iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Damian M @damiandamiani.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Thanks and thanks for sharing! I’m on the RtR project but for this workshop actually just acting as the messenger — @puckengman.bsky.social and Jiaqi Yao are running this one!

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Damian M @damiandamiani.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

#ChinaComx is going ComFor! Our PI and myself are headed to Gießen for the Annual Conference of the Comics Studies Society to present the most recent draft of our joint paper on what we call the #Maoverse: revolutionary heroes, Mao, and the shared universe of Chinese socialist lianhuanhua.

https://chinacomx.github.io/activities/2026-09-22-comfor26/

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Damian M @damiandamiani.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Tilen and I are travelling to Kraków for this year's EADH conference @eadh2026krakow.bsky.social to talk in detail about the ChinaComx Lianhuanhua Publication Dataset -- tomorrow, Wed 16.09, from 13:30 in al. Mickiewicza 9b at @jagiellonskiuni.bsky.social; see eadh2026.confer.uj.edu.pl/programme.

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Damian M @damiandamiani.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Great angle! if you allow, I would like to add it to my collection chinareading.wordpress.com. The girl on the right also seems to be reading a lianhuanhua, cool!

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Damian M @damiandamiani.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

100% agreed, and still a mystery to me for why exactly that is so.

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Damian M @damiandamiani.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Tomorrow I'm speaking at the "Translating Comics" summer school (Uni Bergamo), invited by Martina Caschera: tinyurl.com/44z2f4t7 🙏 I'll cover academic collaborative translation of lianhuanhua as done at #ChinaComx (chinacomx.github.io/translations/) — we just passed 22 titles, more on that soon! 🤓

https://chinacomx.github.io/activities/2026-08-25-damianbergamo/

https://dllcs.unibg.it/it/studiare/opportunita-internazionali/winter-summer-e-international-schools/summer-school-translating

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Damian M @damiandamiani.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Unrelated but is there a list of all cinemas worldwide that have the required tech somewhere online?

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Damian M @damiandamiani.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Onward to Venice for #EACS2026! Come to our panel on Thu 23.07 from 2pm with Mark Czellér, @amindarella.bsky.social, Zhang Man, @lanzafab.bsky.social, and Min Chen, where I will share new archival insights into public and internal lianhuanhua criticism. chinacomx.github.io/activities/2...

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Damian M @damiandamiani.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

RIP to the coauthor of, among dozens of other titles, “Comics Art in China,” still the best English-language introduction to all things manhua and lianhuanhua. John Lent was infinitely curious, and also passionate about connecting likeminded scholars. His presence in the field will be missed.

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Damian M @damiandamiani.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

In time for #MayThe4th: CfP for Chinese Star Wars: Vernacular Readings of a Global Multimedia Phenomenon, edited by @beckminster.bsky.social and me! It will cover a gap in Star Wars scholarship by collecting a variety of studies with a focus on China. Read on: chinacomx.github.io/update/CfPCh...

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Damian M @damiandamiani.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

Off to #AAS2026 in Vancouver — come say hi, and join our panel on “BAD” PEOPLE IN THE PRC: CRIMINALS & VILLAINS UNDER MAO! On Sat., 14 March 2026, at 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM in the VCC, Room 21, w/ @puckengman.bsky.social, Haiyan Lee, @amindarella.bsky.social, Wenqing Kang, and @yyvonwang.bsky.social

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Damian M @damiandamiani.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

In July 1981, the CCP turned 60. Coincidentally, the July issue of Lianhuanhua bao run a comic that contextualized three generations of party members and asked what it actually meant to be a Communist. Read it in original and in my new #ChinaComx translation here: chinacomx.github.io/translations...

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Damian M @damiandamiani.bsky.social · 04/03/2026

Why did Chinese scientists in 1975 embark on an expedition to discover mermaids? My new #ChinaComx translation offers answers! It is also a great example of how the Reform Era drive toward mass science popularization was realized on small scale. Read it here: chinacomx.github.io/translations...

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Damian M @damiandamiani.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

Some snapshots from my current quest to find many (and buy some) lianhuanhua and related historical materials in Shanghai for #ChinaComx. Bottom line: flea markets and second hand bookstores are alive and well!

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Damian M @damiandamiani.bsky.social · 10/01/2026

One of the absolute best EU novels!

