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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

Getting ready for the year of the horse 🐴

Photo of lanterns being hung around the campus of CUHK-Shenzhen

Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 07/12/2025

There is much else to see at the Biennale. One could easily spend the whole day at the PSA just taking in the different installations.

The text in the corner of this painting reads: "There is a cake-cafe in Yong-Fu Road in the "French Concession of old Shanghai" renovated in minimalistic nordic interior design sells nerdy-hipster-coffee and cake. Their plates look like old Dutch ware in a touch of the Ming Dynasty."

Allora & Calzadilla, Penumbra and Phantom Forest

Still from a video installation. Here is the text from the didactic: Cheng Xinhao
Born in 1985 in Kunming, Yunnan Province, China, where he lives and works.
Musica Proibita, 2024
Single-channel video, color, sound
4:35 min.
Re-steal, 2024
Mixed media
Courtesy of the artist and Tabula Rasa Gallery
There are lines of history, along which human and non-human agents travel. Around a century ago, European and US plant hunters came to Yunnan, and with the help of different intermediaries they brought back plants and photographs of local people.
I try to bring these "specimens" back again, for example in Re-Steal, I did so by cutting a branch of a rhododendron tree in a botanical garden in Scotland. The very plant was brought there from Yunnan in 1913 by the famous plant hunter George Forrest.
I also reenact past scenes, but with different objects and at a different time. For Musica Proibita I placed a gramophone before a rhododendron tree in southwestern China. It played a recording of the early 20th-century tenor Enrico Caruso singing a romantic salon melody. With this work, I make reference to the Austrian-American botanist and explorer Joseph Rock, who spent a quarter century in Yunnan from the 1920s to the 40s studying its Naxi people as well as botanical diversity in the Hengduan Mountains.
Rock found the Naxi to be particularly reluctant to be photographed, but fascinated by the music of his gramophone; he would play them Caruso and document them as they gathered to listen.

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 07/12/2025

I went to Shanghai this weekend & saw the Biennale at the Power Station of Art. Here are a few images of a painting by Shao Fan of Kun from the opening chapter of the Zhuangzi.

Image of Shao Fan's monumental painting of Kun

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 23/11/2025

Today I made it to the Cao'an Temple, a old Manichean site just outside of Quanzhou. It's a really fascinating example of the depths and complexities of Chinese history and the capaciousness of categories like "Buddhism" or "Manichaeism"

Entrance to the Cao'an temple. If you zoom in, the altar cloth has the characters "佛光尼摩", which represents Mani as the Buddha of Light

Photo taken of the Mani statue from outside the temple

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 22/11/2025

Also paid my respects to Confucius and Laozi...

Shrine of Confucius at the Quanzhou Confucian Temple

Courtyard with pond at the Confucian Temple

Confucius and Laozi having a chat, Qingyuan Mountain in Quanzhou

Monumental rock sculpture of a deified Laozi (Laojun), at Qingyuan Mountain

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 22/11/2025

I'm visiting Quanzhou this weekend, and I've gotten to see quite a few temples. Highlights were the Tian Hou Temple, the Tonghuai Guanyue Temple (impressive how popular Guanyu and Yue Fei are), and the Qingjing Mosque.

Eastern Pagoda of the Kaiyuan Buddhist Temple in Quanzhou, China

Much activity at the Tonghuai Guanyue Temple in Quanzhou

Detail from the Qingjing Mosque, just down the street in Quanzhou

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

I'm at the Chinese Wittgenstein Society's conference in Hangzhou. Heard many great papers today & got to meet scholars whose work I know. Was great to meet up with my former dissertation director, Juliet Floyd. Even got to road-test a new project I'm working on. Looking forward to tomorrow!

Sign at Zhejiang University for the School of Philosophy (and History and Literature)

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

Looking forward to the Seventh International Wittgenstein Symposium at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou this weekend. I'll be giving a short paper: "AI, Ethics, and Forms of Life."

Cover for conference program for the Wittgenstein symposium in Hangzhou.

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 26/10/2025

And here's a short clip of Ken Vandermark Edition Redux --

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 26/10/2025

Here's a short clip of Satoko Fujii and Joe Fonda

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 26/10/2025

I went to the Jazz Festival at OCT-Loft in Shenzhen yesterday. Got to see two amazing groups: Joe Fonda and Satoko Fujii & Ken Vandermark Edition Redux

After a showing of the Ken Vandermark documentary "Musician" (2007 -- by Daniel Kraus), Vandermark came forward for some Q&A.

