In 2016, Trump shocked liberal Democrats. They should not have been shocked. It takes a certain level of ignorance and magic thinking to believe in their candidate at the time. Hilary Clinton, after all, is the spouse of a president whose trade policies were largely responsible for the closing of factories and deindustrialization of the nation Read More
林新惠的《零觸碰親密》是一部深入角色直至引發幽閉恐懼的作品。小說建構的世界令人讚歎不已,同時也是令人不寒而慄的思想實驗:如果有一天人工智能得以支配人類彼此的親密關係,會發生什麼?在一個身體接觸被明令禁止、人際關係被機械優化、自由意志近乎虛無的世界,個人的能動性將會發生什麼變化? Read More
Dafydd Fell’s recent academic monograph, Taiwan’s Green Parties: Alternative Politics in Taiwan, is not to be missed for those who are interested in or who study party politics in Taiwan. Drawing on close to a decade of research and observation, the book details the ebbs and flows, as well as the transformations, experienced by the Green Party in Taiwan since its founding. The book also focuses on the Social Democratic Party and Trees Party as Green Parties Read More
Cruisy, Sleepy, Melancholy: Sexual Disorientation in the Films of Tsai Ming-liang by Nicholas de Villiers is a strong entry in the English-language literature on one of Taiwan’s most distinguished contemporary filmmakers Read More
Hsin-Hui Lin's Contactless Intimacy is a claustrophobic character study, a dazzling exercise in worldbuilding, and a chilling thought experiment: what would happen if artificial intelligence gained the power to dictate human intimacy? In a world where physical contact is prohibited, relationships are optimized by machines, and free will is exposed as fiction, what might become of individual agency? Read More
New Bloom/No Man is an Island editor Brian Hioe spoke to writer Charles Yu about his recent book, Interior Chinatown, which recently won the National Book Award Read More
Kirsten Han’s The Singapore That I Recognise provides a glimpse of Singaporean civil society activism in recent years. The book stands out not only as a personal account of Han’s own journey as a journalist and activist, but also with regards to what it shows about Singapore today Read More
Heaven Does Not Block All Roads is an elucidating and well-written biography of Huang Chin-tao, a member of the resistance army Troop 27 and later dangwai activist. As such, Huang came to be known as Taiwan’s so-called “Eternal Warrior” before his passing in 2019 Read More
Among the Braves, by Shibani Mahtani and Timothy McLaughlin, is a gripping, powerful narrative of the events surrounding the 2019 Hong Kong protests Read More
劉紹華是一名醫療人類學學者,長年在中國與臺灣研究衛生管理。從2002年起,她在中國四川涼山以民族誌方式研究涼山彞族的愛滋、毒品與流動青年的現象,深入分析社會變遷與國家衛生政策的關係。劉紹華從她對愛滋病與麻風的研究而深知,疫病、污名歧視、人權以及政治的互相關聯。在2020年出版的書籍《疫病與社會的十個關鍵詞》裡,她從正在肆虐全球的COVID-19疫情切入,以多年積累的知識提醒讀者,這一波疫情所引發社會、人權及政治的困境與爭執,並非新穎之事,反而是歷史中反覆再現的問題。劉紹華舉各種例子描述在面對疫情的過程中,不可淡忘的歷史教訓。本書的特點在於,剖析國家所採取的、看似理所當然的政策,如「防疫大作戰」等口號標語或高舉前線醫療人員為「道德模範」,探討其未料的後果,以及其掩蓋社會基層問題的企圖。 Read More
Jonathan Lerner's Lily Narcissus is an elegiac novel, reflecting on a period of history long gone Read More
Agnes Chew's Eternal Summer of My Homeland, written about the author’s homeland of Singapore while living in Germany, is a capable collection of short stories. Consisting of eleven short stories, the collection is briskly paced given their length Read More