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Bryan Lowe

@bryandaniellowe.bsky.social
1.8K followers 886 following 557 posts

Assoc. Prof. of Religion @Princeton. Historian of Japanese religions (esp. 7th-9th c.) & Buddhism. Author of Ritualized Writing (UH Press, 2017). Unapologetic Boston sports fan.

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Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
My book, How Buddhism Spread in Japan, 650–850, is now available for purchase. You can get 30% off with the code JAPAN30 through November 15, 2026. uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/how-bu...
uhpress.hawaii.edu
How Buddhism Spread in Japan, 650–850
Between the late seventh and early ninth centuries, Japan changed from a land largely without Buddhism to a country where Buddhist ideas, images, and practices were everywhere. The introduction of …
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Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Tonight! You can still sign up.
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Dr. Paula R. Curtis @paularcurtis.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Absolutely must find a reason to get to Princeton before January 3!! 😍 So so excited about this upcoming exhibit curated by the incredible @ippikiookami.bsky.social on contemporary visions of Tale of the Heike. This art is like nothing you've ever seen. artmuseum.princeton.edu/exhibitions-...
A print by Takeda Hideo titled "The Final Illness of Taira Kiyomori." It depicts Taira no Kiyomori as a naked white hairless figure sitting cross-legged and leaning on his courtier's baton. Illness, or perhaps madness, is depicted as an androgynous red demon with large breasts covered in tattoos of demons having sex. The demon sits on Kiyomori's back, its toes and dingers digging into his shoulders and skull. The background is a swirling gray, black, and orange design with figures fighting and fucking.
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Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Check out the StoryMap I made about Kenneth Ch'en, one of the founding figures of Buddhist Studies in North America, who also led a fascinating life: arcg.is/1uaGG51
arcg.is
Kenneth Ch'en (1907–1993)
A Life of the Move
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Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Writing a book on East Asian Buddhism and need more support to finish it? Please consider applying for the Kuroda Institute Manuscript Completion Grant, which offers funding up to $5,000 to help scholars ready book manuscripts for publication. Details in the link: uhpress.hawaii.edu/bookseries/k...
uhpress.hawaii.edu
Kuroda Studies in East Asian Buddhism – UH Press
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Kuroda Institute for the Study of Buddhism is an independent, nonprofit organization that seeks to promote scholarship on Buddhism and its various historical,…
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Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · 16/03/2026
My review of Josh Frydman's great book on excavated poetry just came out in Monumenta Nipponica. I'm most proud of my rhyme scheme pairing "inscribed ostraca" with "bondage erotica" and "from Pompeii" with "Fifty Shades of Grey" (real examples from the book). muse.jhu.edu/article/984606
Screenshot on passage that reads: As scholars delve into these comparative methods, however, they will be con-
fronted with several methodological and theoretical questions that Frydman’s book
helpfully raises, sometimes implicitly. What makes an appropriate comparison?
What types of comparisons are useful? Should we compare Japanese materials with
premodern inscribed ostraca from Pompeii or twenty-first-century bondage erotica
like Fifty Shades of Grey? On what grounds can we even decide? As scholarship on
early Japan moves forward and learns to speak to larger issues in the humanities—a
project we must engage in if we want the field to survive—we will need to learn
to better answer these types of questions about comparative theory and method.
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Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
I interviewed Marta Sanvido about her new chapter on kōan in Japanese Zen. Check it out! (And sorry for the poor video quality on my end!) youtu.be/F_oCmhuLdCo?...
youtu.be
From Secrecy to Openness: The Gateless Barrier in Premodern Japanese Zen
YouTube video by Chinese Buddhist Studies
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Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
One of two conferences I'm organizing this semester. This one is on Kenneth Ch'en and other Asian and Asian-American scholars who helped create Buddhist Studies in North America: chen.religion.princeton.edu
chen.religion.princeton.edu
Rethinking the Origins of Buddhist Studies in North America
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Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
Check out this interview by Kit Brooks with Akiko Walley and me on the nature of replicas and the Shōsōin. journals.publishing.umich.edu/ars/article/...
