James A. Benn

Congratulations Bryan. Looking forward to this one

How Buddhism Spread in Japan, 650-850 Between the late seventh and early ninth centuries, Japan changed from a land largely without Buddhism to a country where Buddhist ideas, images, and practices were everywhere. The introduction of …

My new book is coming out in August 2026.
uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/how-bu...

Stephen Owen though?

Altering an Ancient Chinese Text to Create a "UFO" It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to examine an “ancient text” for evidence of UFOs, and the recent internet buzz about a medieval Chinese UFO sighting provides a good opportunity....

www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/alterin...

He abandoned the traditional fish-scale painting technique and extensively used an improved net-pattern method, employing lines to validate the artistic conception of 'water's ever-changing form' and 'emptiness leaving traces more compelling than visible marks.'

🎨 Twelve Shapes of Water by Ma Yuan of the Southern Song Dynasty captures water not as a single form, but as a living rhythm. Across twelve scenes tied to shifting seasons and distant regions, Ma Yuan paints ripples, currents, and stillness with brushwork as 1/2
#art #painting

Card of the day from the Thoth Deck for October 7

Death

hermetic.com/crowley...

🃏 #tarot #ThothDeck #CardOfTheDay #DailyTarot #divination #cartomancy

I see pieces like this a lot, often w/ a spin of lamenting cultural degeneration, but reading is a LABOR issue, it’s declined because so many people are working overtime or two jobs & employers expect after hours work. France has Earth’s highest reading rate b/c long lunch breaks & labor protections

Worn #onthisday in 1989 by gay activists protesting outside the Pan Pacific Hotel in Anaheim, CA, which was hosting the West Coast Symposium on Homosexuality and Public Policy. Their T-shirts read "Silence=Death" and "OUT: Orange County Visibility League." #OTD 📷 LA Public Library

Do Identical Twins Write Identically? Evidence from Authorship Attribution This study investigates the writing styles of identical twins to determine if their shared genetics result in identical writing. We used computational authorship analysis techniques on writing samp...

A study has just been published comparing writings by three pairs of twins to see whether they write differently, including me and my art historian brother Glenn. The upshot is that our styles are apparently very dissimilar.

www.tandfonline.com/eprint/YFIRR...

#linguistics #twinstudies #philsky

A portrait of Matteo Ricci.

Today we celebrate the birthday of our namesake, Fr. Matteo Ricci 利瑪竇, S.J. (Oct. 6, 1552-May 11, 1610). Happy Birthday, Fr. Ricci!

Screenshot of deluxe moon app shows full moon

Moon update:

#DOTD in #ModernChina: Zhang Zhidong 張之洞 (1837–1909), reformer, military leader, and scholar-official. #勸學篇 #ExhortationToLearning #荀子 #Confucianism #科舉

This post is making me miss Michael Loewe. I can only hear the name “Wang Mang” spoken in Michael’s voice.

#DOTD 23 CE: Wang Mang 王莽, notorious usurper and emperor of the short-lived Xin 新 Dynasty (9–23 CE). #OldTextConfucianism #古文經學 #RitesofZhou #周禮 #ZuoTradition #左傳

#BOTD: Matteo Ricci 利瑪竇 (1552–1610), #Jesuit missionary to #China #SocietasJesu #耶穌會 #SJ #ChineseChristianity #ChristianityinChina #Catholicism #天主教

We have a new Sinologist community on Discord - membership has a brief application & isn't *totally* open (it's professional in nature), but if you've been looking for a China group outside of bsky/Facebook/Twitter, this might be the ticket. discord.gg/g6S8WbVW

The Illustrated Study of the Creatures in the Mao Edition of the Book of Songs (《毛詩品物圖考》), compiled by Okamoto Genpō with illustrations by Tachibana Kunio, is an 18th-century Japanese tribute to Chinese antiquity.
Drawing from the Shijing, China’s earliest poetic canon, this 1/2
#painting

Opening here at the LMU: a W2 Professorship in Philosophy Education at the Faculty of Philosophy, Philosophy of Science and the Study of Religion. The position combines research in philosophy with a strong focus on didactics.

Application deadline: 15 November 2025

job-portal.lmu.de/jobposting/b...

