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stevejonesblog.bsky.social
https://stephenjones.blog/
@stevejonesblog.bsky.social
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Daoism—lives—language—performance. And jokes
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https://stephenjones.blog/ @stevejonesblog.bsky.social · Dec 31
Roundup for 2024: China, world music, modern Europe, West/Central Asia, jazz, Western Art Music, language and drôlerie, film, fiction, sport...
stephenjones.blog/2024/12/31/r...
stevejonesblog.bsky.social
For Holodomor Memorial Day
stephenjones.blog/2022/03/27/s...
Some posts on Ukraine
Here are some of the main posts in which I learn from the work of distinguished scholars on the troubled 20th-century history of Ukraine: Famine: Ukraine and China—Robert Conquest, Timothy Snyder, …
stephenjones.blog
November 23, 2025 at 8:39 AM
stevejonesblog.bsky.social
notably the GDR, on which I particularly admired Maxim Leo's Red Love
stephenjones.blog/2021/03/05/r...
November 22, 2025 at 9:20 AM
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Roundup of posts on life behind the Iron Curtain
stephenjones.blog/2019/11/10/l...
Life behind the Iron Curtain: a roundup
There’s been some fine media coverage to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Wall. So apart from my numerous posts under the Maoism tag, here’s a roundup of some of…
stephenjones.blog
November 22, 2025 at 9:11 AM
Reposted by https://stephenjones.blog/
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Links to my series on flamenco, one of the glories of European culture—based on the remarkable documentary series Rito y geografïa del cante, including cante jondo and palmas; gender, politics, wine, and deviance
stephenjones.blog/2019/06/21/f...
April 12, 2025 at 7:39 AM
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What is "serious" music?!
stephenjones.blog/what-is-seri...
What is serious music?!
Surely you can’t be serious —Airplane Here I’d like to explore two main themes: the demotion of “classical music”, and the flawed concept of “serious music”. Following on from the…
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November 15, 2025 at 12:27 PM
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The Li family Daoists: a misleading official name, and the Heritage shtick
stephenjones.blog/rectifying-n...
Rectifying names
On the state system’s distorted official packaging of local ritual traditions,and its misguided yet largely futile attempts to promote them. In Yanggao, as across a wide band of northwest Chi…
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November 12, 2025 at 9:04 AM
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Household Daoist ritual groups of Hunyuan county, Shanxi
stephenjones.blog/hunyuan-daoi...
Daoists of Hunyuan, Shanxi
The connection of the Yanggao Daoists with the temple Daoism of Hengshan may be spurious, but household Daoists in Hunyuan county-town at the foot of the mountain have their own traditions. Our vis…
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November 11, 2025 at 8:26 AM
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From my series of fieldnotes from the 1990s: village ritual associations of Xiongxian, Hebei
stephenjones.blog/xiongxian-ri...
Ritual groups of Xiongxian, Hebei
Through the 1990s, one of the most fruitful sites for our fieldwork project on the Hebei plain south of Beijing was the area around Xiongxian county, just south of Bazhou, and east of the regional …
stephenjones.blog
November 8, 2025 at 9:40 AM
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alisonkilling.bsky.social
Absolutely shocking that the Chinese govt pressured a UK university to shut down research about forced labour in Xinjiang and the links to global supply chains. The work of Laura Murphy and her team had been instrumental in getting Chinese companies sanctioned.

www.theguardian.com/education/20...
UK university halted human rights research after pressure from China
Exclusive: Leading professor at Sheffield Hallam was told to cease research on supply chains and forced labour in China after demands from authorities
www.theguardian.com
November 3, 2025 at 12:44 PM
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Today: annual köçek dancing with drum and shawm in Istanbul!
stephenjones.blog/2021/11/09/k...
Köçek in Kuzguncuk!
A fanfare in advance of the anniversary of Atatürk’s death on 10th November Just back home after an ecstatic week in Istanbul—first time I’ve needed my passport since visiting Li Manshan in 2…
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October 29, 2025 at 9:20 AM
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The qin zither under Maoism: five vignettes
stephenjones.blog/2021/12/21/q...