Joe Fonda and Satoko Fugii performing at the OCT-Loft Jazz fest

The Ken Vandermark Edition Redux performing at the OCT-Loft Jazz fest

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

Typhoon Ragasa is bringing some intense rain and wind to Shenzhen. Not clear when the rain will end, if ever...

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

Here's a view of the CUHK-Shenzhen campus right after sunset (and after several days of intense rain brought by a tropical storm)

View of the lower campus of CUHK-Shenzhen just after sunset

another view of the campus of CUHK-Shenzhen just after sunset

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

The NMAAHC is an incredible museum. Here are a few photos from a visit to the museum a couple of years ago. And here's a link to the change.org petition to defend it: chng.it/ypcqxPNdjq

View of the National Museum of African American History and Culture

Quote by James Baldwin on an interior wall of the museum: "The Great Force of History comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it...History is literally present in all that we do."

Display case on Black Liberation Theology

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

Here are a couple of photos of the old display (from when I visited in 2023). Even then, it felt like this documentation of history was fragile.

Photo of Smithsonian display on Impeachment (2023)

Close up of exhibit on Impeachment at the Smithsonian (2023)

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

My book, Rethinking Philosophy of Religion with Wittgenstein, arrived today. I'm grateful to Bloomsbury (‪@bloomsburyacad.bsky.social‬) for publishing it & to J. Aaron Simmons and Kevin Schilbrack for including it in the Expanding Philosophy of Religion series. www.bloomsbury.com/us/rethinkin...

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

...eating this particular forbidden fruit closes their minds to the possibility of knowledge (an inversion of the Eden trope).

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

Reading papers on the Bible (among other texts), it occurred to me that when students are tempted to use AI to write a paper, it's a little like Adam and Eve in Genesis 2-3 being tempted to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but instead of having their eyes opened...

stained glass window from the Washington National Cathedral (from a few years ago)

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 23/04/2025

The Daily Nous has a post on this. dailynous.com/2025/04/22/n... Here's the key part re the phil major:

Text reads: "I am told that it is SB1’s clause about graduation rates, and not those about DEI, that triggered the decision to end the philosophy major. It’s worth noting then, that the clause about graduation rates includes the following:

The chancellor may grant a waiver to a state institution for a program to which this division applies. State institutions shall appeal for a waiver in a form and manner determined by the chancellor. If the chancellor grants a waiver to a state institution, the chancellor shall establish terms under which the state institution may conditionally continue the program, including whether the program is eligible to be supported by state share of instruction funds.

So there may be a way to save the philosophy major at the University of Toledo, and the department is looking into possible avenues for that."

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 21/03/2025

I've been reading and rereading James Baldwin's "A Talk to Teachers" in recent times. Published a little over 60 years ago, it echoes many of the themes of The Fire Next Time, but with a focus on education. I wish it weren't so relevant to the times we are living through, but it is.

"The purpose of education, finally, is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions, to say to himself this is black or this is white, to decide for himself whether there is a God in heaven or not. To ask questions of the universe, and then learn to live with those questions, is the way he achieves his own identity. But no society is really anxious to have that kind of person around. What societies really, ideally, want is a citizenry which will simply obey the rules of society." -James Baldwin, "A Talk to Teachers"

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

I've got an article coming out in Agatheos: “Wittgenstein, Religious Diversity, and Communicative Reticence” Not sure when it will appear, but here's the abstract --

This is the abstract for my forthcoming article in the journal Agatheos: “Wittgenstein, Religious Diversity, and Communicative Reticence”

Attempts to communicate across boundaries involving religions or cultures may fail before anything is asserted. While it is common in comparative philosophy of religion to focus on the compatibility or conflict between what is said by different interlocutors about
metaphysical commitments or ethical values, this article instead examines reticence. Reticence has many forms in connection with religious and philosophical traditions. These include eloquent silences, speech acts counseling care in language use, circumspection about
sharing ideas, declarations of inexpressibility, and political reticence. Drawing on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s “Lectures on Religious Belief” and On Certainty as well as work by Alessandra Tanesini on silence and speech acts, this article considers communicative and epistemic aspects of diverse religious encounters that may give rise to varied reticent moments. The aim is to enhance thinking about inter-religious and cross-cultural discourses by exploring the ways in which reticent moments are salient, if frequently overlooked, aspects of complex communicative situations.

