Art… Cultural Power Battle Threads 3 Jan 20123 Jan 2012 - The Telegraph reports in alarmist fashion about Hu Jintao warning, as the newspaper headline puts it, of "cultural warfare from the West" - A closer examination of the story…
Chinese Avant-Garde… Two New Essays on China Beat: Sino-German and Sino-Korean Relations 23 Dec 2011 I've got a few more changes in store for Sinologistical Violoncellist in the new year (most of them involving the bass clef and Japan, not necessarily in that order), but…
Art… Reevaluating Ai Weiwei: Guest Commentary 31 Aug 2011 This guest posting comes from the sizzling keyboard of Paul Manfredi, head of the Chinese Studies Program at Pacific Lutheran University and the author of China Avant Garde, one of…
Cultural Politics… Lux Sinica: China’s Civilizing Influence in North Korea 17 Jun 201117 Jun 2011 It takes more than a few days, or perhaps a few weeks, to sift through all the reports, speculation, and rumors surrounding Kim Jong Il’s “new deal” with China. At…
Art… Ai Weiwei and Sino-German Relations 25 May 201125 May 2011 For the last two months, a stack of German newspapers and internet print-outs about the case of Ai Weiwei seems to have accrued first in my bags in Berlin and…
Art… Huanqiu Shibao on Ai Weiwei 17 Apr 201118 Apr 2011 [Update: A rather comprehensive analysis of Huanqiu's Ai Weiwei coverage, as of April 8, can be found here via the scrupulous work of JustRecently.] Imagine my surprise, when, today, I…
Art… Analysing the Limits of Soft Power in the Case of Ai Weiwei: Der Tagesspiegel 15 Apr 201116 Apr 2011 As promised, I am working my way through some of the prolix torrent of analysis and concern levied upon the case of Ai Weiwei by authors in Germany, and by…
Art… Enlightenment, Cell, Studio: Beijing, Berlin, and Ai Weiwei 4 Apr 20114 Apr 2011 In its typically understated fashion of reasserting totalitarian facts, the Chinese government appears to have arrested the dissident provocateur Ai Weiwei in Beijing. (Hat tip to Evan Osnos in Beijing…
East Asian modernity… S.V. & Nietzsche: Now on Twitter 3 Dec 20093 Dec 2009 Please feel free to check out my Twitter page and pluck off all of my Tweets. (Is that "der, die, or das Tweet" in German?) Nietzsche never so much…
Chinese Avant-Garde… Ai Weiwei / Europe Press Roundup 29 Nov 200929 Nov 2009 While Anglophone readers should be glad to see Chinese artist/dissident Ai Weiwei getting extended treatment in the New York Times, the article adds virtually nothing to the spate of interviews…
Adam Cathcart 