journals.publishing.umich.edu
What is a Replica: Reflections from <em>Shōsōin THE SHOW: </em>Bryan Lowe and Akiko Walley in Conversation with Kit Brooks
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Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
In a weird coincidence, I'll be lecturing on the Unification Church and the Abe assassination in my undergrad class within 12 hours of this ruling, since that was already our scheduled topic for the day! english.kyodonews.net/articles/-/7...
english.kyodonews.net
Japan high court upholds dissolution order for Unification Church
A Japanese high court on Wednesday upheld a dissolution order for the Unification Church as requested by the central government on the grounds that it unlawfully solicited financially ruinous donation...
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Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · 16/01/2026
Princeton is hiring a one-year lecturer position in Asian Religions. Please spread the word: apply.interfolio.com/180148
apply.interfolio.com
Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
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Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · 13/01/2026
In the 1930s, you could teach Japanese literature and reasonably expect the students to know French or German but not Japanese. nrs.lib.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ar...
History of Japanese Literature From the beginning to modern times; particular attention paid to Chinese, Buddhist, and Western Influences. Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 12. Professor EvisséEFr. (v) A knowledge of Japanese is not required. A reading knowledge of French or German is required. Not open to Freshmen.
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Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · 23/12/2025
Also check out Michelle Wang's "Global Medieval Studies is a Failure," which is absolute 🔥 and also argues that comparative studies might be a better path forward than "global" ones. doi.org/10.1086/738440
doi.org
Global Medieval Studies Is a Failure | Speculum: Vol 101, No 1
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Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · 23/12/2025
A new short piece of mine just came out in the centennial issue of Speculum that (briefly) tries out comparative, rather than global, history on medieval archives from the Shōsōin, Dunhuang, and the Cairo Geniza. www.journals.uchicago.edu/eprint/JRDRZ...
journals.uchicago.edu
University of Chicago Press Journals: Cookie absent
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Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
Pleased with the hook in my new article, reviewing books on esoteric Buddhism. nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/journal/6/is...
Text reads A high school friend of mine was once arrested for graffiti. The officer,
who caught my friend, asked what he had written. My friend replied,
“esoteric.” The officer, confused by this unexpected response, followed
up, “What’s that mean?”
The story, which reads like a Zen encounter dialogue, is true but has a
punchline. If esoteric means “Designed for, or appropriate to, an inner circle of
advanced or privileged disciples; communicated to, or intelligible by, the initiated
exclusively,” as the Oxford English Dictionary would have it, how could my friend
reveal the term’s meaning to the cop? He was stuck and ended up in handcuffs.
The police officer’s simple question and my friend’s paralysis are surely famil-
iar to scholars of Buddhism.
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Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · 15/11/2025
Want this on my tombstone.
Email reading “Dear Bryan,

Thanks so much for doing this. You are unquestionably the most fastidious author I’ve copy edited. I’m humbled that you noticed the stray quotation mark.”
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Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · 08/10/2025
My new book is coming out in August 2026. uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/how-bu...
uhpress.hawaii.edu
How Buddhism Spread in Japan, 650-850
Between the late seventh and early ninth centuries, Japan changed from a land largely without Buddhism to a country where Buddhist ideas, images, and practices were everywhere. The introduction of …
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Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · 10/09/2025
Hardly on here anymore, but if anyone is near Princeton and interested in book history, you MUST check out the absolutely amazing new exhibition Forms & Function: The Splendors of Global Book Making curated by Martin Heijdra at Firestone Library through 12/7 📖📜 library.princeton.edu/formsandfunc...
library.princeton.edu
Forms & Function: The Splendors of Global Book Making
Highlighting the diversity of global book making traditions using examples from the Princeton University Library, this exhibition focuses on the continuous transmission and exchange of formal aspects ...