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

Very sad but not surprising given that it is linked to Florida State University. The Ringling was a great museum, but one can imagine what will become of it now. Here are a few memorable works I saw there a few years ago...

William Edmondson's "Crucifixion" (c1930-39)

From an exhibition on "Scholars' Stones" from China

Trevor Paglen's "'Weil' (Even the Dead are Not Safe) Eigenface" (2017)

Seated Buddha (from India 10th Century) and Maitreya (from Gandhara, Pakistan, c3rd-4th Century)

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

Ross Douthat has a book coming out on religion...The epistemic framing of "the religious quest" as he puts it in his NYT piece suggests a belief-oriented conception of religiosity. Not a surprise, but already a loaded framing of religion privileging some forms of religiosity over others 1/4

Title for Ross Douthat's column promoting his new book on religion

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

Lunar New Year decorations on the CUHK-Shenzhen campus

Photo of red lanterns on the campus of CUHK-Shenzhen during Chinese New Year

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 23/01/2025

Choose 20 albums that have stayed with you or influenced you. One album per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 20/20

Cover for Rafael Anton Irisarri's album "Solastalgia"

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

Choose 20 albums that have stayed with you or influenced you. One album per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 19/20

Cover for William Basinski's "The Disintegration Loops"

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

A most welcome distraction this week: I need to go over the second proofs for Rethinking Philosophy of Religion with Wittgenstein

Title page (proof) for my forthcoming book, Rethinking Philosophy of Religion with Wittgenstein

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

Choose 20 albums that have stayed with you or influenced you. One album per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 18/20

Cover for Godspeed You! Black Emperor's album "Yanqui U.X.O."

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

View of Sergio Castillo's "Free at Last" sculpture in Marsh Plaza at Boston University. During my grad school years, there was a great bench at this spot allowing for good conversation and/or contemplation.

Photo of a colonnade looking out on Boston University's Marsh Plaza and "Free at Last" sculpture

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

Choose 20 albums that have stayed with you or influenced you. One album per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 17/20

Cover for Yo La Tengo's album, "I can hear the heart beating as one"

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 19/01/2025

Choose 20 albums that have stayed with you or influenced you. One album per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 16/20

Cover for the Mo'Wax compilation album, "Headz 2A"

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

Choose 20 albums that have stayed with you or influenced you. One album per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 15/20

Cover for Massive Attack's album, "Protection"

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

Choose 20 albums that have stayed with you or influenced you. One album per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 14/20

Cover for the Keith Jarrett Trio's album "The Cure"

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

Choose 20 albums that have stayed with you or influenced you. One album per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 13/20

Cover for A Tribe Called Quest's album "The Low End Theory"

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

Choose 20 albums that have stayed with you or influenced you. One album per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 12/20

Cover for Sonic Youth's album "Daydream Nation"

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

Choose 20 albums that have stayed with you or influenced you. One album per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 11/20

Cover for Simon Rattle and the City of Birmingham Orchestra's recording of John Adams's "Harmonielehre"

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

Choose 20 albums that have stayed with you or influenced you. One album per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 10/20

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 12/01/2025

Choose 20 albums that have stayed with you or influenced you. One album per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 9/20

Cover for Bruce Springsteen's album, "Nebraska"

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

Choose 20 albums that have stayed with you or influenced you. One album per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 8/20

Cover for Gang of Four's album "Entertainment!"

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

Choose 20 albums that have stayed with you or influenced you. One album per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 7/20

Cover for Joy Division's "Unknown Pleasures" album

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

Choose 20 albums that have stayed with you or influenced you. One album per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 6/20

Cover for Steve Reich's composition, "Music for 18 Musicians"

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

Choose 20 albums that have stayed with you or influenced you. One album per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 5/20

Cover for The Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Bob Dylan Live 1975, The Rolling Thunder Revue

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 07/01/2025

Another day of blue skies in Shenzhen...

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 07/01/2025

Choose 20 albums that have stayed with you or influenced you. One album per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 4/20

Cover for Brian Eno's "Ambient 1: Music for Airports"

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Thomas D. Carroll @thomasdcarroll.bsky.social · 06/01/2025

Choose 20 albums that have stayed with you or influenced you. One album per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 3/20

Cover for David Bowie's "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars"

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