iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Zhaorui Lü @zhaoruilu.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

writing cover letters is a lot like writing an acknowledgement. brings me so much joy and appreciation (or maybe I'm writing it wrong!

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Zhaorui Lü @zhaoruilu.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Writing about a food rationing initiative among housewives in 1955. Meatball, sponge cake, watery rice, wotou -- so far have all made an appearance. I love writing now 😂

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Zhaorui Lü @zhaoruilu.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

Fieldwork (protecting the capital’s streets and bridges during the Two Sessions version)! The red armband is very empowering ❤️‍🔥

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Zhaorui Lü @zhaoruilu.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

the disparity in grad programs is even more exhausting and frustrating when your school keeps inventing new obstacles that are simply unfathomable to non-UC students lol

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Zhaorui Lü @zhaoruilu.bsky.social · 07/12/2025

kudos to cuhk for building its library on a hill. gotta let those academics get their daily cardio in before sitting in the reading room all day!

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ANU Press @anupress.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

What does it mean to come of age in a society where the paths to adulthood are increasingly uncertain, yet the pressure to succeed remains relentless? Find out more in the latest issue of ‘Made in China Journal’: doi.org/10.22459/MIC...

ANU Press New Release. Cover image of Made in China Journal: Volume 10, Issue 1, 2025

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Zhaorui Lü @zhaoruilu.bsky.social · 26/10/2025

Rockies in the playoff vs the academic job market

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ANU Press @anupress.bsky.social · 13/10/2025

This upcoming issue of ‘Made in China Journal’ dives deep into how a generation is navigating constraint, competition and creativity, from digital platforms to poetry and from co-living to basketball courts. Register your interest to learn more doi.org/10.22459/MIC...

ANU Press Coming Soon. Cover image of Made in China Journal: Volume 10, Issue 1, 2025

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Zhaorui Lü @zhaoruilu.bsky.social · 03/10/2025

can a history student survive academia nowadays without doing sts???

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Zhaorui Lü @zhaoruilu.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

Done with Hoover, now onto Beijing 🫡

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Zhaorui Lü @zhaoruilu.bsky.social · 07/09/2025

My only entertainment has been watching the dodgers but it’s not been entertaining at all.. maybe I’ll try watching a movie there :)

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Zhaorui Lü @zhaoruilu.bsky.social · 03/09/2025

First day of my fieldwork year: spent six hours in the Hoover archive, watched the Dodgers lose to the Pirates, and jogged 5k around the Stanford campus at sunset. Life is fun :)

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Zhaorui Lü @zhaoruilu.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

if a book's arguments can be found in the comment sections of Xiaohongshu/Zhihu, is it really worth being published?

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Zhaorui Lü @zhaoruilu.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

the best part about studying aunties is chatting with aunties

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Zhaorui Lü @zhaoruilu.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

The fun continues: we were discussing Lu Xun’s what happens after Nora walks out and I asked what other options Nora had. A group of students proposed that she could kill her husband 😂 not endorsing murder but these students are fun

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Zhaorui Lü @zhaoruilu.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

taught the first session of my online class on women and gender in modern china. as an icebreaker, i asked students to find a "gendered" object in their room. one student held up a copy of Mao's biography 😂 teaching is so fun

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Zhaorui Lü @zhaoruilu.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

hate the fact that a whole page of my syllabus is now devoted to academic integrity/AI use...

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Zhaorui Lü @zhaoruilu.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

It happened!! Had to reschedule from yesterday because somehow there was a thunderstorm in SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. Anyway here is a selfie of five happy ABDs enjoying In-N-Out while the ship of academia is sinking 😇😋

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Journal of the History of Ideas @jhideas.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

Check out the newsletter to catch up on new scholarship and announcements from the blog and journal—including a round-up of recent posts and a CFP for the upcoming, seventh annual Grad Student Symposium. mailchi.mp/178e0d922e4a...

mailchi.mp

JHI Blog Newsletter: Spring 2025

Catch up on new scholarship from the Blog & the Journal

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Zhaorui Lü @zhaoruilu.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

this #WCWS has convinced me that college softball is the best sport in the world. these video reviews/7th inning game-tying HRs had me more stressed than waiting for my committee's deliberation during orals lmao

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Zhaorui Lü @zhaoruilu.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

But she looked into my eyes and went: "A little bird told me that you never had In-N-Out before. WE MUST GET YOU TO TRY IN-N-OUT BEFORE YOU LEAVE!!" So now the cohort is going to In-N-Out next week. Moments like these give me hope. Yes the world is on fire, but we will get In-N-Out.