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Jacqueline Hidalgo @jaxhidalgo.bsky.social · 10/08/2025
Help me find a wonderful new colleague for our department! Specialty in religions of South Asia or Southeast Asia. #religiousStudies #tenuretrackjobs jobs.sandiego.edu/cw/en-us/job...
jobs.sandiego.edu
Details - Assistant Professor of Religious Studies with Specialization in Hindu Studies
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Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · 05/08/2025
🏹🏹🏹 Slightly late #ManuscriptMonday. Illustrated Tales of Heike, 17th century, Princeton University Library. dpul.princeton.edu/eastasian/ca...
Close up of archer in samurai armor, white face, black horse.Full seen of archer on horse in water facing boats with other soldiers beneath him.
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Morgan Pitelka @mpitelka.bsky.social · 04/08/2025
New issue of the Journal of Japanese Studies is out! Highlights include articles on kanpu masatsu, war photography, empire paranoia, Italian-Japanese children's lit, Seidensticker’s style, and a bonus piece on Black Rain and ritual. Don’t miss it!
online.ucpress.edu
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Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 02/08/2025
The tragedy - and true horror - of many witch trials was that the impersonal machinery of the law took them inexorably forward, even if judges and lawyers (and even the public at large) were unconvinced. But the image popular media presents us with is one of mounting hysteria (cf. Miller’s Crucible)
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Natasha Heller @nlheller.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
A simple idea: faculty should be represented in the search for UVa’s next president: www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2025...
cavalierdaily.com
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Dr. Kaitlyn Ugoretz @kaitlynugoretz.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
The Japanese Journal of Religious Studies @jjrs-nirc.bsky.social ✨50th anniv issue✨ abt past, present, & future of 🇯🇵 religious studies is out! 🙏Paul Swanson, Hayashi Makoto, Kawahashi Noriko, Keller Kimbrough, Emi Foulk Bushelle, @orionklautau.bsky.social @jolyonbt.bsky.social @aikerots.bsky.social
nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp
NIRC
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Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
Our Department is hiring in early Christianity. It's an assistant professor (tenure-track position). Spread the word! puwebp.princeton.edu/AcadHire/app...
puwebp.princeton.edu
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Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
Fascinating to see Usa today market itself as the birthplace of Shinto-Buddhist syncretism, a very different view from that in Grapard, who describes an obliteration of syncretism in the wake of Meiji ideologues and their reforms.
Flyer from temple emphasizing syncretism Kindle book image describing obliteration of Buddhism at Usa Kindle book image describing obliteration of Buddhism at Usa
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Princeton Geniza Lab @genizalab.bsky.social · 28/07/2025
For the first time since the Princeton Geniza Project began in 1986, we have published our metadata collated from over 30,000 Geniza documents and the People, Places, and histories of the Middle East and premodern Jewish communities found therein! zenodo.org/records/1583...
zenodo.org
Princeton Geniza Project Dataset
Since 1986, the Princeton Geniza Lab has been studying and digitizing historical documents from the Cairo Geniza, a cache of roughly 400,000 fragments of paper and parchment preserved in a medieval Eg...
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Ennius @enniusredloeb.bsky.social · 21/07/2025
Is there a collective noun for popes? 😉 #ManuscriptMonday BL Cotton MS Nero D VII; The Benefactors' Book of St Albans Abbey (‘the Golden Book of St Albans’); 1380-c 1540; England (St Albans)
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Antiquity Journal @antiquity.ac.uk · 21/07/2025
A 13th-century-AD depiction of the 'pagan' Irish kingship ceremony, by priest and historian Gerald of Wales. He claimed the king bathed in the blood of a mare before sharing the meat with his courtiers 1/2 #ManuscriptMonday #MedievalMonday #Archaeology 🏺 📷 @britishlibrary.bsky.social / CC0 1.0
A manuscript page with Latin writing at the top and an illustration of a bearded person killing a horse with an axe, a pot suspended over a fire, and five bearded people eating strips of meat underneath. From Topographia Hibernica by Giraldus Cambrensis (British Library Royal MS 13 B. VIII f. 28v; reproduced under Creative Commons licence CC0 1.0).
