forestofglory: A drawing of a woman wearing white riding a leaping brown horse (The Long Ballad)
For the first time I'm offering to create something for the Fandom Trumps Hate charity auction! I'm offering to create an annotated bibliography related to Chinese history. If you ever wished I would go down a research rabbit hole and tell you about it now is your chance!

See more here
forestofglory: E. H. Shepard drawing of Christopher Robin reading a book to Pooh (Default)
25) Tonight's the first night of Hanukah so I thought for #DecRecs today I would rec the lovely Jewish short fantasy story "Seven Commentaries on an Imperfect Land" by Ruthanna Emrys

about finding magic in unexpected places and building community

https://reactormag.com/seven-commentaries-on-an-imperfect-land-ruthanna-emrys/

26)Yuletide has brought us two new "Fandom for Robots" fics and they are both great!

Processing Time
https://archiveofourown.org/works/61422142

This one leans into some of the darker aspects of the source material so mind the tags. Utterly gorgeous!

Interview with the Robot
https://archiveofourown.org/works/61619161

Featuring a mildly baffled but kind museum director

both lovely and worth your time!

27)I couldn't let a reccing event go by with out yelling about The King’s Road: Diplomacy and the Remaking of the Silk Road by Xin Wen so that's today's #DecRecs

I love this book so much! It's about the nitty-gritty of diplomatic travel in Central Asia between 850-1000 CE, and it centers the city of Dunhuang, which was during this period sometimes part of various imperial states in the region but mostly an independent city state. I love that it decenters China!

A significant source of information for this book is the documents found in the library cave at Dunhuang, an important source for this time period in general.

I totally fangirl Xin Wen based on his scholar ship, he's so smart and reads so many langues and has a sharp eye for details! I especially love all the detail about the material culture of travel here

28) It's been a very busy day and I haven't actually had time to sit down at my computer. So here's a drive by #DecRecs

The House of Aunts by Zen Cho!

The trials and tribulations of being a Malaysian teen vampire with six aunts

https://giganotosaurus.org/2011/12/01/the-house-of-aunts/


(I know I didn't include today's rec, but 1. I haven't posted it yet and 2. I want the final post to include more than two recs)
forestofglory: patch work quilt featuring yellow 8 pointed stars on background of night sky fabrics (Quilt)
I made some different Tang dynasty doll hanfu same shirt but I made a different skirt and added a jacket. I'm thinking about try and Hufu/cross dressing look next but I'm not sure how the collar is supposed to look. (I also might try making something me sized at some point)
forestofglory: patch work quilt featuring yellow 8 pointed stars on background of night sky fabrics (Quilt)
I made Tang Dynasty style hanfu for my 18in doll! I'm very pleased with how it came out, I drafted the patterns myself -- a new skill for me. (If I was going to make this again I'd make the waist of the skirt a little longer -- you can't see the back but there's not quite enough overlap) All the fabric is stuff I had around. I tried to pick things that go together but have some contrast in texture and color, in keeping with my understanding of Tang aesthetics, even though of course these are all modern fabrics
forestofglory: photo of an elaborately carved inkstone (inkstone2)
Today at [community profile] ladybusiness I posted Chinese History Starter Pack with lots of recs for cool books and papers to read if you are interested in Chinese history but don't have a lot of background knowledge.

It was nice to take a break for writing my fic WIP which has been a struggle in multiple ways, and work on this which came to me pretty easily. (Now to avoid working on my fic I'm writing an annotated bibliography for it)
forestofglory: A Chinese landscape painting featuring water, trees and a mountain (West Lake)
[personal profile] theladyscribe and I are doing a read along of The Social Life of Inkstones: Artisans and Scholars in Early Qing Chinaby Dorothy Ko

Here’s the description:
An inkstone, a piece of polished stone no bigger than an outstretched hand, is an instrument for grinding ink, an object of art, a token of exchange between friends or sovereign states, and a surface on which texts and images are carved. As such, the inkstone has been entangled with elite masculinity and the values of wen (culture, literature, civility) in China, Korea, and Japan for more than a millennium. However, for such a ubiquitous object in East Asia, it is virtually unknown in the Western world.

