Guobin Yang's Blog

As I prepare a talk on AI in which I will use a few quotes from my translation of Wenxin Diaolong, or  Dragon-Carving and the Literary Mind  (also see here ), I realize that I can no longer find the book's original cover image online. I like this cover, so I thought I'd archive it here:  

In this update, I'm happy to share an  article  just published in China Information . An earlier version of it was presented in several talks, one of which was at UBC Green College . This talk contains one of my key arguments, which is the central role of anecdotes in digital storytelling , a tradition that goes all the way back to early Chinese historical and philosophical traditions. Modernity is associated with a scorn for "anecdotal evidence," but in early Chinese philosophical and historical writing ,  the anecdote was the preferred mode of discourse, not because early Chinese thinkers did not care about general principles, but because they always try to see the general (or universal) from concrete historical experiences (such as captured in anecdotes). See  Chun-chieh Huang , “The Defining Character of Chinese Historical Thinking” (2007).   

A few articles I wrote in the past couple of years are coming out in several different volumes in the next few months. I will mention two in this update. First, in less than a month, Routledge will release the volume  East Asian Media Culture in the Age of Digital Platforms: Narratives, Industries, and Audiences  edited by  Dal Yong Jin and Kyong Yoon . My contribution, entitled " Narratives as Platforms ," argues that stories can serve as platforms just like social media (and we ought to turn to stories more). In October, Bristol University Press will publish the volume The Digitalisation of Memory Practices in China: Contesting the Curating State  edited by Maximilian Mayer and Frederik Schmitz . My chapter  “ How Do Netizens Remember: Digital Memory Work in the History of the Chinese Internet ” examines several forms of digital memory work, from the future-oriented curatorial practices in the 1990s and early 2000s to the backward-looking nostalgi...

1. " Two Maoisms ," published in Los Angeles Review of Books (June 7, 2025),  is my review of two new books,  Bombard the Headquarters! The Cultural Revolution in China by Linda Jaivin and How Maoism Was Made: Reconstructing China, 1949–1965 edited by Aaron William Moore and Jennifer Altehenger. Since I'm lingering on LARB, I'd like to re-up Yangyang Cheng 's wonderful review essay about my Wuhan book  " Viral Stories: On Guobin Yang’s 'The Wuhan Lockdown ,'” published on February 9, 2022. 2. 《国际新闻界》( Chinese Journal of Journalism & Communication ) published a special section on Chinese internet histories in its issue No. 4, 2025. My introduction to the special section, entitled "Ordinary Life in the Study of Internet Histories," highlights, well, the importance of studying ordinary life. 3. I can't help sharing this interesting AI generated trailer on Xiaohongshu (RedNote) created by HSS Online about my article on the contemp...

Can't believe I haven't updated this blog for almost three years! Here are a few updates about recent publications, in reverse chronological order: 1. The May 2025 issue of Foreign Literature (外国文学) just published a special section in commemoration of Professor Wang Zuoliang (王佐良), who passed away 30 years ago in 1995. I contributed an article on Professor Wang's views about how to develop a Chinese paradigm of writing foreign literary histories. My piece discusses how Prof. Wang's work speaks to contemporary academic scholarship in both the humanities and the social sciences. If you don't read Chinese, you will find that the online platform where the journal is published has instant AI translation of Chinese texts into English. It's amazing, and certainly very convenient. The multilingual platform is called HSS Online and was launched last year by Foreign Language & Teaching Press in Beijing.  2. I'm extremely pleased to have an interview about Chin...

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).

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 Th...