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Save Redland Library @saveredlandlibr.bsky.social · 21/07/2025
Shared for #ManuscriptMonday
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Save Redland Library @saveredlandlibr.bsky.social · 21/07/2025
Shared for #ManuscriptMonday
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Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · 28/07/2025
This week's #ManuscriptMonday is this cool miniature replica of the illustrated hell scrolls that I bought at the Kyoto National Museum last week (next to an air conditioner remote for scale). You can get your own copy here for less than 6,000 yen! www.kyotobenrido.com/view/item/00...
Picture of Japanese text with women in hell illustrated on either side.Box of hell scroll next to a/c remote
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Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · 25/07/2025
New journal issue edited by Sujung Kim focusing on Buddhist talismans: ijbtc.dongguk.edu
ijbtc.dongguk.edu
International Journal of Buddhist Thought & Culture
동국대학교 불교학술원 발행, 불교학 영문 학술지, 역사/문화/사상 등 연구 자료 수록,the International Journal of Buddhist Thought & Culture, IJBTC
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Lauren Donovan Ginsberg @laurenginsberg.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
So, if humanities produce good job outcomes, humanities have a secure ROI that bring in more than they cost, and STEM now has an even lower ROI due to grant cuts…. shouldn’t we invest more in humanities where less $$ goes a longer way? Apparently not. We should ask why not. /9
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Pieter Beullens @pieterbeullens.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
Western Medieval Manuscripts (and fragments) @keiouniversity.bsky.social (Japan)! Enjoy a few spare minutes and browse this remarkable collection! Something for everyone's taste and interest! dcollections.lib.keio.ac.jp/en/western-m...
Thumbnails of manuscripts images of the Keio university collection of Medieval Western Manuscripts! Including fragments of Aristotelica and Dutch books of hours.
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Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
Sometimes, when things get tough, you just need a Buddhist statue to come to life and give you a piggyback ride. Shakadō Engi, 16th c. Currently on display at the Kyoto National Museum and well worth it! www.kyohaku.go.jp/jp/exhibitio...
Buddhist statue carrying a monkExhibition poster
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Candida Moss @candidamoss.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
Excited to announce that after a lot of editorial work our volume "Writing, Enslavement, and Power in the Roman Mediterranean, 100 BCE - 300 CE" is out now. @jeremiahcoogan.bsky.social @illdottore.bsky.social academic.oup.com/book/60683
Book cover. The background in sepia tones Showa man dictating to scribes. A cream box in the center has light brown writing that contains the title (Writing, Enslavement, and Power in the Roman Mediterranean) and the words "Edited by Jeremiah Coogan, Candid R. Moss, and Jospeh A. Howley.
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Russell T. McCutcheon @mccutcheonsays.bsky.social · 22/07/2025
chicagomaroon.com/48215/news/u...
chicagomaroon.com
UChicago Arts & Humanities Division to Restructure Amid “Historic Funding Pressures”
“The status quo is not an option,” Deborah Nelson, dean of the Division of the Arts & Humanities, wrote to division faculty on June 18.
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Dr. Nick Posegay @nposegay.northsky.social · 22/07/2025
Good news if you like history, manuscripts, or nice books! 'The Illustrated Cairo Genizah' is now available at *greatly* reduced shipping costs via @theul.bsky.social (UK) and Amazon (worldwide) from this link: linktr.ee/nposegay. There's also a free sample file there with the entire first chapter.
5 copies of 'The Illustrated Cairo Genizah', by Nick Posegay and Melonie Schmierer-Lee, stacked on a light brown tabletop. The books' spines are facing the camera. The book is large and the covers are dark red, with the title and authors' names in white. The cover also has a grid of 21 square images each cut out from a different medieval manuscript.