Colloque – Comparaison(s) est-asiatiques – Humains et non-humains 17 & 18 octobre 2025 (ENS Lyon) OpenEdition vous propose de citer ce billet de la manière suivante :Laurent Chircop-Reyes (5 octobre 2025). Colloque – Comparaison(s) est-asiatiques – Humains et non-humains 17 & 18 octobre 2025 (ENS ...

Colloque – Comparaison(s) est-asiatiques – Humains et non-humains 17 & 18 octobre 2025 (ENS Lyon) afec.hypotheses.org/11317

This also happened to many Japanese-American families forcibly detained between 1942-45. Because there was no timeline in EO 9066, very few were able to prepare for long absence and returned to looted or foreclosed properties. Restitution wasn't made until 1988: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_L...

Untitled, 1982
https://botfrens.com/collections/27/contents/953197

#sinology #law Talk from Prof Liang Cai on the 15th Oct if you're in HK - doesn't appear to be on Zoom, sadly - and she has her book coming out at the end of the month, £110 also sadly, no sign of a paperback - Convict Politics, #China 221BCE - 23CE #law

Lu Jiandong 陸鍵東, Chen Yinke de zuihou ershi nian 陳寅恪的最後20年 [Chen Yinke's Last 20 Years] (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 1995)

The Boundaries of Independence and Freedom —A Review of Zhang Qiuhui’s The Four Books on Chen Yinke

The Boundaries of Independence and Freedom—A Review of Zhang Qiuhui’s The Four Books on Chen Yinke
open.substack.com/pub/ctexp/p/...

Coronation.

Thinking not for the first time about how the Clash song Spanish Bombs is closer chronologically to the Spanish Civil War than we now are to the song.

Emperor Augustus and the Sybil of Tibur, by Konrad Witz, 1435, 📸 by @branndannart

2025-26 Modern Endangered Archives Program Grants. Apply by November 17, 2025: ucla.in/4n8aJGS

Call for Applications. MEAP invites applications for its eighth cohort of projects to document, digitize and make accessible collections at risk from environmental conditions, political uncertainty, inherently unsustainable media, inappropriate storage, or communal and social change. All materials created with MEAP funding will be published on the open access UCLA Library Digital Collections platform. Application Details All MEAP applications must be submitted online. The online application portal is now open at meap.smapply.io Preliminary applications due: November 17, 2025 Detailed applications due for invited applicants: February 20, 2026

Funding Available Regional Grants Opportunity to expand on previous MEAP digitization. Create digital collections that include cultural heritage materials from three or more institutions, families, or archival repositories. Project Grants Funding for digitizing and documenting archival content or curating already-digital assets. Planning Grants Funding to evaluate and prepare materials for digitization.

2025 MEAP Application Webinar Thursday, October 9, 2025. 8 a.m. PDT Register: ucla.in/4nvcb6F

📣 2025-26 grant applications for the UCLA Library Modern Endangered Archive Program (MEAP) are open!

Apply for funding to document, digitize and make accessible at-risk collections from around the world.

Applications due Nov 17, 2025.

Full details and Oct 9 webinar registration: ucla.in/4n8aJGS

Junk on the West River (Xi Jiang) Guangxi, c.1935, by TC Lau…

The image shows a black and white photograph of a Guanyin statue with multiple arms, centrally placed within a room. The statue is elaborate, with several radiating arms each holding different objects. It stands on a pedestal in front of an intricate backdrop that appears to include swirling cloud-like patterns. Surrounding the central figure are smaller statues or carvings located on two tiers of platforms resembling a theater or gallery setting. The upper tier seems to contain seated figures in rows, while the lower level hosts standing figures clothed in traditional attire. The room appears to be part of a temple or monastery, characterized by wood and stone structures. Sort available posts on Bluesky using #Buddhasinthewest | All posts archived here: tinyurl.com/4kmcwp87 🔍 🗃️ 📜

Located in the mountains of Yunnan, China, the Qiongzhu Temple houses a collection of fantastic Buddhist statues.

This Thousand-Armed Guanyin icon is surrounded by over 200 arhat disciples, comprising part of a Five Hundred Arhat image collection over a century old. 🧵
🗃️ 📜 #Sinology #筇竹寺