The week is getting colder. It’s time to put more blanket, hugging heated radiator. The readings keep exciting and interesting. The more we read, the more we curse ourselves, either out of animated thought or hopelessness of not knowing shits or unbearable frustration of knowing shits but forget them in a snap. The limits of our brain, my fellow readers, the limits of our capacity. And the wisdom coming out of our mouth is just some bullshits, the utterance to polish the unknown. But who can stop us to stay listen, stay read?

Cuaca makin dingin. Waktunya menambah tumpukan selimut, mendekap radiator penghangat. Bacaan-bacaan itu tetap menarik dan menyenangkan. Dan semakin kita membaca, semakin sering kita mengutuk diri sendiri. Entah karena apa. Mungkin karena pikiran-pikiran asyik dan seru, atau semacam putus asa karena ketidaktahuan, atau lebih karena frustrasi akut akibat sering melupakan hal-hal yang kita sudah tahu. Terbatas sekali otak ini, para pembaca sejawat. Kata-kata penuh bijak yang keluar dari mulut kita cuma omong kosong, bacotan untuk memoles ketidaktahuan. Tapi kita tidak berhenti mendengarkan, juga tidak berhenti membaca, kan?

Web Article

• Anna Goeddeke, Dr. Louisa Sönner, “Academia is based on merit – and women are just not good enough”
  Wesbite bagus banget, yang isinya kompilasi riset-riset tentang bias gender di akademia, khususnya di Amerika Serikat dan Eropa Barat. Ku pikir akan lebih baik juga kalau ada pembahasan mengenai women of color.
• Ernst Haeckel’s Jellyfish
  Short brief on Ernst Haeckel, more jellyfish pictures!
• “Yamazaki, Shoot Emperor Hirohito!” Okuzaki Kenzo’s Legal Action to Abolish Chapter One (The Emperor) of Japan’s Constitution
  A story of a man who tried to kill the Emperor.

Book and Journal Article

• Robert Cribb, “Circles of esteem, standard works, and Euphoric couplets,” Critical Asian Studies, Vol. 37, no.2 (2005): 289-304.
  Nice article from Cribb about Indonesian Studies as a field. A “depressingly true” article (I quoted my advisor) about the academic prestige of the field. I think we need an updated version of this kind of article besides Tagliocozzo’s Producing Indonesia aka we need more snarky (and tengil) writing.
• Roundtable Review Discussion: Empire of guns: the violent making of the Industrial Revolution by Priya Satia
  This is a well-put discussion. The book itself is about cultural and material histories of firearms in which Priya argues that Britain’s imperial expansion and gun trade centralized in Birmingham powered the Industrial Revolution.
  Tips: If you’re interested in a new book but have no time to read it yet, review and rountable discussion is extremely useful.