The Anfu Ouyangs of the ninth and tenth centuries

An essay on fengshui

I’ve been working on job apps, so no time to post for a long time. Let’s get back into it with an approach to something ridiculous, but that I need to wrap my mind around for this project: fengshui.

Humanities [Research] in the 21st Century

An exploration in 3 paradoxes

There is a great deal of thinking going on about the state of the academy in the 21st century. As many of you — my core readership of 9 (by latest stats) — know well, I occasionally…

Tradition and turmoil in South China in the ninth and tenth centuries

The aristocratic houses of the Jin 晉(265–420 CE) through the Tang 唐 (618–906) Dynasties in China participated in an exclusive court culture where pedigree and cultural refinement were the primary means to claim…

A networked look at the gentry of Song Ji'an

Because so much work has already been done on the “gentry corridor” in Song-Yuan China, I have chosen not to return to the marriage networks of elites explored by Robert Hymes, the patterns of religious patronage and local identification explored by…