The qin zither under Maoism: five vignettes
This is how I opened my series on the qin zither scene in Beijing under Maoism: I’m still seeking in vain to atone for my reservations about the dominance of the elite qin zither in Chinese music s…
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October 26, 2025 at 11:24 AM
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Three baldies and a mouth-organ: roundup of posts on the ritual/music of Beijing temples and village associations
stephenjones.blog/2018/04/25/b...
Three baldies and a mouth-organ
*UPDATED with links to posts on the Zhihua temple and related topics!* Early in 1986, only a couple of days after my first arrival in Beijing, hearing the former monks of the Zhihua temple 智化寺 on a…
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October 23, 2025 at 4:23 PM
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Collected posts on folk cultures of Europe
stephenjones.blog/2024/07/14/f...
complementing regional surveys on east Europe, Italy, Portugal, flamenco, Irish folk, and so on
Folk cultures of Europe
A major theme of this site is the rich variety of regional folk expressive cultures, in China and around the world. Quite by chance, the compelling drama of Euro 24 has provided me with a wacky per…
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October 16, 2025 at 1:46 PM
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A fabulously eclectic playlist of songs
stephenjones.blog/2018/09/02/w...
A playlist of songs
Apart from the mainly-Chinese playlist in the sidebar (commentary here), below are some links to an eclectic selection of All-time Great Songs* on this blog. Besides the songs, the posts are worth …
stephenjones.blog
October 12, 2025 at 8:54 AM
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Part of my Mahler series!
stephenjones.blog/2022/09/06/m...
October 9, 2025 at 9:31 AM
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My current earworm: the 2nd movement of Mahler 5
stephenjones.blog/2019/12/04/m...
October 9, 2025 at 9:29 AM
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An online archive of Armenian culture on the eve of the 1915 genocide
stephenjones.blog/2025/10/02/a...
An Armenian archive
A recent talk at the Orient-Institut in Istanbul, when Ara Dinkjian (son of the great Onnik) and Vahé Tachjian introduced early recordings of Armenian classics, led me to the impressive website Hou…
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October 2, 2025 at 10:09 AM
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Serendipitous courtesy
stephenjones.blog/2025/09/29/s...
Serendipitous courtesy
In our modern world, the flight booking reference consists of a seemingly random combo of six letters and numbers, so on booking my recent flights for Istanbul I was impressed to find the last thre…
stephenjones.blog
September 30, 2025 at 2:44 PM
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As well as this sketch of Shan Fuyi, another main source for our material on the early and modern history of Gaoluo
stephenjones.blog/2019/09/25/v...
September 24, 2025 at 12:20 PM
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A village elder, before and after Liberation
stephenjones.blog/2019/07/11/v...
Part of my series on the modern history of Gaoluo
September 23, 2025 at 9:09 AM
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A new collection of essays on rebetika
stephenjones.blog/2025/09/21/n...
A new rebetika volume
After my dabblings with Songs of Asia Minor, Road to rebetika, and Folk traditions of Greece, I’m browsing the new volume The SOAS rebetiko reader: a selection of papers associated with the H…
stephenjones.blog
September 21, 2025 at 9:38 AM
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In memory of the great ethnomusicologist David Hughes
stephenjones.blog/2025/09/16/i...
September 16, 2025 at 8:35 AM
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Recopying the Li family Daoist ritual manuals
stephenjones.blog/2018/12/31/r...
September 14, 2025 at 8:13 AM
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Li Qing’s Daoist uncle Li Peisen had already anticipated the ravages of Maoist campaigns by moving to the safety of his wife’s natal village, preserving the family ritual manuals—as explained in this post on Women of Yanggao
stephenjones.blog/2017/06/13/w...
September 14, 2025 at 8:07 AM
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Nuances of Maoist society: the great Daoist Li Qing takes refuge from the famine by joining a state Arts Work Troupe
stephenjones.blog/2019/01/19/d...
A Daoist serves a state troupe
My post on the folk–conservatoire gulf reminds me of the brief sojourn of the great household Daoist Li Qing in the grimy coal city of Datong as a state-employed musician. Indeed throughout China, …
stephenjones.blog
September 14, 2025 at 7:42 AM