It is an understatement to say that darkness is falling upon us these days. For those who dare to see and experience it, there are simply too many places to begin, and there is no time to waste. However, it is unclear what these obscure shades of darkness really mean when they constitute both the foreground and the background. Incidentally but not so incidentally, my recent publications that came out respectively in these three anthologies touch on some of the issues: capitalism, settler colonialism, surveillance, media technologies, misinformation, China and so on. Meanwhile, I’m writing a new piece on insomnia and the world after dark in a different context. I’m glad to say that I do feel that there is a glimmer of light, even if it exists only inside my intellectual bubble.

But there are a lot more to these volumes too. The last one, in zine style, is particularly fascinating from the design point of view.

“Where There Is No Room For Fiction: Urban Demolition and the Politics of Looking in Postsocialist China,” in Capitalism and the Camera, Kevin Colman and Daniel James, eds. New York: Verso books, 2021, 209-225 (with 4 additional color plates).

“The People’s Algorithms: Social Credits and the Rise of China’s Big (Br)other,” in The New Politics of Numbers: Utopia, Evidence and Democracy, Andrea Mennicken and Robert Salais, eds. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021, 71-95.

“As Media Moves People: Notes on the History of (Mis)information,” in (Re)rites of Passage: Asian Canada in Motion, Jasmine Gui, V.T. Nayani, Khanh Tudo, Aaditya Aggarwal, and Philbert Lui, eds. Toronto: Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival, 2021, 88-95.