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Zhaorui Lü @zhaoruilu.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

A friend in my cohort just approached me, dead serious: "I need to talk to you." We are the only two international students in our cohort and were just talking about the new visa situation last night. So naturally I thought she wanted to chat about that. #gradschool

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Zhaorui Lü @zhaoruilu.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

Always fun to attend our annual undergrad history conference! Surprised to see how many undergrads are much better presenters — so lively, passionate, all while off scripts! — than professional academic presentations.

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David Fedman @dfeds.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

A message to grad students struggling to conduct archival research in light of travel issues/censorship/everything: I digitize religiously and I'm sitting on 1000s of pages of scanned docs - mostly related to WWII - that I want to share. If you're at all curious, email me! Some highlights:

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Zhaorui Lü @zhaoruilu.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

Thanks for the correction, Prof. Sun! I’ll let the editors change the reference.

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Zhaorui Lü @zhaoruilu.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

Before the advent of swiping right on Tinder/探探 and 相亲角, China in the 1980s had trade union cadres sit in the factory's matchmaking offices and sift through young women's profiles to find a match for their single male workers. Many thanks to @ivanfranceschini.bsky.social for the edits!

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Amy Stanley @astanley711.bsky.social · 18/03/2025

I’m the Director of the Center for Historical Studies at Northwestern and also a gender historian. If I thought for a minute that our administration had cancelled this conference for political reasons I would be complaining, loudly. But this is not an accurate representation of what happened.

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Zhaorui Lü @zhaoruilu.bsky.social · 18/03/2025

been thinking about a potential research project, but it will have to engage with lots of marxist theory... which makes it an impossible project for my dumb ass

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Marie Le Conte @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 21/02/2025

have to edit a piece I wrote in December and unfortunately I no longer have any recollection of either said piece or indeed the person I was back in December, anything put to paper more than a week ago is as foreign and distant to me as the writings of ancient Greece

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Zhaorui Lü @zhaoruilu.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

For every 100 bland book reviews, you get a gem like this:

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Zhaorui Lü @zhaoruilu.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

Beating all my writing deadlines by more than a month while being one month behind on my reading at the same time #productiveprocrastination

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Jeff Wasserstrom @jwassers.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

This Friday at UCI in person & everywhere via live stream, Dean Baquet keynote on “Crisis in the Newsroom,” then response from a stellar panel moderated by @amywilentz.bsky.social & then a full day of in person events Saturday, details here sites.uci.edu/factsunderfi...

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Zhaorui Lü @zhaoruilu.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

this author used at least one em dash in almost every paragraph and routinely ramped up to 3 or 4... #pleaseno

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Zhaorui Lü @zhaoruilu.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

well my dissertation's main title includes both "gossip" and "detectives" and this short def captures that energy youtu.be/Idj4iQu0khw?...

youtu.be

this is what happens when you listen to too many true crime podcasts #collegelife #gossiptruecrime

YouTube video by College Life

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Zhaorui Lü @zhaoruilu.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

got my white american friend to watch 建党伟业 and this is his comment #makechinesepropagandagreatagain

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Deborah McDowell @dem8z.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

Birthright citizenship is on the lips and minds of many, given yesterday’s “executive order.” Recommend Martha Jones’s book to those seeking to inform themselves about the context of this concept.

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Zhaorui Lü @zhaoruilu.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

Struggling to network in Chinese (either via email or on wechat)... Writing a cold email in English is a piece of cake at this point but in Chinese?? Just don't have THAT set of vocabulary in me to not sound like a robot 🫠

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Zhaorui Lü @zhaoruilu.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

me feeling creative in my writing never ends well :(

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Zhaorui Lü @zhaoruilu.bsky.social · 04/01/2025

What better way to spend a Saturday afternoon in NYC than by learning about care labor in the early PRC? 🤓 @yiming.bsky.social #AHA25

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