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Damian M @damiandamiani.bsky.social · 09/11/2025

That CCAS trip really resulted in some of the iconic images of the era didn’t it. Great cover!

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Damian M @damiandamiani.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

Added another 80 images over the last two days, bringing the total collection to 385 historical photographs of all kinds of reading acts in twentieth-century China: chinareading.wordpress.com

https://chinareading.wordpress.com/2025/10/29/coated-man-reading-the-national-assembly-attendance-board-shanghai-1947-1949/

https://chinareading.wordpress.com/2025/10/30/three-of-boys-reading-magazine-at-outdoor-reading-space-shaanxi-between-1934-1937/

https://chinareading.wordpress.com/2025/10/30/children-reading-comic-books-shanghai-between-1937-1941/

https://chinareading.wordpress.com/2025/10/30/grandfather-with-grandson-biting-into-a-little-red-book-china-1971/

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Damian M @damiandamiani.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

both are so good! Detention was scary as hell though

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Damian M @damiandamiani.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

Just added 50 new photos to my visual repository of reading acts in China, chinareading.wordpress.com -- too many great images to repost here, but these are the four that stood out for me. Go visit the website and browse the 300+ historical photographs of people reading in China!

https://chinareading.wordpress.com/2025/10/27/happy-children-at-a-comic-book-reading-stall-chengdu-1959/

https://chinareading.wordpress.com/2025/10/27/reclining-man-reading-book-lanzhou-1959/

https://chinareading.wordpress.com/2025/10/27/four-men-reading-notices-about-death-sentences-and-public-executions-prior-to-posting-them-to-the-wall-luoyang-1984/

https://chinareading.wordpress.com/2025/10/27/readers-engaged-in-reading-of-books-comics-and-magazines-at-a-street-book-stall-wanxian-1986/

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Damian M @damiandamiani.bsky.social · 13/10/2025

Very cool, thanks! Will share with the team

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Michael Höckelmann @medievalchina.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

#DOTD: Feng Zikai 豐子愷 (1898–1975), pioneer Chinese cartoonist #漫畫

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Damian M @damiandamiani.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

In my paper, I trace how the CCP celebrated and/or educated about its anniversaries via comics. As these ranged in format and style from classical lhh booklets through comic strips to fancy coffee book tables, the bottom line is evident: comics were (and are) part of polit communication efforts.

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Damian M @damiandamiani.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

The double-panel includes contributions by Dr Chihho Lin, Dr Mariia Guleva, @ndanysz.bsky.social, and 4/5 of the #ChinaComx team; Dr Annabella Mei Massey (The Courtauld Institute of Art) and Dr Elizabeth Emrich-Rougé (University of Cambridge) will respectively act as Chair/Discussant.

Cool dude at a lianhuanhua book stall, ca. 19590/60

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Damian M @damiandamiani.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

Traveling to the UK today for the @chinesestudies.bsky.social annual conference #BACS2025. Together with @beckminster.bsky.social, I co-organize a two-parted panel on all things lianhuanhua: P1 “Politics” and P2 “Aesthetics”, back-to-back on Thu 4.9 in Room SBB 1.02 from 13:00-16:15. Join us then!

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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 01/09/2025

Wikipedia editors trying to fend off the onslaught of AI crap have crowdsourced some telltale signs of LLM-generated writing; it might be handy for editors and proofreaders generally. Thanks to @ellenrykers.com for pointing me to it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...

en.wikipedia.org

Wikipedia:Signs of AI writing - Wikipedia

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Xueting C. Ni 倪雪婷 (she, they) @xuetingni.bsky.social · 31/08/2025

Today, Xueting's Sunday Culture takes a look at the Chinese artist known as 海豹王XX, or Wang XX, whose comics feature a loveable aquatic alter ego and their tiny octopus friend, exploring the trials and tribulations of everyday life in contemporary China (brace yourselves for those bad puns). 1/

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Pádraic Fogarty @whittledaway.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

I saw today the dramatic effects of global heating up close. This is the Bonhus glacier in SW Norway, the photo on the left is from 1890. Like all glaciers in Norway it is shrinking rapidly.

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Damian M @damiandamiani.bsky.social · 25/08/2025

I had the great pleasure of reading and reviewing Daisy Yan Du’s fascinating explorations in the (pre)history of Chinese animation. A wide ranging study covering puppet animation in the 1930s, ink painting attempts of the 1960s, and their various global afterlives in the 1970s, highly recommended!

