When people ask why I continue to give talks about Ramseyer, this is why. Under the guise of defending "academic freedom" and "viewpoint diversity" (now dog whistles), people defending denialism, exploitation, and harassment are digging in their heels. thecrimson.com/article/2023/4… Does it surprise anyone that these are names attached to the membership of this Council on Academic Freedom?

11 job ads this week in East Asian Studies! See the details of this week's postings below in the thread or visit the filter database to search by category or keyword. 📊🌏 Now 813 entries. prcurtis.com/projects/jobta… China-related job ads

non-TT
🔸East Asian Studies: University of Southern California

postdoc
🔸Political Science: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

N/A
🔸Admin: University of Manchester

21 job ads this week in East Asian Studies! See the details of this week's postings below in the thread or visit the filter database to search by category or keyword. 📊🌏 Now 661 entries. prcurtis.com/projects/jobta… China-related job ads
TT
🔸Literature & Culture: Sogang University
🔸PoliSci: National Tsing Hua University

non-TT
🔸History: College of William & Mary
🔸Language: University of Cambridge

N/A
🔸Library Services: Library of Congress

Okay, so #Receptiogate is trending in multiple countries. If you missed the beginning of this (still unfolding) drama over plagiarized research, fake research institutes, and medieval manuscripts, here's a compilation to get you started with your bowl of popcorn. ⬇️🍿 There's so many subthreads and additions to various things from the Twitter community that I'll inevitably miss some stuff stuff (and some is slightly out of chronological order), but here it goes!

Premodern historian here. No. Slavery absolutely existed in Japan for centuries. There were various forms of unfreedom experienced by Japanese as well as Chinese, Koreans, and likely others in various time periods. Bondage that was linked to debt, that was hereditary, etc. 🧵

https://twitter.com/a_khnt/status/1600063572989837319

These forms of unfreedom are associated with a number of different terms, but some include nuhi 奴婢, or genin 下人. William Wayne Farris has pointed out that in the 8th and 9th centuries Japanese society comprised 5-10% slaves (nuhi) "whose families could be broken up by sale."

For those scratching your head at the latest Hot Take™ about academic presentations, some transparency 🧵: as an early career scholar I am typically offered somewhere between $100~$500 for a 1.5 hour talk + Q&A. Average maybe $300. 1 hour class lectures usually less, maybe $200. The most I've been offered for a single lecture session is $500, to my recollection (an Ivy). SLACs often (apologetically) can only offer somewhere between $150-250. Same with NPOs. Smaller schools & NPOs usually have fewer funds & could *never* offer something like $3.5k (lol).

In case you ever had doubts that the experiences of women on Twitter (and female scholars in general) are different from those of men, I present you with this email I received after someone spent a couple days persistently replying to my tweets with otherwise innocuous messages. I did give him the courtesy of a reply: "This is not an appropriate email to send anyone, particularly a female scholar. No one owes you their time or response via social media or any other medium. Please do not contact me further."

I WIN

https://twitter.com/paularcurtis/status/1539725356294348801

This blanket is indeed discontinued and was only sold to hotel vendors. They charged me 50 bucks. 😎

course 1 😳 Probably the last day of food porn, I swear. 😂

Have I reached the stage in my life where I might ask hotel staff about their throw blanket because I love it? 👀💦 I tried to find out from hotel staff how much their ultra nice throw blankets were even tho they weren't selling them and they didn't have a number but the manager came out and said she'd make an arrangement with me to send me one when their next shipment arrived. 🥲🥲🥲

So Ramseyer has released a "response to his critics." I'll leave it to others to dig into the CW arguments because frankly this absurdity has occupied enough of my time. But I'll point out statements specifically about me to clarify how subtle his misrepresentations can be. 🧵 Ramseyer criticizes Japanese Studies faculty in "western humanities" as not tolerant of challenges to the "orthodox narrative" of comfort women, and in a footnote calls this "censorship," raising Jason Morgan's attempt to repost his Japan Forward posts as evidence (p6, ft2).

