Ian M. Miller

Image of a shrine, grove, bridge, crossing, temple, and pond, labled in Chinese text

Also, the earliest (and one of the best) depictions I've seen of an idealized water mouth 水口. 10th of 10 "great collapses": "observe the water mouth - its islets, temples, ponds, shrines, and groves, their state indicates the state of the village within..."

Haha! Michael was my advisor, so obviously a big influence on my thinking too!

Thanks! Very fun. I need to not let this distract me. Although given the centrality of (Chinese) genealogical sources to my current project, maybe I should go down this rabbit hole for a while and see where it emerges. Looking forward to the book!

The original Mongolic text of The Secret History of the Mongols is lost. The only surviving version 元朝秘史 from the Ming era is itself a fascinating work using Chinese characters to transcribe the Mongolic pronunciation, with annotation on the meaning

「成吉思皇帝的根源 上天處命有的 生了的蒼色狼 有妻他的慘白色鹿 有來騰汲思(水名)渡著來了」

Just discovered hundreds of pages of geomantic texts in the Yongle dadian 永樂大典, including left "ghost of litigation and whipping followers" formation and right "ghost of temples of ill repute" formation.

What's on the Cover? (1) - Karin Wulf Starting from the top left! I really do love the cover that the talented Brady McNamara designed for Lineage. I had an idea that the cover could mimic the look of my Instagram account, @VernacularGene...

I wrote a short post with links, and as ever huge appreciation for OUP designer Brady McNamara. 2// karinwulf.com/tidbits/what...

My grandfather collected about half a dozen of these birth (and marriage?) certificates. Nominally related to our Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry. I'd love to learn more!

The cover of Lineage: Genealogy and the Power of Connection in Early America, with a collage of different textual and visual items. A Franktur birth certificate, highly colored with a heart shape predominant in the upper left is highlighted in this post. More info at link to a blog post.

The book is about the power of genealogy, emotional texture and statecraft alike. In the weeks before publication in early July I'm highlighting individual items that make up the beautiful cover, starting with this 1776 Franktur birth certificate from the collections at the Newberry Library. 1/

This tiny forty-eighth stater is one of the first coins ever made. It was minted in the Kingdom of Lydia sometime between the 630s & 553 BC, making it up to 2,650 years old.

Apropos of Warren Zevon's deserved Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction. Not only did Kid Rock's "All Summer Long" steal Warren Zevon's hook from "Werewolves of London," it also stole the premise of Zevon's "Play it All Night Long." "Play that dead band's song" indeed.

White House Proposal Could Gut Climate Modeling the World Depends On Potential funding cuts for NOAA and its research partners threaten irreparable harm not only to climate research but to American safety, competitiveness, and national security.

The possible elimination of the lab threatens irreparable harm not only to global understanding of climate change and long-range scenarios for the planet but to the country’s safety, competitiveness and national security. @propublica.org www.propublica.org/article/trum...

Book with black and red ink written in Old Turkic in Turkic Runes

It's #ManuscriptMonday! The Irk Bitig, a Book of Divination from the 9th–10th centuries CE was probably written in Old Turkic in Turkic Runes and was found in the Dunhuang cave complex in western China! You can read more about it here: idp.bl.uk/blog/an-omen...

The University President Willing to Fight Trump Christopher L. Eisgruber of Princeton University talks about the administration’s move to freeze billions of dollars in funding to higher education institutions.

Several thoughts about this very helpful interview on NYT w Chris Eisgruber, president of Princeton, about existential attacks on higher ed, how and what solidarity among American universities looks like. And why it's worth the listen. (Also a dopey headline.) 1/ www.nytimes.com/2025/04/09/p...

So many student visas have been revoked that Inside Higher Ed started mapping them

857: Museum of Now - This American Life

"This American Life" spoke to the Columbia student whose visa was revoked & who left the US for Canada after some days in hiding (while ICE kept trying to arrest her?), and it all sounds bizarre and terrifying www.thisamericanlife.org/857/transcript

I Hope Millions of Americans Will Participate Again…😊💙💙💙💙

Historians are going to have better records from the 19th century than the 21st, is my most medievalist futurist prediction.

Cultural groups across U.S. told that federal humanities grants are terminated Among the thousands of groups affected by the sudden cessation of funds are state arts councils, museums, historic sites, archives, libraries, educators and media outlets in all 50 states.

DOGE wiping out your local libraries, arts councils, museums, historic sites: www.npr.org/2025/04/03/n...

If your NEH grant was terminated, please share that information with @humanitiesall.bsky.social via the form below.

Color illustration of a mango tree and fruit, labeled in Chinese, a phonetic transcription, and Latin.

How have I not wasted days on Michael Boym's Flora Sinensis yet?

In any case, I am convinced that there are relatively uniform conventions for how to depict trees by their branching patterns and leaf shape. I realize this is a strange rabbit-hole to be down at this dark time, but it is my strange rabbit-hole, and any help would be much appreciated.

Here are trees shading graves. Notional depictions from an early example (16th cent?) on the left. Clearer depictions of conifers in the later (late 19th cent) example on the right.

It's worth noting that individual trees are depicted in situations where they are clearly significant. To the left is a well 井 with a tree (camphor?) standing behind it. To the right is an old pond with three large trees (two pines? and ?) shading it.

Closeup of a woodblock print of several trees with different types of leaves, with part of a building and a dike in the background.

What about these other trees? I can identify at least three, and possibly as many as five, other varieties, not counting the willows in the foreground and the sweetgum (?) at left. I suspect - again from fieldwork - that at least one of these is a camphor. Probably the small-leaved one in the middle

Close up of a woodblock print of a tree with five-lobed leaves

Closeup of a woodblock print of a tree with five-lobed leaves behind a building.

But what about this tree on the left? It is clearly depicted as having five-lobed leaves. Is it the same tree as the right (from 饮膳正要)? Fieldwork suggests that it might be Chinese sweetgum 楓香, which has five-lobed leaves and is often found in fengshui forests.

Detail of woodblock print showing a pagoda with pine and other trees

Woodblock print of a pine tree

The tall trees by this pagoda (left) are clearly pines 松. Similar depictions of pines, are found, for example, in the 14th century pharmacopeia Yinshan zhengyao 饮膳正要 (aka "A Soup for the Khan," this a 1456 edition).

Detail of woodblock pint of a willow (?) hanging over a stream.

Woodblock print "willows line the dikes with shade" depicting willow trees along a dike, with houses, mountains in the background, and three figures in the foreground

This, for example (left), is fairly clearly a willow 柳. This is confirmed by a print from the same volume titled "willows line the dikes with shade" (right) with nearly identical tree forms.

Woodblock print of a stream passing by a village, with a building, trees, a pagoda, dikes, and fields.

Here's a depiction of a water mouth 水口 from a 19th century genealogy. It's clear to me that images like this do not just depict "generic" trees - they depict specific trees that mattered to the fengshui of the landscape. Any suggestions on how to identify them? I've had only some success.