Social studies

HONG KONG — These are bad times to be a Big V in China. Big V, for verified account, is the widely used moniker for the most influential commentators on China’s growing microblog sites — online celebrities whose millions of fans read, discuss and spread their outpouring of news and opinions, plenty of which chastise or ridicule officials. And the Communist Party has turned against them in the most zealous crackdown on the Internet in years. Worried about its hold on public opinion, the Chinese government has pursued a propaganda and police offensive against what it calls malicious rumor-mongering online. Police forces across the country have announced the detentions of hundreds of microblog users since last month on charges of concocting and spreading false claims, often politically damaging. For weeks, a torrent of commentaries in the state-run news media have warned popular opinion makers on China’s biggest microblog site, Sina’s Weibo service, to watch their words. One of the … [Read more...] about Crackdown on Bloggers Is Mounted by China

BEIJING — First, the police took away the think tank’s former graphic designer, then the young man who organized seminars, and eventually its founder. Another employee fled China ’s capital, fearing he would be forced to testify against his colleagues in rigged trials. “The anxiety is overwhelming, not knowing if they are coming for you,” said the employee, Yang Zili, a researcher at the Transition Institute of Social and Economic Research in Beijing, who has been in hiding since November. “It’s frightening because as they disappear, one friend after another, the police are not following any law. They just do as they please.” These are perilous days for independent civic groups in China, especially those that take on politically contentious causes like workers’ rights, legal advocacy and discrimination against people with AIDS. Such groups have long struggled to survive inside China’s ill-defined, shifting margins of official tolerance, but they have served as havens for socially … [Read more...] about In China, Civic Groups’ Freedom, and Followers, Are Vanishing

When the fashion designer Han Chong, 43, was growing up on the Malaysian island of Penang in the 1980s, he always looked forward to the 15 days of festivities, beginning in January or February, that signaled the start of the lunar calendar. “Those are some of my happiest memories,” he said recently, recalling how his extended family would congregate in and around his father’s store in George Town — which sold Chinese delicacies like lap cheong (cured sausage) and dried pork jerky — to gossip, cook, eat, exchange lai see (red envelopes containing money) and watch the local lion-dance troupes perform. Seeing his mother and aunts wearing their finest clothes for the occasion also piqued Chong’s interest in fashion. “I loved watching them put so much effort into dressing up,” he said. At 23, Chong moved to London to study women’s wear at Central Saint Martins; after graduating, he went on to co-found his first label, Three Floor, with Yvonne Hoang, in 2011, before leaving to launch his … [Read more...] about A Fashion Designer’s Lunar New Year Feast

When Susan Henshaw Jones became director of the Museum of the City of New York in 2003, the way forward was as complicated as a Greenwich Village street map. The institution, on Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street, was running deficits; in the winters, visitors to its 1932 building were advised to keep their coats on; the programming was widely perceived as stodgy. “We were effectively broke,” said James G. Dinan, the museum’s chairman. Ms. Jones, he said, “saved the institution.” Now, as a 10-year renovation and restoration nears completion, and after getting the museum back on solid financial ground, Ms. Jones, 67, has decided to step down in December. “This place is in good shape for the next gal or guy,” she said in an interview at the museum. Some of the goals set by Ms. Jones will remain unrealized in her tenure. She had initially hoped to build annual attendance to 500,000 from 82,000 when she started; it has reached only 250,000. Museum officials say progress was … [Read more...] about Susan Henshaw Jones to Leave Museum of the City of New York

Stanley Hoffmann, a French-educated political scientist and foreign-affairs analyst who perceptively interpreted France and the United States to each other, and who, in a series of influential books, explored the forces that govern the relations between states, died over the weekend at his home in Cambridge, Mass. He was 86. His death was confirmed by his wife and only immediate survivor, Inge Schneier Hoffmann, who said he died in his sleep either late Saturday or early Sunday. Mr. Hoffmann, who taught at Harvard for more than half a century, roamed freely across the disciplines of history, international law, sociology and political science to address pressing issues in international relations and foreign policy, particularly the relations between France and the United States, the nations he knew best. Writing in French and English, he brought a passionate engagement to questions that grew out of his early experiences in the Europe of the 1930s and ’40s. “It wasn’t I who … [Read more...] about Stanley Hoffmann, Who Brought Passion to Foreign Policy Analysis, Dies at 86

0 Schools See the latest announcement from Dallas College. Press Release Desk , News Partner Posted | Updated Reply Press release from Dallas College: January 12,2023 (DALLAS) — The Research Institute at Dallas College is partnering with the University of Texas at Dallas' Texas Schools Project (TSP) to conduct research on students' education-to-workforce pathways and how institutions can best support equitable, high returns on investment in a college education. Dr. David Mahan Capitalizing on the expertise of both groups, the partnership leverages the Research Institute's unique position within Texas' largest community college and extensive data held by the TSP. Founded in 2021, within Dallas College's Student Success Division, the Research Institute gives voice to the postsecondary education needs of the Dallas College community and North Texas. The institute helps evaluate access to education, … [Read more...] about Dallas College: Research Institute At Dallas College Partners With UT Dallas’ Texas Schools Project Research Center