The Crying Students

Introduction

In this episode, we invited Pan, a PhD student in the EU, to discuss a series of soul-searching questions: What are the biggest institutional differences between the humanities and social sciences in Europe, the UK, the US, and China? What roles are played by universities, research institutes, national funding bodies, and the European Research Council (ERC)? Does the funding model affect questions the scholars ask? What do mobility, long-term postdocs, project-based employment, and the tenure system in European academia mean for young scholars? In the second half of the episode, we also discussed broader issues of transnational mobility for academics, research ethics, and ‘guanxi’. 

Host

William, English

Guest

Pan, Cognitive Neuroscience 

BGM

僕の戦争(My War) - guitar by まきまきチャンネル / Maki

Introduction

Kinship is to be created, and it can also be continuously generated and transformed through narratives and practices. It is a choice, but not the only social model that brings individuals together. Anthropological research has shown us that before the social form that currently occupies all of humanity's possibilities came to dominate the globe, other societies had alternative modes of child-rearing and interaction that served as substitutes for the family. How we imagine intimacy and the duties of care, and even the future of the family as a structure, requires much patience, curiosity, and imagination.

Host

William, English

Guest

Joey, Social Anthropology 

BGM

When Spring Feels Close – Abao

Hosts

Hannah, Communication Studies

Guests

Qingmeng, Journalism and Communication

Introduction

Since the turn of the new century, the life and death of journalism has come to be framed as a persistent expectation of decline. Its erosion appears to stem from multiple directions: loss of voice, transformation into a mouthpiece, declining quality, and growing public indifference. This pessimism seeps in from every corner, gradually squeezing what little space for survival remains.

Yet as observers who are not entirely outsiders, we continue to ask: why do we still care about journalism?

In this episode, we revisit our mythologized memories of journalism’s “golden age,” examine historical news archives, reflect on our academic training in journalism, and discuss our firsthand experiences of writing and reporting. We also synthesize our observations of contemporary adaptive efforts across independent, transitional, and pluralistic forms of journalistic practice.

Positioned between academia and the profession, we cannot declare the future of journalism. But we can at least choose to face the setting sun directly, leaving behind a subjective record for a community that continues to struggle upward against the odds.

自从踏入新世纪后新闻学的生、死、存、亡，变成了一种持续性的悲观预期。新闻 衰亡似乎是多方面的，因为失语，因为变为喉舌，因为失去质量，因为无人在意。这种悲观从各个角落渗入，这一切逐渐地挤占了为数不多的生存空间，也变成了可持续发展研究中冷静的指标与模型：监管收紧、媒体技术迭代、受众注意力瞬时性。

然而作为不算局外人的旁观者，我们仍然思考：我们为什么仍然在意新闻？在这期播客中，我们回望了自己关于新闻黄金时期的神话记忆、翻阅不同时期的新闻档案、反思所经历的新闻学训练，也谈论亲身参与写作与采访的具体体验。同时对于现今那些转型的、独立的、多样化的新闻界适应探索，我们也做出了一些观察的汇总。站在学术和行业的中间地带，我们无法宣告新闻学的未来，但至少选择直视夕阳的落下，为这个一直在努力向上反抗的社群，留下一份主观的存档。

Hosts

Hannah, Media Studies

Guests

Qingmeng, Journalism and Communication

Introduction

自从踏入新世纪后新闻学的生、死、存、亡，变成了一种持续性的悲观预期。新闻衰亡似乎是多方面的，因为失语，因为变为喉舌，因为失去质量，因为无人在意。这种悲观从各个角落渗入，这一切逐渐地挤占了为数不多的生存空间，也变成了可持续发展研究中冷静的指标与模型：监管收紧、媒体技术迭代、受众注意力瞬时性。

然而作为不算局外人的旁观者，我们仍然思考：我们为什么仍然在意新闻？在这期播客中，我们回望了自己关于新闻黄金时期的神话记忆、翻阅不同时期的新闻档案、反思所经历的新闻学训练，也谈论亲身参与写作与采访的具体体验。同时对于现今那些转型的、独立的、多样化的新闻界适应探索，我们也做出了一些观察的汇总。站在学术和行业的中间地带，我们无法宣告新闻学的未来，但至少选择直视夕阳的落下，为这个一直在努力向上反抗的社群，留下一份主观的存档。

Since the turn of the new century, the life and death of journalism has come to be framed as a persistent expectation of decline. Its erosion appears to stem from multiple directions: loss of voice, transformation into a mouthpiece, declining quality, and growing public indifference. This pessimism seeps in from every corner, gradually squeezing what little space for survival remains.

Yet as observers who are not entirely outsiders, we continue to ask: why do we still care about journalism?

