Fen Qing and Obama

Here are two articles that stood out in my mind over the past couple of months:

The first is an article that first appeared over the summer in the New Yorker that deals with a documentary posted on Youtube defending Chinese nationalistic pride. What interested me was reading about two students at Fudan University - one who was studying Heidegger and Husserl, and who is the maker of the documentary, and another student who had recently translated into Chinese a lecture given by Harvard political theory professor Harvey Mansfield on the topic of "Manliness". I've been trying to get in contact with these students but so far no luck.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/28/080728fa_fact_osnos

The second is a solid, 8 page aria on what Obama represents that appeared in the NY Review of Books in February. The text was delivered in a lecture back in December. It was written by Zadie Smith, best known for her book White Teeth and more recently On Beauty. The narrative flow of the piece is superb. Smith ties in Bernard Shaw, L'il Wayne, Maucaulay among others to express how Obama represents a multiplicity of voices yet also a singular one.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22334


No real concrete idea presented in this post but wanted to share two articles I've been reading and re-reading. I'll probably do this from time to time.