There seems to be a continuum between Fernando Pessoa’s metadrama of heteronyms and his strict-sense plays, but this is more hypothesis than theory, because Pessoa’s dramas—notwithstanding the editions of Teatro Estático (2017) and Fausto (2018)—are still largely unknown. Written between 1903–1908, the tragedy of Marino is the earliest of Pessoa’…[Read more]

Review of The Bloomsbury Handbook of Popular Music Video Analysis.

A number of recent music videos by women subvert the male gaze (Mulvey) through a number of techniques I construe as “resistance gazes.” These videos subvert the hypersexualization, infantilization, objectification, and victimi- zation regularly seen in music videos using imagery that resonates with broader cultural movements such as #metoo and #timesup.

Tsao, Hung-ping 曹 恆 平 (2021). Evolutionary Mathematics and Art for Bilingual Poems. In: “Evolutionary Progress in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM)”, Wang, Lawrence K. 王 抗 曝 and Tsao, Hung-ping 曹 恆 平 (editors). Volume 3, Number 3, March 2021; 43 pages. Lenox Institute Press, Newtonville, NY, 12128-0405, USA.…[Read more]

Industrial mining on the Central African Copperbelt attracted substantial, if transient, white populations from the outset, though these communities have been treated separately. Many thousands of white traders, prospectors, mineworkers, engineers, general itinerants and would-be settlers were attracted by the copper boom and often spent time…[Read more]

This article examines the changing forms of African agency in the context of contestations over natural resource governance with the European Union. The authors argue that EU policy is motivated by material self-interest but that it has not been able to successfully implement these policies. The way these policies have been challenged by African…[Read more]

In this chapter, I make two interconnected observations. I first consider how musicals inhabit and promote a ‘post-truth’ worldview similar to those reflected in current populist resurgences throughout the West. I argue that it is musical theater’s penchant for the unreal that in recent decades has given it traction within both secular,…[Read more]

The traditional configuration of content on top and comments on the bottom on most websites often dismiss comments as of secondary importance to content. This article looks at how comment culture(s) in China operate outside of the top-bottom dichotomy where comments are increasingly supplanting content as the main form of consumable media. Through…[Read more]

This project explores the recent censorship of two Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots on Tencent’s popular WeChat messaging platform. Specifically, I am advancing a technographic approach in ways that give agency to bots as not just computing units but as interlocutors and informants. I seek to understand these chatbots through their i…[Read more]

The project ‘The Sculptor Speaks’ takes its source from a 1961 tape by British sculptor Barbara Hepworth. Unearthed at the British Library, the tape’s initial purpose was for a pre-recorded talk with slides for the British Council. Every recording is a priori an archival object, which can potentially resound anew through a contemporary carrier, p…[Read more]

This paper is part of a larger research project that attempts to apply historical social network
analysis to the study of Chinese Buddhist history. The underlying research questions are
whether social network analysis (SNA) metrics can be gainfully applied to Buddhist history,
and whether network visualizations can enable us to better…[Read more]