All Communication Is Translation

Our fall semester started last week. What did I do this summer? Among other things, I gave a few Zoom lectures to students of journalism and communication in the cities of Jinan, Guangzhou, and Changchun. All the lectures were in Chinese except one. The one in English was entitled "All Communication Is Translation." I don't know who did it, but the lecture is now available on bilibili. If you think bilibili is a platform for commercial influencers, you will be surprised (as I am) to find many academic lectures there and even more surprised to see that the popular lectures easily get tens of thousands of views (not mine, though).

Talks and resources about my new book The Wuhan Lockdown

Very excited to share that The Wuhan Lockdown will be officially released on Feb 15, 2022. Please enter promo code CUP20 for 20% discount on the Columbia University Press website. I will use this space to list book talks and other information/resources related to The Wuhan Lockdown.

Excerpts, Interviews, Reviews, and Commentaries

January 23, 2023. "Covid's legacy: how will China remember the pandemic?" Chinese Whispers (podcast hosted by Cindy Yu of The Spectator).  

December 2022. The Wuhan Lockdown reviewed by Michael Sheringham in Asian Affairs. See: Michael Sheringham (2022) The Wuhan Lockdown, Asian Affairs, DOI:10.1080/03068374.2022.2151278 

November 2022. The Wuhan Lockdown reviewed in Choice, Nov 2022 vol. 60, no. 3.

November 2022. The Wuhan Lockdown selected as Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2022 and The Top 75 Community College Titles, November 2022 Edition.

August 1, 2022, "Pandemic Diaries Under the Lens," book review in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

June 14, 2022. "Frontline Voices from the Pandemic's Early Days" (an excerpt from The Wuhan Lockdown). Penn Today.

May 11, 2022. Review of The Wuhan Lockdown. The Lancet Respiratory Medicine.

May 9, 2022. Read an exclusive excerpt from Chapter 1 of The Wuhan Lockdown, HarperCollins India.

April 29, 2022. "Shanghai's Lockdown: A ChinaFile Conversation" includes my short commentary.

April 6, 2022. Karen Brooks, "Locked Down and Opening Up." Omnia, University of Pennsylvania.

October 30, 2021, Starred review in Kirkus Reviews.

Feb 9, 2022, "Viral Stories: On Guobin Yang's The Wuhan Lockdown," by Yangyang Cheng, in Los Angeles Review of Books.

Feb. 13, 2022, The Page 99 Test applied to The Wuhan Lockdown.

March 4, 2022, Undark Magazine publishes an excerpt from the book - the story about a delivery driver.

Sept. 24, 2020, "In China, Pandemic Diaries Unite, and Divide, a Nation." Social Science Research Council, Items. 

Feb. 3, 2020. "The Digital Radicals of Wuhan." Center on Digital Culture and Society, University of Pennsylvania. 

Book Talks

Below is a list of my book talks. I will update the list from time to time. All the time listed is Eastern Standard Time unless otherwise noted. If past talks have video or audio recordings available, you will see links to them.

Jan. 6, 2022, 8:30-10pm "The Wuhan Lockdown with Guobin Yang." Zhengfawei Clubhouse Event with Neysun Mahboubi, Mary Gallagher, Maggie Lewis, Sida Liu, Victor Shih, and Alex Wang. Audio recording available here.

Jan. 20, 2022, 8pm. "Re-enacting the Wuhan Lockdown: Characters, Scenes, and Other Narrative Strategies." Department of Communications and New Media, National University of Singapore

Moderator: Weiyu Zhang

Discussants: Jack Qiu, Chen Gang, Zou Dongxin

YouTube video here.

Jan. 31, 2022, 6pm. Institute for Public Knowledge, NYU

Discussants: Eric Klinenberg, Lily Chumley, Ian Johnson. Event video available via Twitter here and on YouTube video here.

Feb. 11, 2022, 9am. "The Wuhan Lockdown." China Center for Social Policy, Columbia University

Moderator: Qin Gao

YouTube video here.

Feb. 16, 2022, 12:30pm. "Listening to the Wuhan Lockdown." Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University.

Moderator/Discussant: Nara Dillon

YouTube video here.

Feb. 24, 2022, 5pm EST. "Social Media and Social History during the Wuhan Lockdown." Long US-China Institute Distinguished Lecture, UC-Irvine.

YouTube video here.

Feb. 26, 2022, 6-7:15pm EST. Panel on COVID-19, Global China in an Anxious Age, organized by Jeffrey Wasserstrom, UC-Irvine [this is not a book talk, but I'll draw on my book in this panel discussion about COVID-19]

March 14, 2022, 5pm GMT. "Echoes of the Past in the Wuhan Lockdown." SOAS China Institute, University of London.

YouTube video here.

March 23, 2022, 10:30am-12pm, "Social Media and Civic Engagement during the Wuhan Lockdown." ChinaTalks lecture, University of Copenhagen.

April 1, 2022, "The Wuhan Lockdown and the Limits of Critique." Coughlin Endowed Lecture, East Asia Center, University of Virginia.

YouTube video here.

May 10, 2022, 7:30am EDT, "'An Absolutely Ordinary Person': Stories from the Wuhan Lockdown." Manchester China Institute.

Segment on "The Emotional Impact of Lockdown Diaries."

Segment on "Celebrating Ordinary People."

Full video (45 minutes) here.

北京时间2022年5月21日早晨9-10点， 哥大全球中心“追光”主题研讨《武汉封城》

观看视频，请点击这里

5-minute highlights with English subtitles.

 

September 28, 2022, 12-1:30pm Hawaii time (6-7:30pm ET). Conversations on The Wuhan Lockdown. Center for Chinese Studies, University of Hawaii.

YouTube video here. 

 

October 11, 2022, 12-1pm. On The Wuhan Lockdown, or How to Reassemble a Global Pandemic. Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan.

October 28, 2022. "How to Study a Pandemic While Living It: Narrative Inquiry and The Wuhan Lockdown." School of Communication, Hong Kong Baptist University. "Distinguished Research Seminar Series."

YouTube video here.

November 23, 2022, 10am. "Narrative Inquiry and The Wuhan Lockdown." Kyungpook National University, South Korea.

 

February 16, 2023. "The Wuhan Lockdown." 21st Century China Center, School of Global Policy and Strategy, UC San Diego.

 

March 24, 2023. "New Forms of Digital Activism in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic." Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Concordia University. 

 

December 4, 2023, 7pm ET on Zoom:

February 20, 2024: "To Have Theory in a Pandemic, or Not to? Pandemic Storytelling and the Wuhan Lockdown." East Asian Studies Program, Princeton University.

***

(Columbia University Press)

(HarperCollins India edition)