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Society for Animation Studies (SAS) @sasanistudies.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

In his review of Animated Encounters: Transnational Movements of Chinese Animation by Daisy Yan Du, @damiandamiani.bsky.social examines Du’s claim that Chinese animation was "international before it became national." Read his post at bit.ly/4fBkaM3.

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Damian M @damiandamiani.bsky.social · 02/08/2025

Very interesting! Do you happen to have them? We’d be very interested to get our hands on a few here at ChinaComx (chinacomx.github.io)!

chinacomx.github

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Damian M @damiandamiani.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

Laura Pozzi, who curated the CUHK exhibition, and I (based on my work on the largest collection of Chinese caricatures at Maoist Legacy) have an article exploring the last leg of these caricatures -- targeting Jiang Qing during the anti-Gang of Four campaign of 1976-1978, doi.org/10.1215/1067...

doi.org

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Damian M @damiandamiani.bsky.social · 20/07/2025

Another exciting week at #ChinaComx! On Tuesday, July 22, we host a workshop with the “Caricature as a Sphere of Communication in the Ottoman Context” project (caricatures.hypotheses.org/499) — and welcome a new visiting scholar, Ivan Gomes, for a keynote on Brazilian caricatures of post-Mao China 🎭

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Damian M @damiandamiani.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

Ahoj from Prague where I am participating in the “Transformations of Cultural Life from Mao to Xi” conference at @charlesuni.cuni.cz. In my paper, I advance the argument that lianhuanhua were both very loud and affective, making it a perfect intermedial medium. ksi.ff.cuni.cz/en/research/...

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Damian M @damiandamiani.bsky.social · 16/06/2025

Celebrations and marches welcoming the Chinese delegation to Dresden in June 1951, notice the crowds holding Mao portraits next to Wilhelm Pieck (GDR president); a still heavily destroyed Theaterplatz visible in the background. Photos by Erich Höhne und Erich Pohl, via Deutsche Fotothek.

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Noelle Cook @noellecook.com · 11/06/2025

This is a map of Los Angeles. The arrow points to a red dot. That red dot (roughly) represents the protest area seen on TV. To me, the gross mischaracterization of what’s happening in Los Angeles looks like an excuse to deploy the military—to protect government assets like ICE.

A map of Los Angeles is posted to illustrate just how large the city is. Near the area labeled “downtown” on the map, is a tiny red dot. That represents the area where protests are happening and that are being shown on TV. The dot is so small it would not be seen if I had not drawn an arrow towards it.

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Damian M @damiandamiani.bsky.social · 08/06/2025

Mao Zedong in 1956: "Er [i.e., Mao] fragt nach der Sozialdemokratischen Partei (SPD) und bemerkt, dass man sie unterstützen müsse, er hielte ihren Sieg für richtig." (im Gespräch mit G. Weisenborn) hasp.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/cha...

hasp.ub.uni-heidelberg.de

Mao wünschte Wahlsieg der SPD und freie Einreisemöglichkeit für westdeutsche Intellektuelle: Gespräch mit dem westdeutschen Schriftsteller Günther Weisenborn (11. November 1956) | China aktu...

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Damian M @damiandamiani.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

Is there perhaps a list somewhere of all the substacks that moved to ghost? For an easy find / overview that’d be great

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Isabella M. Weber @isabellamweber.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

Polanyi on the rise of fascism: "the victory of fascism was made practically unavoidable by the liberals' obstruction of any reform involving planning, regulation, or control."

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Damian M @damiandamiani.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

Many thanks again to Laura de Giorgi and Dayton Lekner for organizing and including me in their workshop! I’ve learned a lot about the sound(s), noise(s) & silence(s) of history and how to extract them, and the venue was—most probably—among the most stunning conference location I’ll ever witness.

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Star Wars Holocron @swholocron.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK was released on this day 45 years ago

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Damian M @damiandamiani.bsky.social · 14/05/2025

On my way to Venice for the “Sonic Histories of East Asia: Thinking History Through Sound” conference at Ca’ Foscari — I will humbly join a splendid line up of speakers to present on the various sounds of collective reading activities in the PRC. Come say hello if you’re around!

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