Category Archive: Non-fiction

New Book Announcement: “Artificial Intelligence in Our Language Learning Classrooms”, edited by Louise Ohashi, Mary Hillis & Robert Dykes

Artificial Intelligence in Our Language Learning Classrooms, Louise Ohashi, Mary Hillis, Robert Dykes (eds) (Candlin & Mynard, November 2025)

Artificial Intelligence in Our Language Learning Classrooms brings together leading researchers and practitioners exploring the pedagogical, ethical, and emotional dimensions of generative AI (GenAI) in second language (L2) education. Across two major sections (L2 skill development and broader educational perspectives), contributors offer theory-informed and practice-oriented insights into how GenAI can transform language teaching and learning. Topics include conversational AI and chatbots, writing development, extensive reading, pragmatics instruction, ethics, emotions, and teacher-led inquiry. Through a balance of optimism and critical reflection, this volume situates AI integration within established educational frameworks, supporting teachers as they navigate the rapidly evolving technological landscape.

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A Female Embroiderer in the Qing Court: excerpt from “Women of Chinese Modern Art” by Doris Sung

In its 1911 inaugural issue, the Women’s Eastern Times (Funü shibao) printed a composite photograph of embroiderer Shen Shou (1874–1921) together with her work—an embroidered portrait of the Italian queen Elena of Montenegro (1871–1952). A caption slip pasted onto the embroidery states: “Commendation from the Empress Dowager to bestow [upon her] the  character ‘Shou’ [longevity] by imperial decree / [This is an] embroidery work by Yu-Shen Shou, the imperially appointed principal instructor of the Embroidery Program for Women at the Ministry of agriculture, Industry and Commerce”.

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Excerpt from “Divergent Worlds: What the Ancient Mediterranean and Indian Ocean Can Tell Us About the Future of International Order” by Amitav Acharya & Manjeet S Pardesi

A dynamic and interactionist multiplex order existed in the classical eastern Indian Ocean corresponding with modern Southeast Asia (~1st—15th centuries CE). This regional order was not the product of superior Chinese imperial/material power, or some essentialist version of the tributary system. Nor did Indic ideas spread “naturally” into an ideational vacuum in Southeast Asia. This order was in fact an outcome of Southeast Asia’s active agency in fostering connectivity with Chinese and Indian polities, and the consequent material and ideational interactions that ensued. The multiplex order in the eastern Indian Ocean was a highly robust and resilient order that lasted for centuries even in the absence of a grand design. It did not depend exclusively on any single polity, not even imperial China.

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Excerpt from “Raiders, Rulers, and Traders: The Horse and the Rise of Empires” by David Chaffetz

No animal has had as profound an impact on human history as the horse. The journey begins in prehistory, with a small, shy animal that humans hunted for food. Hunters domesticated the horse in order to ensure a supply of meat and, later, mare’s milk, which is more nutritious than cow’s milk. This was a watershed event for both species, transforming the horse from an animal fleeing at a gallop from the mere smell of humans into the most valuable of their livestock. The horse’s need to roam far and wide for pasture prompted the horse herders to spread out across the Eurasian steppe. Then herders learned to ride horses in order to keep up with their far-flung herds; this changed the course of history.

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Excerpt from “Magdaragat: An Anthology of Filipino-Canadian Writing”

Magdaragat is Filipino for “seafarer” or “mariner.” Its dictionary meaning is straightforward enough, and even those with only cursory knowledge of the lands colonially known as “the Philippines” will understand why one would choose that word as the title for an anthology of Filipino diasporic writing. After all, the Philippines is an archipelago of approximately 7,000 islands in the South Pacific; the sea, as both literal and metaphorical entity, has dominated Filipino life—economically, politically, and culturally—since time immemorial.

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“Dotted Lines”, an excerpt from Priyanka Mattoo’s “Bird Milk And Mosquito Bones”

If India is a woman’s body, her arms outstretched to hold her billion babies, Kashmir is the unruly forelock above her right temple. Or at least, that’s what I thought as a child, when my Nanaji took out his historical maps, pre-Partition and post- , to show me how we had been carved up. Since then, since the internet, I’ve zoomed in on that northwestern border countless times, tracing my fingers over the mess of dotted lines that vaguely indicate where I was born. If you log in from Pakistan, the Kashmir region is labeled as disputed. From India, it is solid line, appearing firmly under Indian control. 

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Excerpt from “Labels of Empire: Textile Trademarks, Windows into India in the Time of the Raj” by Susan Meller

In July 2013, after more than forty years of collecting textiles, I came across something that I had never seen before: a small paper label pasted inside a sample booklet that once belonged to a Calcutta fabric merchant. The brightly colored picture of a man and woman riding a white bull captivated me. What was the story behind it? Where had it been printed? And who were the two Indian figures it depicted—a blue man with a snake wound around his neck and the lady he so tenderly held? Charmed by its stylized simplicity and intriguing image, the collector in me began a quest that, thousands of labels later, continues to beckon.

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A Brazilian account of Hong Kong from 1879

The first diplomatic mission from Brazil to China took place from 1879-1882; it also included Brazil’s first circumnavigation of the globe (sailing east in this case). An account—Primeira circum-navegação brasileira e primeira missão do Brasil à China (1879) by Marli Cristina Scomazzon and Jeff Franco—has recently been published. This excerpt about the delegation’s stop-over in Hong Kong and Macau has been translated from the original Portuguese and is published with permission.

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