In this episode, we revisit our mythologized memories of journalism’s “golden age,” examine historical news archives, reflect on our academic training in journalism, and discuss our firsthand experiences of writing and reporting. We also synthesize our observations of contemporary adaptive efforts across independent, transitional, and pluralistic forms of journalistic practice.

Positioned between academia and the profession, we cannot declare the future of journalism. But we can at least choose to face the setting sun directly, leaving behind a subjective record for a community that continues to struggle upward against the odds.

Introduction

数年前曾有一位英文系毕业生向我指出School of English中school一词的双关：英文系的学术训练具有如此强大的解释力，以至于它似乎能借助帝国的力量穿透民族主义，形成一个School（学派）。在我和Fan即将从英文系毕业之际，我们回顾了我们的英文系之旅，并盘点了在英文系可以做的学术与学术之外的各种事情。

为了避免不必要的争议，William在节目中保留了他一贯的观点“英文系学士学位是人类可以获得的最好的学士学位”。

A few years ago, an English graduate once pointed out to me the double meaning of the word school in School of English: the academic training in the School of English is so powerful in its interpretive capacity that it seems capable of penetrating nationalism through the force of empire(s), thereby forming a School (in the sense of a scholarly school of thought). As Fan and I are about to graduate from the School of English, we look back on our journey through the program and take stock of the various things—both academic and beyond—that one can do in a School of English.

Host

William, School of English

Guest

Fan, School of English

BGM

Bloody Mary Girl - She Her Her Hers

Introduction

自20世纪以来，大学应如何定位其与社会及个体的关系这一问题始终位于公共讨论的核心。作为身处教育机构之中的主体，学生对大学教育的运行逻辑与制度性环境拥有最直接的感知，但也常常承担着失权的处境。在这期播客中，我们通过回望我们在不同地域的高等教育经历，在吐槽和回顾之余，试图进一步拨开那些功利主义、优绩主义和象牙塔的粉红色泡泡，以直面幻像之下那些暗流涌动的日常化的压迫与隐形的权力剥削。

Since the 20th century, the question of how universities should position themselves in relation to society and individuals has remained central to public discourse. As key stakeholders within these institutions, students have the most direct understanding of the logic and norms of higher education, yet they frequently experience disempowerment. In this episode, we reflect on our experiences across different higher educational settings across countries. Beyond venting and nostalgia, we aim to confront the undercurrents of normalised oppression and invisible power dynamics that flow beneath the illusions of utilitarianism and meritocracy.

Hosts

William, School of English

Hannah, Communication Studies

Guests

Fan, School of English

Joey, Communication Studies

Qingmeng, Journalism and Communication

BGM

Edward Sharpe And The Magnetic Zeroes: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

Hosts

Hannah, Communication Studies

William, School of English

Introduction

死亡是每一个人终将面对、无可避免的人生课题。但是在死亡降临之后，往往是生者而非死者本身成了事件的核心。泉台青磷黯，人间笑语如常。如何应对亲人的离世，这种哀思如何被演变为一种仪式，仪式下魂灵又如何自处？在不同人的经历中我们或许可以管窥一些属于生者的空域：祖先崇拜的代际划分，亡者与生者的时空界限，不同信仰下的仪式差异、记忆的建构与维系，以及在记忆的有限时间尺度内人与自然的动态互动。

Death is an inevitable reality that every individual must eventually confront. Yet when it arrives, it is often the living, not the deceased, who become the focal point of the event. The grave’s embers glow dim, but the world’s laughter and chatter carry on unchanged. How do we grapple with the loss of a loved one? How is grief transformed into ritual? And within these rituals, where does the soul reside? Through diverse human experiences, we may glimpse fragments of the living’s existential realm: the generational layers of ancestor worship, the spatiotemporal boundary between the dead and the living, variations in rites across beliefs, the construction and preservation of memory, and within memory’s finite horizon, the dynamic interplay between humanity and nature.

Hannah’s References in APA

Batairwa Kubuya, P. (2018). Meaning and Controversy within Chinese Ancestor Religion. Springer International Publishing : Imprint : Palgrave Macmillan.

Hamilton, G. G. (1990). Patriarchy, Patrimonialism, and Filial Piety: A Comparison of China and Western Europe. The British Journal of Sociology, 41(1), 77. https://doi.org/10.2307/591019

Harrell, S. (1979). The Concept of Soul in Chinese Folk Religion. The Journal of Asian Studies, 38(3), 519–528. https://doi.org/10.2307/2053785

He, B. (1995). 江浙汉族丧葬文化(Funeral Customs of the Han Chinese in Jiangsu and Zhejiang). China Minzu University Press.

Hu, A. (2016). Ancestor Worship in Contemporary China: An Empirical Investigation. China Review-an Interdisciplinary Journal on Greater China, 16(1), 169–186.

