- www.sinicapodcast.com/p/the-spring...

Right?

Just for fun, you attach the red cable first, right?

Shared once before:

My grandparents met in a café in Paris in the 1920s - she was a Jiangxi student studying French poetry at the Sorbonne, and he was a visiting journalist from Beijing. They eventually had five* children (3 to adulthood 😢) - one of whom was my mother. So, happy #BastilleDay!

Fellowships

Researchers!

Short-term fellowships for working with Beinecke Library (and all Yale special collections) are open for applications.

Deadline is July 31.

beinecke.library.yale.edu/programs/fel...

China’s human rights lawyers speak out, 10 years after crackdown In 2015, a nationwide campaign rounded up hundreds of rights advocates. Since then, suppression has become more systematic and less visible, lawyers say

Ten years after the 709 crackdown, Amy Hawkins looks at the decade-long suppression of the weiquan movement in Chinese legal circles.

Call for Applications: Editorial Fellowships at History Workshop, 2025 History Workshop is advertising two part-time, paid Editorial Fellowships in 2025, open to early career historians.

I'm so proud to be part of the History Workshop project, supporting a brilliant team of Early Career historians who have built the best site for radical, engaged history online. Do consider applying for this opportunity! www.historyworkshop.org.uk/article/hist...

Might be trying to cook up another early 20c bio, or at least individual centered, project….

👀 is that a proposal!?

Going to see Robert bickers next week! I don’t think he was part of that group, but in the Oxford history team

That was such a great collection to be a part of!

Want a quick sense of what my new short @columbiagr.bsky.social book on resistance & repression in Asia 2014 to 2024 is about? Check out this excerpt of the audio book www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5Ec... (dedication page + Introduction) or watch this brief video www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcQn...

🧵 on Jonathan Spence. He was supportive of me early in my career at important moments and is on my mind today since my new book shares a publication date today with the new edition of his @wwnorton.com classic The Search for Modern China, this edition co-written by his former student Janet Chen...

The only drama now is the over/under on fights the rest of the game. I put it at 4.5

Discouraging

👇 In two days. I’ll also bring up Vigil: Hong Kong on the Brink (2020). Seems fitting with Joshua Wong in the news again with new charges leveled against him (he also figures in the new book via an abortive 2016 trip to speak in Bangkok & his 2020 protest outside the Thai consulate in Hong Kong)

1/8 The Party's Interests Come First: The Life of XI Zhongxun, Father of XI Jinping Hardcover – 3 June 2025 by Joseph Torigian (Author) 1/8 The Party's Interests Come First: The Life of XI Zhongxun, Father of XI Jinping Hardcover – 3 June 2025 by  Joseph Torigian  (Author)

The @johnbatchelor.bsky.social show is doing an eight part discussion of my book on Xi Zhongxun, the father of Xi Jinping. The first two parts are already available. Thanks John for your really interesting reactions to my book:

audioboom.com/posts/873193...

Our homestand continues tonight when the
@frederickkeys.bsky.social come to town with #PSE&G Postgame Fireworks, Boomer Bucket Hat from #CapitalHealth & an #MCIA Magnetic Schedule!

#FeelTheThunder⚡ x go.trentonthunder.com/tix

Beautiful night on the Delaware for another season of @trentonthunder.com baseball