iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Rachel McVeigh 魏瑞秀 @remcveigh.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

the only thing not completely intuitive to an English speaker and perhaps requiring a footnote would be the conventional reference to greying hair (brought on by sorrow/troubles) as frost/snow

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Rachel McVeigh 魏瑞秀 @remcveigh.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

any thoughts/suggestions welcome!! 🀄️📚

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Rachel McVeigh 魏瑞秀 @remcveigh.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

reminds me so strongly of 吳聲西曲, but not sure if it’s a direct influence or just because Tang-era popular 五言 songs sounded similar

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Rachel McVeigh 魏瑞秀 @remcveigh.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

silly little work-in-progress translating some quite silly Bai Juyi, trying to keep the stress/syllable count and sing-song quality of the original, but it still feels a bit much—maybe Chinese poetry just shouldn’t be translated preserving rhyme (at least by me)…

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Rachel McVeigh 魏瑞秀 @remcveigh.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

just made sure I’m registered to vote—reminder to do so if you haven’t yet!

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Evan MacKay @evanforcambridge.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

I’m excited to announce today that I am running for State Representative for the 25th Middlesex District. We need to have a state government that works for the many, not just the well connected few. 🧵

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Rachel McVeigh 魏瑞秀 @remcveigh.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

(to be clear, not condoning lol, just made me laugh and I kind of own it)

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Rachel McVeigh 魏瑞秀 @remcveigh.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Nietzsche: “When a woman has scholarly inclinations, then usually something is wrong with her sexuality.” #womeninacademia

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Rachel McVeigh 魏瑞秀 @remcveigh.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

there’s definitely been a lot of changes in response to American usages, not necessarily “updating” but just changing—for example, “Asian” used to mean South Asian predominantly, but now it pretty much always means East Asian, like in America (at least in younger generations)

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Rachel McVeigh 魏瑞秀 @remcveigh.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

yeah, I would be really confused to hear anyone say that (British or otherwise) about an Indian person lol—it’s v much not said in the UK, regardless of the generation, like this is literally the first time I’ve heard of it. Maybe she just got it wrong?

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Rachel McVeigh 魏瑞秀 @remcveigh.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

re British people being regressive on race issues - definitely don’t dispute this in general, but as a British person, I’ve never heard the term Black used for anyone other than people of African descent, so it’s not really current (just for info)

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Dan Sinykin @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

went with my daughter to emory's library today to get some stuff. she kept tearing books off the shelves and saying they were hers. i kept putting them back, but ended up letting her take one home. this was her choice. (she's three.)

a hand holding a book called Insects in Literature and the Arts

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Rachel McVeigh 魏瑞秀 @remcveigh.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

I’ve translated passages on these two snakes from Chen Ding’s 蛇譜—out in publication soon, so stay tuned!!

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Brendan O’Kane @bokane.org · 11/06/2026

someone pay me to do what i'm good at

From ‘Classical Chinese for Cats,' which does not exist, Chapter 1: 'The Cat is Important.'

貓黑。貓美。貓強。

These three sentences work the same way — which looks close enough to the way English does it that we will have to slow down and look more closely so as not to be misled. Any English translation will treat the words 黑, 美, and 強 as if they were adjectives, but they are actually verbs: “Cat blacks,” “Cat handsomes,” “Cat strongs.”

Compare:

貓眠。貓餓。貓鳴。

They work the same way, with a simple underlying structure that will be common to every Classical Chinese utterance we see from here on out.

The basic shape of any statement is

Topic + Comment

The most common way of saying “Thing A is Thing B” in Chinese is simply to say “A, B”:

貓，萌交反，猛獸。
 ‘Cats,’ m- + -au, are ferocious beasts.

Often, these constructions will be signposted with a 也, as “A, B 也”:

吾，貓也。 I am a cat.

Now your turn. There’s a gloss on the next page, but you can read it yourself already.

貓黑。貓美。貓強。貓眠。貓餓。貓醒。
人常言。人多言。人常言人言。人言多。
吾寡言。吾言「貓」。
吾名明兒，貓也。
人言貓，曰「黑貓非貓。」明兒，固貓也。
人愚。人甚愚。

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Gina Anne Tam @dgtam86.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

Area studies is already being gutted at universities and by governments; we are losing a generation of experts. If the idea that "AI translation can make all fields accessible to all people" becomes more widespread, I fear we are giving license to acceleration of the hollowing out of our field.

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Rachel McVeigh 魏瑞秀 @remcveigh.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

you can see us here (and yes I was the only 外国人 I saw)

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Rachel McVeigh 魏瑞秀 @remcveigh.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

excited to be in nyc to watch 德云社!! Guo Degang and Yu Qian on stage 😍

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Chaucer Doth Tweet @levostregc.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

Galapagos Octopus O what a Joye to us! Galapagos Octopus Do what you do! Raucous and Bumptious, Galapagos Octopus! Azure and Splendorous -- Tinye and blue!

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The saddest girl to ever hold a martini @lifeisterrible.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

new little guy just dropped 🐙

'He's tiny! It's blue!': Scientists find new deep-sea octopus

little blue buddy on ocean floor

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Rachel McVeigh 魏瑞秀 @remcveigh.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

I guess part of what made me think this is that Étienne has a moment that’s extremely similar to the controversial Chai Ling interview in GoHP

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Rachel McVeigh 魏瑞秀 @remcveigh.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

Though there’s great value to both works, I’m really conflicted about accepting this framing, where pragmatic moderation seems to be presented as the highest virtue. Random pairing, but would be fun to talk about together in a seminar

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Rachel McVeigh 魏瑞秀 @remcveigh.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

(…) grad student union strike action; and finishing the sixth part of Germinal tn, the ways Zola and Hinton treat “extreme” political action feel eerily similar, with a deep-seated mistrust of anything perceived to be excessively emotional, and interest in personal ambition as a corrupting factor.