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BOO! k HistoriAAAH 🎃 @book-historia.bsky.social · 22/07/2025
I feel like I haven’t posted enough Book Stuff on here lately, so here’s another amazing thing from the Château de Chantilly: a book of hours manuscript with a trompe l'oeil border of sewn-on metal pilgrim badges next to a book with ACTUAL sewn-on metal pilgrim badges 🤩
An open manuscript, with miniature and text surrounded by a green border with multiple silver and gold illustrations of pilgrim badgesDetail of border; there is also a pearlPastedown of a different manuscript with metal pilgrim badges sewn into the book
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Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · 21/07/2025
For Marine Day in Japan, a #ManuscriptMonday of the 13th-century Illustrated Biographies of the Kegon School's Patriarchs 華厳宗祖師絵伝, which tells the story of a young Chinese woman who falls in love with a Korean monk. She throws herself into the sea and becomes a dragon who protects the returning ship
Woman throws herself off a cliff into the sea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kegon_Engi_Emaki#/media/File:Zemmyō_se_jette_à_la_mer_par_le_peintre_japonais_Enichibō_Jōnin_(XIIIe_siècle).jpgDragon with a ship on its back. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kegon_Engi_Emaki#/media/File:History_of_the_Kegon_Sect.jpg
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Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · 21/07/2025
By far the best summary I’ve read on the election.
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Animal Aspects (Art History Animalia) @animal-aspects.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
For #MedievalMonday / #ManuscriptMonday : Detail from Maastricht Book of Hours (BL Stowe MS17), f36r: #elephant & castle (howdah) driven by #monkey Liège-Maastricht area, c.1300-25 @medmilmedicine.bsky.social another one for your elephant collection 😂 commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ma...
“This drollery depicts an elephant and castle (howdah). The elephant is driven by a dressed #monkey.”
(detail from a medieval illuminated manuscript, marginalia)
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Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · 21/07/2025
For Marine Day in Japan, a #ManuscriptMonday of the 13th-century Illustrated Biographies of the Kegon School's Patriarchs 華厳宗祖師絵伝, which tells the story of a young Chinese woman who falls in love with a Korean monk. She throws herself into the sea and becomes a dragon who protects the returning ship
Woman throws herself off a cliff into the sea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kegon_Engi_Emaki#/media/File:Zemmyō_se_jette_à_la_mer_par_le_peintre_japonais_Enichibō_Jōnin_(XIIIe_siècle).jpgDragon with a ship on its back. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kegon_Engi_Emaki#/media/File:History_of_the_Kegon_Sect.jpg
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Nick Kapur @nickkapur.bsky.social · 21/07/2025
On top of everything else, Japan's right-wing populist Sanseitō party wants to destroy anime and manga by turning it into propaganda: "The Ministry of Culture shall ensure that manga, anime, and games are developed in a healthy way as a form of culture, rather than based upon their economic value."
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Levi McLaughlin @levimclaughlin.bsky.social · 20/07/2025
I'm quoted a bunch in this SCMP piece released before polls closed on the Upper House race now being counted in Japan. This is a crucial point for the governing Liberal Democratic Party / Komeito coalition. www.scmp.com/week-asia/po...
scmp.com
Japan upper house election: Ishiba accepts ‘harsh result’, says to stay on as PM
The ruling LDP-led coalition is likely to lose its majority in the upper house, with exit polls projecting it may only win 41 seats.
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David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social · 20/07/2025
The terrible things that are happening right now were predictable AND PREDICTED in well regarded texts that had no impact.
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Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · 19/07/2025
The same administrators who decry safe spaces and claim to protect free speech surround themselves with security and call the cops on students at the drop of a hat. www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...
newyorker.com
How Dartmouth Became the Ivy League’s Switzerland
The school has attracted attention for its refusal to join the higher-ed resistance and, perhaps not coincidentally, for its avoidance of any direct sanctions by the Trump Administration.
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Nick Kapur @nickkapur.bsky.social · 18/07/2025
Genjipoems.org is such an amazing resource www.bu.edu/articles/202...
bu.edu
The World’s First Novel Has Romance, Tragedy, Adventure. Now, After 1,000 Years, The Tale of Genji’s Poems Have Joined the Digital Age
BU scholar J. Keith Vincent and his students spent nine years building Genjipoems.org, a home to nearly 800 ancient poems
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