Good morning, folks! It's 2022. Although I didn't start tracking my job data collection for East Asian Studies in earnest until April, I want to take the new year as an opportunity to briefly highlight this labor over the last 9 months or so. How much work vs. compensation? 🧵 I've been extremely fortunate that there are many generous folks who have become patrons on Patreon to support my job data & public-facing projects. Properly tracking this work means I can also show others how much invisible labor goes into digital labor. patreon.com/prcurtis

True to form, @sachihirayama shows us she does not actually value accuracy in her attacks against "foreign" scholars, she is simply trying to foment as much anger as possible, even if it means lying to her thousands of followers. This is why there is no meaning in debating them. Rather than accurately translate, she would rather see words related to discrimination in the content, ignore the actual meaning, & accuse the writer of being racist. Ethan posted a historical cartoon, EXPLAINING how it was racist, & they attacked him.

https://twitter.com/EthanMarkLeiden/status/1464133640913395713?s=20

Last night's #XmenTAS watch brings us plenty of killer gifs, starting with a supercut of Rogue kicking ass, because we deserve it. 👊💥 @xmentas everyone's faces when they hear X-Men '97 is gonna be a thing

30 (!) new job ads in East Asian Studies this week. 📊 Highlights below, filterable table at the link! ⬇️ Now 390 entries. 💼 prcurtis.com/projects/jobta… China-related job ads

TT
🔸Archaeology: Chinese U of Hong Kong
🔸Digital Studies: Leiden U
🔸Lit & Culture: Columbia U
🔸East Asian Studies: Cal State U Sacramento

non-TT
🔸Language: Columbia U; Colby College; U of Georgia

For those who are interested in what else you can read on the topic of historical denialism, comfort women history, and all the harassment visited upon digitally-engaged scholars since early 2021, here's a list of links, starting with yesterday's article: criticalasianstudies.org/commentary/202… The article I've just published with @CriticAsianStds grew out of a first draft for a shorter introduction for those first coming to these issues (a broader audience), which I was invited to publish with @TokyoReview: tokyoreview.net/2021/05/ramsey…

I made myself a regular schedule (work in the mornings at a coffee shop, then a trip to the gym, then errands) so I felt I could disconnect. I also organized regular happy hours with other overseas researchers because being outside our usual communities can be very isolating!

https://twitter.com/lshaholl/status/1447143037432385540

I also made regular study dates with friends--traveling around to find new coffeeshops, working together on tasks I knew were achievable, while also getting socializing/commiseration in.

"Won't you have an online debate?" "Debate me" culture is a tactic often seen in media punditry & extremist online communities. A Catch-22. If the target accepts the demand, they acknowledge the premise of the argument as valid. If they refuse, they are called cowardly or wrong.

https://twitter.com/dambaras/status/1447217398805827586

Oftentimes these demands for debate are made knowing that that target is aware it is a logical trap--it is a tactic not intended for actual debate to take place, because the challenger knows they won't accept. The goal is to try to make yourself look good and your enemy look bad.

Good morning! Coffee's hot. ☕ 22 new job ads in East Asian Studies this week. Check out the filterable job table to browse by keyword or category. This week's details are below! ⬇️ Now 248 entries.
prcurtis.com/projects/jobta… China ads this week:

🔸TT
Philosophy: Brock U; Cal State Northridge
postdoc
Any: Stanford; UC Berkeley

🔸N/A
Library: Princeton U
Admin: U Exeter

Hello to new followers who have joined in the last day or so! 👋 It's not usually this full of drama, though it has obviously has been recently. I usually post on premodern Japanese history, digital humanities, academic life, and cats with good faces. I try to keep it balanced. I believe it's important to maintain a positive though grounded perspective on academics & life more generally, and to foster a supportive community. I therefore make open access resources a lot, like my guide to Twitter for academics (and everyone else): prcurtis.com/docs/twittergu…

I hate to break it to a certain person who seems disturbed to see her photo on Twitter posts, but if you put a photo of yourself on a public social media, it will show up when people link to your--wait for it--public social media. Which is public. Where you put it. To be shared.

https://twitter.com/paularcurtis/status/1429499344726548481

It's just silly to try to generate manufactured outrage by pretending to be scared that your photo appears when your public profiles are linked to, claiming that the person is stalking you. You put them there.