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comment by Herunar
Herunar  ·  2917 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: April 23rd: What are you reading this week?

Three-Body Problem was a fantastic read, but I'm a bit biased as I'm quite fond of Chinese novels in general.

I am currently reading The New Jim Crow, which is terrifying but brilliant and I'm trudging through an assortment of historical works on Xinjiang and Kashmir for my dissertation, namely Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland and Demystifying Kashmir, which are both excellent.





asteroidblues  ·  2914 days ago  ·  link  ·  

The New Jim Crow is such an awesome read. It structurally blasts the myth that there is no injustice being done, and paints are a really scary picture of what is happening and on what scale it will happen in the future if we dont do anything.

iammyownrushmore  ·  2916 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I have more than a passing interest in Xinjiang and Uyghurs, so if you ever want to post anything or just share a deeper level of info/news, please do. It's not the easiest place to get ahold of news about, especially if I'm not readily keeping up. Which I'm not :/

I think I see the tie between Kashmir and Xinjiang that it seems like you may be making if you're studying both, but I'd rather hear about from you, it sounds interesting.

Herunar  ·  2915 days ago  ·  link  ·  

It is a fascinating place! I don't know as much as I'd like on the subject as I've only really just begun digging into it but I can make a couple recommendations as to reading material and the like, if you're interested! It is pretty difficult to get info on what is currently happening in the area but there's a decent amount of material available on the 50s to the 80s (and the pre-CCP era).

As to my dissertation, it is pretty embryonic at the moment but I'm comparing Indian and Chinese minority policies in the 50s and 60s, particularly in Xinjiang and Kashmir. They're both predominantly Muslim, exceptionally important to the idea of the Chinese and Indian nation-states, and basically represented the 'frontier' to both central governments. And I guess I'm just interested in comparing the two modern countries in general, as they're actually a bit more similar than people generally suspect.