Examining imperial workshops in the Forbidden City, the Duan quarries in Guangdong, the commercial workshops in Suzhou, and collectors’ homes in Fujian, The Social Life of Inkstones traces inkstones between court and society and shows how collaboration between craftsmen and scholars created a new social order in which the traditional hierarchy of “head over hand” no longer predominated. Dorothy Ko also highlights the craftswoman Gu Erniang, through whose work the artistry of inkstone-making achieved unprecedented refinement between the 1680s and 1730s

The Social Life of Inkstones explores the hidden history and cultural significance of the inkstone and puts the stonecutters and artisans on center stage.


I’m excited to learn more about inkstones!

We would be very happy to have anyone who would like to participate join us. The book is available on JSTOR so if you have academic access you may be able to get it that way.

Here’s the schedule:

Wednesday February 15: Introduction

Wednesday March 2: Chapter 1. The Palace Workshops: The Emperor and His Servants

Wednesday March 16: Chapter 2. Yellow Hill Villages: The Stonecutters

Wednesday March 30: Chapter 3. Suzhou: The Crafts(wo)man

Wednesday April 13: Chapter 4. Beyond Suzhou: Gu Erniang the Super-Brand

Wednesday April 27 Chapter 5. Fuzhou: The Collectors

Wednesday May 11: Epilogue: The Craft of Wen
forestofglory: a white barked multi-trunked tree (Photo taken on the highline in NYC) (Tree)
I’ve been thinking about race and the landscape, and how one can and can’t see race in my neighborhood. I live in the hills, in a neighborhood of big houses on big lots. If you stand between two houses can see the Golden Gate Bridge. In the way of expensive neighborhoods in the US not many Black people live here. Still when I take a walk there’s not much that I see that makes me think about race. The most notable things are the Black Lives Matter yard signs.

It seems quiet and calm. But of course this is a landscape that hides a lot of racial conflict.

You have to teach yourself to see the history of the neighborhood. Some things are easier to learn than others. You can learn to look at a building and guess when it was built. You can learn something similar with street plans, to see a grid of streets or cul-du-sacs and know when the town was planned. It’s trickier to put that together with the history of racial conflict and see who might have been excluded.

Here, maps can help. For most major US cities you can find a Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) map from the New Deal era. These “Red lining maps'' show where the government and banks would make loans, and where they wouldn’t. Looked at today, these maps show society’s systemic disinvestment in non-white neighborhoods. On the HOLC map my calm, green neighborhood was rated A1, the best possible rating, colored green on the map. Meanwhile my city's downtown was rated D, the worst rating, and colored red. You can’t see this as easily when you’re walking through my neighborhood, but it matters. It shapes the city.

What you can see on the ground is a history of investment in my neighborhood. We have nice sidewalks, well maintained streets, good street lights. This is the kind of investment nice white neighborhoods get.

You can also see race in the lack of police presence; there’s a combined police and fire station that I sometimes walk by, but unless I’m right in front of the station, I never see cops on my walks.

Going back further and further into the past, racism is still here. This land is the home of the Ohlone people. The Ohlone are still here, but the way they relate to the land and the land itself have changed. Before settlers came, there was vastly different landscape. It’s hard to see that landscape in the neighborhood I walk through. There is a glimpse -- in the shape of the hills. In the live oaks and redwoods that grow among all the introduced tree species. But not in the hard sidewalks and paved roads. Not in the clear property lines and title deeds. When I walk, I often stop to admire the oaks, but I don’t often think about the people who once depended on their acorns for food.

It's easy to walk around my neighborhood and forget racism that destroyed the Olhone's land and redlined this neighborhood for investment and others for decay all this history. But these days I’m trying to see, and to remember.
forestofglory: picture of califorina poppies (poppies)
Today I found a really cool graphic essay about restoration and wilderness its called Knowing Prairies.

As you might remember I've studied ecology and environmental history and am pretty interested in how people think about wilderness. I thought this comic was a great introduction to the topic. It is not long only about five pages so check it out if that interests you.
forestofglory: Cup of tea on a pile of books (books)
Does anyone know of a good history of enclosure in the UK? It comes up surprisingly often and I'd like some more details.

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forestofglory: E. H. Shepard drawing of Christopher Robin reading a book to Pooh (Default)
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