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Rachel McVeigh 魏瑞秀 @remcveigh.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

Pure coincidence has had me watching Hinton’s Gate of Heavenly Peace, reading Zola’s Germinal, and participating in student activism at the same moment. Ofc there’s lots that separate these things, but the resonances feel inescapable - we taught GoHP in relation to US campus protests and (…)

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Hane @hane.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

Americans stop posting about what counts as British food challenge

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K. Alexander 亞天恩 @thianun.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

On May 13, I'm giving an online talk thanks to a kind invitation from the Qing Intellectual History Network! More details in the poster below. The research the talk is based on is very new. Looking forward to getting questions that will help me see what directions it might take!

Text on the poster:

QING INTELLECTUAL HISTORY NETWORK

ONLINE SEMINAR

STRANGE TALES, TIMES, AND HISTORIES: SUPERNATURAL STORYTELLING AND ELITE NETWORKS IN THE LATE QING
BY DR. KATHERINE ALEXANDER
UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO BOULDER
MAY 13TH, 2026
11:00 PT, 14:00 ET, 19:00 BST

In this invited talk, I share work in progress on a new
book project. My first book, Teaching and Transformation in Popular Confucian Literature in the Late Qing (Michigan UP, 2025), explored the impact of the Taiping War on Confucian socio-moral education. As I continue to reflect on how narrative morality literature provides new perspectives on the late Qing, I have begun working with a collection of tales, Quanjie lu (Record of admonishments and exhortations), compiled between 1843-1888 by
official LiangGongchen 梁恭辰（1814-1887. During some of the worst decades of Chinese history, Liang collected over 1300 tales of heavenly justice, ghostly hauntings, and odd phenomena with the stated mission of using them to reform and admonish his readers. The stories offer rich perspectives on this pivotal period of social, political, and moral change. Specifically for this talk, I focus on stories that address well known historical incidents, but explain such events in a way that requires us to engage with how interconnected the world of the living scholar- official was with the spirit world populated with fair- minded heavenly judges, plague demons, and ghosts. Quanjie lu reminds us that scholar-officials, still too often assumed to be rational skeptics, included those who shared supernatural tales not out of a sense of ironic detachment but as serious documentary evidence of the subtle and just workings of heaven.
Join the mailinglist for the Zoom Link!
ging-intellectual-history-network.mailchimpsites.com

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Ed Markey @edmarkey.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

Solidarity with the Harvard Graduate Students Union-UAW Local 5118 in their fight for a fair and dignified workplace. I am urging both sides to negotiate in good faith.

WBUR: Harvard graduate students picket as union goes on strike

Harvard’s graduate student workers went on strike Tuesday morning, demanding higher pay, greater protections for non-citizen employees and an improved grievance process for workplace harassment.

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UAW @uaw.org · 21/04/2026

"Harvard’s graduate student union has begun its strike after the University failed to make 'significant movement' before the midnight deadline." Harvard Graduate Students Union - UAW Local 5118 | @uawregion9a.bsky.social 📰 www.thecrimson.com/thread/2026/4/21…

thecrimson.com

Live: Harvard's Graduate Workers Strike as Negotiations Stall | News | The Harvard Crimson

Harvard graduate workers are on strike this week, halting teaching and research duties as contract negotiations with the University remain unresolved.

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Rachel McVeigh 魏瑞秀 @remcveigh.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

unbelievably excited to have witnessed @weatherishappening.com guy not 5 minutes from my home today—duly received my free rock, pamphlet, and magnet, paid for my sticker, and ofc repented to my weather lords

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Insect Welfare Research Society @insectwrs.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

"Philosophy of Animal Welfare," a workshop at Duke University, is now accepting abstracts. Topics include which animals should count as welfare subjects, how animal welfare should be measured, managing uncertainty, and more.

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Thor Benson @thorbenson.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

Ain't no rule says a dog can't participate in the Olympics

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Ted Underwood @tedunderwood.com · 08/02/2026

Well, I went ahead and wrote it. An attempt to work through the discomfort people feel with AI agents on social media by reframing it as an aesthetic problem.

tedunderwood.com

The marionette theater of AI

Is it funny, or painful, when bots talk about their inner lives?

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Chris and his farmily of forever farm friends @caenhillcc.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

It’s toast time for donkey George and a run with Caroline & Kirsty Kirsty Clinch #toasttime @carolineartist.bsky.social @kirstyclinch.bsky.social

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🦔 ErinaceusFrance @erinaceus.fr · 30/01/2026

Je suis un animal très souple 😝

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Moudhy Al-Rashid (she/her) @moudhy.bsky.social · 13/11/2024

May as well dive right in. Did you know that dogs in ancient Mesopotamia also refused to drop the ball? According to a Sumerian proverb, “The dog understands ‘Take it!’ It does not understand ‘Put it down!’” Source: cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts/34...

A round, light brown tablet made of clay with three lines of cuneiform scripts. Two rulings, or traced straight lines, enclose the writing. The photo also shows the sides of the tablet, including a few damaged parts.

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Chinese Animal Studies Network @casntweets.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

TRANSPOSITIONES: Journal for Transdisciplinary and Intermedial Culture Studies, an English- and German-language journal, invites submissions for a special issue "Animals, Ethics, and Cultural Difference: Conflict, Coexistence, and Representation." Abstracts due 10 February, more at link below 🌿🐎🐂

transpositiones.uw.edu.pl

CFP - Transpositiones

Transpositiones Vol. 5, No. 2 (Deadline: 10.02.2026)

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