Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

aohsu @aohsusometimesy.bsky.social · 4m

The author of "Ninety-Five Theses," "Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants," and "On the Jews and Their Lies" does not think of himself as a book guy. Pre-postliterate, deffo a poaster.

Luther's later views on his writings
Luther was proud of his On the Bondage of the Will, so much so that in a letter to Wolfgang Capito written on 9 July 1537, he said:

Regarding [the plan] to collect my writings in volumes, I am quite cool and not at all eager about it because, roused by a Saturnian hunger, I would rather see them all devoured. For I acknowledge none of them to be really a book of mine, except perhaps the one On the Bound Will and the Catechism.

aohsu @aohsusometimesy.bsky.social · 12m

Reading Rabelais -- a contemporary of Luther -- I realize I don't know the names of any of Luther's books. Did he write books? Or did he just post a lot? His bibliography makes him seem like more of a blogger, or even a substack guy.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_...

Martin Luther bibliography - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

1 1

aohsu @aohsusometimesy.bsky.social · 1h

"multigenerational familial novel" where multi = 4 or more
_Buddenbrooks_ (1901)
_Cien años de soledad_ (1967)
_Homegoing_ (2016)
_Salt Houses_ (2017)

aohsu @aohsusometimesy.bsky.social · 5h

Does _Pachinko_ (2017) belong in a tradition of Japanese or Korean realism? Or, more in the English
tradition of thinking through global histories of inequality _with_ Dickens (_Demon Copperhead_ [2022], _The Fraud_ [2023])?

aohsu @aohsusometimesy.bsky.social · 1h

"if you don't mind the Orientalism"

3

aohsu @aohsusometimesy.bsky.social · 4h

One hamberder after another

aohsu @aohsusometimesy.bsky.social · 4h

I wonder how Japanese antiracism activists draw on legacies of anticasteism. A lot of consciousness-raising could take place along the lines of "brahminical patriarchy" or "graded inequality.' Colonialism + snobbery + classism + sex and purity rules. Is Jp. racism uniquely itself, or like others?

aohsu @aohsusometimesy.bsky.social · 4h

Whoa! It's just like the Japan portrayed in the book!

www.theguardian.com/world/2022/a...

‘A difficult time’: why popular TV series Pachinko was met with silence in Japan

Experiences of zainichi, brought over as labourers, highlights bitter historical legacy between South Korea and Japan that still lingers

www.theguardian.com

1 1

aohsu @aohsusometimesy.bsky.social · 5h

It's clear that the male characters in the Baek line are to be read as "Old Testament" patriarchs (Samuel, Joseph, Isaac, Noah, Moses, Solomon): diaspora epic in the desert! Halfway through the book, Noa reads _Daniel Deronda_ in class: now the Koreans in postwar Japan are Jews in Victorian England!

2

aohsu @aohsusometimesy.bsky.social · 5h

Also a very silly quibble you'd see on Yelp! or Goodreads: there's very little description of pachinko the game. We the Japanese cop play the game once. And parlor operators talk about tinkering with the machines, or are shown dealing with personnel issues. But not much on the game itself.

1 1

aohsu @aohsusometimesy.bsky.social · 5h

Also that it comes pretty close to a reflexive anti-Japanese sentiment that seems familiar to me from my own familial background: Japan's is a brutal casteist, colonial culture, not worth saving or engaging in. Maybe worth gawking at and condemning. The most humane Japanese characters are punished.

2 1

aohsu @aohsusometimesy.bsky.social · 5h

I haven't seen the TV show but I think it's pretty interesting that it writes "Phoebe" -- a kind of stand-in for the Americanized Asian-American -- out.

1 1

aohsu @aohsusometimesy.bsky.social · 5h

Common to these (and other) Indian English novels, _Pachinko_ also wants to make its characters Suffer, at the hands of History. Less Dickens and Eliot than Gissing or Hardy.

1 1

aohsu @aohsusometimesy.bsky.social · 5h

Does _Pachinko_ (2017) belong in a tradition of Japanese or Korean realism? Or, more in the English
tradition of thinking through global histories of inequality _with_ Dickens (_Demon Copperhead_ [2022], _The Fraud_ [2023])?

1 1

aohsu @aohsusometimesy.bsky.social · 5h

Ends on yet another Dickens allusion. I'm super curious about what it means that _Pachinko_ (2017) was conceived and written in _English_, not "found in translation." It makes the book more generically similar to Indian English novels of the 1990s (_Suitable Boy_ [1993], _Fine Balance_ [1995]).

aohsu @aohsusometimesy.bsky.social · 1d

The book seems like it could have been thinking about adaptation to Hollywood Prestige TV format — but I can see the references to Eliot, Dickens, and Sopranos, and would be missing any k- or j-drama references!

1 1

Reposted by aohsu

aohsu @aohsusometimesy.bsky.social · 1d

“All those who love learning agree that words are superfluous when the facts are obvious to everyone. Words are necessary only when the things we discuss don’t clearly reveal themselves.”

1 1

aohsu @aohsusometimesy.bsky.social · 6h

One great way to support our President is to pronounce anything with “anti-“ prefixes like we do “an’tīfa.” If you’re fighting a virus, talk about how your “an’tībos” are doing. Allergy meds = “an’tīhisses.” Poisoned? Get your “an’tīdos.”

5

aohsu @aohsusometimesy.bsky.social · 7h

Feuding farting giants? Zainichi underworld? Not really. It’s all just fun and games!

aohsu @aohsusometimesy.bsky.social · 7h

I finished them both last night. Similarities: both written by lawyers, both working from one end of a “naturalist” tradition, both are explicitly allegories for ball games, ie, “actually about” tennis and pinball respectively

aohsu @aohsusometimesy.bsky.social · 1d

Pantagruel and Pachinko!

1 1

Reposted by aohsu

Cold🪦Sam @pdfmerchant.bsky.social · 5d

some of you are quite bad at camouflage and it shows

3 8 57

aohsu @aohsusometimesy.bsky.social · 22h

Blocking you and encouraging others to do the same. Same strategy as the orange guy, make stuff and act cute about it, farm outrage for clicks.

aohsu @aohsusometimesy.bsky.social · 1d

Pantagruel seems like it’s referencing Law & Order. Lots of court cases resolved through sustained legal reasoning.

1

aohsu @aohsusometimesy.bsky.social · 1d

The book seems like it could have been thinking about adaptation to Hollywood Prestige TV format — but I can see the references to Eliot, Dickens, and Sopranos, and would be missing any k- or j-drama references!

1 2

aohsu @aohsusometimesy.bsky.social · 1d

“All those who love learning agree that words are superfluous when the facts are obvious to everyone. Words are necessary only when the things we discuss don’t clearly reveal themselves.”

1 1

Reposted by aohsu

The Little Red Podcast @littleredpodcast.bsky.social · 5d

... by Feng Qu, an archaeologist from Nanjing Normal University and Mayfair Yang, a cultural anthropologist from UC Santa Barbara.

Listen to the full episode: omny.fm/shows/the-li...

Wolf Spirits and Wild Shamans: The Revival of Spirit Mediums - The Little Red Podcast

In the latest episode in our series on belief, we’re exploring the surprising revival of shamanism in China, which has made a comeback despite Mao's best efforts at eradication. Ritual healers and spi...

omny.fm

1 4

Reposted by aohsu

Dave Moore @otherdavemoore.com · 1d

I am further down the modal melody rabbit hole and have not yet found a Taylor Swift song you could not play using only the white notes. One is in Mixolydian D: (this is not that weird, just a flat seventh in a major scale -- but she rarely sings those, except in this song where she ONLY sings them)

2 2 15