Roland Boer's Blog, page 67

The implicit imperialism of the ‘critical religion’ approach?

The new issue of Critical Research on Religionis generating a good deal of debate, or at least the editorial is on the journal’s facebook page. The editorial is called ‘How Can Mainstream Approaches Become More Critical’ and was written by Warren Goldstein, Jonathan Boyarin, Rebekka King and me. We deal with studies in religion, theology, biblical criticism and sociology of religion. Here we develop a little further a key feature of the journal, which is that critical means not only careful ‘...

Reading a children’s story in the Gogol bookshop in Harbin, China

I have always been fascinated by Harbin, the capital of China’s most north-easterly province, Heilongjiang (Black Dragon River). Built as part of the first Trans-Siberian railway, it formed a major hub on the strip of land the Russians were allowed to use through northern China. The reason was that it cut a straight path to Vladivostok, without the big loop north. So the city has Russian names in its core, quite a bit of Cyrillic and not a few Russian Orthodox churches. Not many Russi...

What was the Soviet Union?

Or what is China for that matter? It is becoming clearer in some of the more astute research that the Soviet Union was not a federation, not an empire, not a colonising power, not a nation-state, but an entirely new state formation.

A federation assumes disparate groups that then slowly merge together to form a state, like the United States or Switzerland. The catch with the situation in the Soviet Union was that such disparate groups did not exist, except for a brief time after the ‘civil...

Old fogey nap: the next stage

Earlier, I commented on a glorious pleasure of age: the afternoon nap with snoring. I have them now on an almost daily basis. But I have always envied the ability of an old professor to nod off during a lecture given by someone else. He or she may give an introduction, especially if it is a visitor, and then promptly fall asleep, with snores, for the full stretch of the lecture. At it’s close, he or she is then able to ask a question and end with words of thanks. So that is my next aim: the l...

Improvements in Beijing’s air quality

I usually don’t mention news stories, but this one intrigued me. It is tucked away in a small corner of the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission) webpage and is entitled: ‘China pollution: Beijing’s improved air quality a result of good policy, city officials say’. The article mentions the notable improvement in air quality over the last few years, especially in the last year. I have noticed this myself and mentioned it here on a number of occasions. When I first began coming to Beijing so...

Girl or boy? What do Chinese couples prefer?

What gender do Chinese couples prefer for a first child? I must admit that until now I had assumed the conventional wisdom of the international media: traditional Chinese couples, especially in rural areas, prefer a boy first. Indeed, such an image suggests they will go to the extent of seeking illegal abortion if they know that the embryo will be a girl. Or, if they do have a girl first, they can have another baby in the hope that it will be a boy. The reason: the family’s name, tradition an...

Soviet Affirmative Action: The Harvard Interview Project of 1950-51

I have commented a number of times on one of the deep paradoxes of Stalin’s era in the Soviet Union: he was in many respects the architect of the world’s first and – until now – most ambitious and far-reaching affirmative action program. I have now read carefully Terry Martin’sThe Affirmative Action Empire.This is a 500 page book, peerless in its use of archival material and chock full of insights. It has its shortcomings, especially in the theoretical area, thereby missing some of the comple...

The pleasures of age: an afternoon nap with snoring

For many a year I have been looking forward to this time of life: when an afternoon nap becomes irresistible. (One of the many pleasures of age, which I have been noting from time to time.) I mean not the occasional nod at a meeting, or the brief kip on a train. This is the real thing: lean back on a reclining chair, or perhaps on an old day-bed in the sun-room, close your eyes, and soon enough you are off. The trick is to snore, for without snoring it is not an old-fogey nap. Since I am not...

Joint PhD scholarships available at the University of Newcastle

The University of Newcastle is offering the following PhD scholarships to high calibre international applicants. This is – as usual – extremely competitive. A few details:

A high quality, internationalUniversity partner Agreement of the supervisors and student to undertake a jointly supervised PhD with at least one supervisor from each University Availability of a high quality (top) student preferably from the partner institution Student tospend (face-to-face) time at both institutions durin...

Hymns of praise to Stalin?

In 1947, Stalin’s found himself assessing a thesis on Carl von Clausewitz, the German theoretician of war. Not a bad example of how might assess a doctoral thesis:

The thesis contains too much philosophy and abstract statements. The terminology taken from Clausewitz, talking of the grammar and logic of war hurts ones ears. The question of the factional character of war theory is primitively posed. The hymns of praise to Stalin also pain the ears, it hurts to read them (Works, vol 16, p. 73).

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