Weather Update
Due to the storm, Barnard College closed at 4pm Friday, for non-essential personnel. “Essential personnel" include staff in Facilities, Public Safety and Residence Halls.
Friday evening and weekend classes are cancelled but events are going forward as planned unless otherwise noted. The Athena Film Festival programs are also scheduled to go forward as planned but please check http://athenafilmfestival.com/ for the latest information.
The Barnard Library and Archives closed at 4pm Friday and will remain closed on Saturday, Feb. 9. The Library will resume regular hours on Sunday opening at 10am.
Please be advised that due to the conditions, certain entrances to campus may be closed. The main gate at 117th Street & Broadway will remain open. For further updates on college operations, please check this website, call the College Emergency Information Line 212-854-1002 or check AM radio station 1010WINS.
3:12 PM 02/08/2013
The New York Times published an op-ed by Prof. Guobin Yang on "China's Gradual Revolution."
From The New York Times: "But while it’s true that sudden, radical change is not likely to happen in China, that’s no reason for despair: change has been under way in China for years, but in forms more subtle than most people outside the country understand.
After the government crackdown on protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989, it was widely assumed that Beijing had quashed any chance for meaningful dissent. But protests have become more common since then, over everything from wages and polluted land to dam-building and animal rights. They have involved workers, villagers, migrants, environmentalists and public-interest lawyers.
Protest is also increasingly common on the Internet. I recently counted 60 major cases of online activism, ranging from extensive blogging to heavily trafficked forums to petitions, in 2009 and 2010 alone. Yet these protests are reformist, not revolutionary. They are usually local, centering on corrupt government officials and specific injustices against Chinese citizens, and the participants in different movements do not connect with one another, because the government forbids broad-based coalitions for large-scale social movements."
Yang is associate professor of Asian and Middle Eastern cultures and the author of The Power of the Internet in China.