Soothill, W. E. (1907). A Mission in China. Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier.

Zhang, C., Lu, Y., & Sheng, H. (2021). Exploring Chinese folk religion: Popularity, diffuseness, and diversities. Chinese Journal of Sociology, 7(4), 575–592. https://doi.org/10.1177/2057150x211042687

William’s References in MHRA

Bynum, Caroline Walker, The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200-1336, 2nd edn (Columbia University Press, 2017)

Chen, Jack W., ‘On Mourning and Sincerity in the Li Ji and the Shishuo xinyu’, in Memory in Medieval China: Text, Ritual, and Community, ed. by Wendy Swartz and Robert F. Company (Brill, 2018), pp. 63–81

Heiniger, Anna Katharina, ‘On the Threshold: The Liminality of Doorways’, in Paranormal Encounters in Medieval Iceland, ed. by Ármann Jakobsson and Miriam Mayburd (De Gruyter, 2020), pp. 109–127

Puett, Michael, ‘Ritual and Ritual Obligations’, Journal of Value Inquiry, 49 (2015), 543–550

Seligman, Adam B., Robert P. Weller, Michael Puett, and Bennett Simon, Ritual and Its Consequences (Oxford University Press, 2008)

‘The Saga of the People of Eyri’, in Gisli Sursson’s Saga and the Saga of the People of Eyri, ed. and trans. by Vésteinn Ólason (Penguin, 2003), pp. 71–199

Hosts

William, School of English

Hannah, Communication Studies

Guest

Joey, Communication Studies

KEYWORDS

女性与多元群体艺术空间，国内外queer空间观察，读书会

INTRO

传统的和改良型的马克思主义观点都认为，1871年的巴黎公社是1848年法兰西内战以来阶级斗争的继续（如Castells 1983; Harvey 1985）。但是顾尔德认为，工人阶级意识的确在1848年法兰西内战的动员中起有很大作用，但是到了1871年时，巴黎群众的动员基础已不是阶级意识，而是社区意识。他把此现象归因于巴黎在1852-1870年进⾏的大规模城市改造活动（该城市改造计划由郝思曼（Haussmann）主持，因此又通常被称为郝思曼计划）。郝思曼的城市改造计划有很多目的，其中之一就是因为老巴黎贫民窟多，街道细⼩弯曲，这种地形给法国军队在镇压经常发⽣的城市暴动时带来了不便。在研究中顾尔德发觉，郝思曼计划导致大量的市民移居，打乱了原有的城市住宅布局，促进了巴黎市民认同感的变化。这就是为什么在法兰西内战时，动员巴黎市民起来⽃争的基础是阶级意识，⽽到巴黎公社时，动员巴黎市民起来参加斗争的基础成了新的社区意识。这里，顾尔德的研究涉及以前社会运动专家不曾深入涉及的一个问题：人群的空间分布、居住及其活动形式，以及⼈对某一空间赋予的意义，在社会网络形成和社会运动动员中的作用。

空间的赋予性意义和社会行动的关系本身......是⼀个十分重要的课题。

——赵鼎新 《社会与政治运动讲义》，社会科学与文献出版社，2012

BGM

Forbbiden Color - David Sylvian and Ryuichi Sakamoto, 1983, recomposed by Rin

忘记他是她 - Tat Ming Pair

Hosts

William, School of English

Hannah, Communication Studies

...Systematic inequalities that are ultimately backed up by the threat of force can be seen as a form of violence in themselves. Systems of structural violence invariably seem to produce extreme lopsided structures of imaginative identification.

- David Graeber, 2007, Revolution in Reverse (or, on the conflict between political ontologies of violence and political ontologies of the imagination)

For China is so unaccustomed to popular government and has so long been subject to personal rule that it would be useless to expect that the country could at one bound successfully advance to the stage of representative and popular government […] A serious attempt should be made, however, at once to offer to the classes of the people which are conscious of common interests and have intelligent aspirations the opportunity to participate more widely and influentially in the government of the country than they have up to the present time enjoyed. Otherwise the country will continue to be under the blight of absolutism and, so long as it does not have the security which comes from the determination of the question of succession by inheritance in a particular family, will possess probably the worst form of government which has yet been devised-namely a military dictatorship.

- Frank Goodnow, 1915, Reform in China

In the spring of 2024, as I walked through the students and staff rallying and protesting for the liberation of Palestine in the plaza in the middle of campus, my friends and I were also paying a huge cost in time and energy for an activism. About a month later, this activism of ours against sexism ended in silence and threats of symbolic violence, and did not reach the demands we wanted, even an apology. All the while, as the Israeli-Palestinian war escalated, student protests around the world were repressed, with university management attempting to deploy armed police on campus and even taking students to court. In this episode, William and Hannah look back at the silence and symbolic violence we experienced in the movements of spring 2024. These issues are not new, but are universal dilemmas that we have been always facing. They make us reflect on what the power of language really means, how symbolic violence is produced and circumscribes our everyday lives, and why, no matter how strategically language is chosen, the power of language is distorted and powerless in the face of institutional power underpinned by violence.

Materials Mentioned

William's

Debord, G., & Jenkins, Martin. (2012). Society of the spectacle. 2nd ed. Eastbourne: Soul Bay Press.

Graeber, D. (2011). Revolution in reverse. London: Minor Compositions.

Ito, S. (2021). Black box: The memoir that sparked Japan’s# Metoo movement. New York: Feminist Press at CUNY.

Solnit, R. (2014). Men explain things to me. Chicago: Haymarket Books.

Williams, R. (1977). Marxism and literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hannah's

Frank, T. (1997). A Cultural Perpetual Motion Machine: Management Theory and Consumer Revolution in the 1960s. In: The Conquest of Cool Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism. University Of Chicago Press, pp.1–33.

Goodnow, F.J. (1915). Reform in China. American Political Science Review, 9(2), pp.209–224. doi:https://doi.org/10.2307/1944611.

Kabakov, I. (2018). Art Has No Unloved Children. In: On Art. Chicago ; London: The University Of Chicago Press, pp.218–225.

Kang, J. (2017). Contemporary Korean Political Thought and Park Chung-hee. Rowman & Littlefield.

Li, H. (1973). 學鈍室回憶錄 (Xuedunsi huiyi lu; Memoirs of the Xuedun Study). Zhuanji Wenxue (Biographical Literature).

Roszak, T. (1995). The Making of a Counter Culture : Reflections on the Technocratics Society and Its Youthful Opposition : [with a New introduction]. Berkeley: University of California Press.

BGM

風は吹いている-AKB48

Host

William, School of English

Guest

Joey, Communication Studies

在顺性别异性恋社会规范下，时间的感知与再生产冲动密切相关——及时进入一对一的浪漫关系、及时步入婚姻、及时生育。然而这种线性时间（chrononormativity）和与其相关的里程碑往往和酷儿们的生命体验相悖。当机构并不认可酷儿们的身份认同或亲密关系模式时，当他们得不到家庭保障和领养权时，他们当然也就无法与线性时间靠近；当酷儿们走进自己的社群，或在舞池中被环绕，看见有关自己的真实正在不停生长和绽放，他们也便选择主动离开线性时间；而当艾滋污名和恐慌的阴霾笼罩在自己朋友爱人的头顶时，又如何能够焦虑明天呢？当下性（nowness）对酷儿们因此更加珍贵。

游戏总能用特殊的方式阐释时间，或者说，游戏本身就是一种或多种替代性时间。暂停、重置、时限、回溯、平行时空……在一次文本游戏的制作过程中，我发现，游戏对时间的应用也有着多样化地表现酷儿生命体验的潜力。在那里，“失败”是我们必然的经历，明知必然会失败仍不断尝试是我们对世界和爱的无尽探索。在那里，世界末日即将来临，我们仍在漫无目的地游荡。——Joey

Materials Mentioned

Game:

Queers in Love at the End of the World (2013) by Anna Anthropy

Life is strange (奇异人生, 2015)

Film:

I Saw the TV Glow (2024) by Jane Schoenbrun

Literature:

Anthropy, A. (2012). Rise of the videogame zinesters : how freaks, normals, amateurs, artists, dreamers, dropouts, queers, housewives, and people like you are taking back an art form (1st ed.). New York: Seven Stories Press.

Chang, E. Y. (2017). Queergaming. In Ruberg, B. and Shaw, A. (Eds.), Queer Game Studies. pp. 15–24. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.

Freeman, E. (2010). Time Binds: Queer Temporalities, Queer Histories. Duke University Press.

Halberstam, J. (2005). In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives. NYU Press.

Hanson, C. (2018). Game Time: Understanding Temporality in Video Games. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press.

Irvine, R.D., McPhee, J., Morgan, B., Tate, A., Davis, R., Enns, A., Evans, J., Hazelhurst, E.T., Joy, B.T., Keck, S. and Mercier, S. (2024). Digressions in Deep Time: Ecocritical Approaches to Literature and the Arts. Rowman & Littlefield.

Knutson, M. (2018). Backtrack, pause, rewind, reset: Queering chrononormativity in gaming. Game Studies, 18(3), 1-15.

Nitsche, M. (2007) Mapping Time in Video Games. Proceedings of DiGRA2007: Situated Play. Tokyo: U of Tokyo, pp. 145-151.

Ruberg, B. (2017). Permalife: Video games and the queerness of living. Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds, 9(2), 159–173. https://doi.org/10.1386/jgvw.9.2.159_1