For a plant as renowned and beloved in China as the plum blossom (meihua 梅花), there is conspicuously little written in English about eating it. However, without understanding the historical affection for consuming plum blossoms, our comprehension of it as a cultural icon misses an important dimension. This article explores the intriguing discourse surrounding plum blossom consumption in three sections. The first section introduces the key concept of qing 清 (“purity”) and its relation to the “poet’s spleen” (shiren pi 詩人脾), which provides a theoretical framework for a relationship between eating it and writing poetry. The second section examines Song-dynasty poems on this eating practice, particularly those by Yang Wanli 楊萬里 (1127–1206) and the Rivers and Lakes poets (jianghu shiren 江湖詩人). Their poetry was closely tied to new developments in the notion of qi 氣 and “poetic spleen” (shipi 詩脾). The third section turns to culinary recipes, primarily from the Rivers and Lakes poet Lin Hong 林洪 (fl. 1224–1263), who promotes qing aesthetics in plum blossom dishes. I argue that the discovery of culinary value in a flower long regarded as more symbolic than edible marks a significant development in Song-dynasty (960–1279) literati culture, aesthetics, intellectual history, and medicine.

In this paper, I explore the millennium-long presence of the chickpea in premodern China by highlighting three key historical moments. The legume had its first rise to prominence as a cosmopolitan “Muslim Bean” in the Mongol Yuan (1271–1368) imperial diet. It then experienced a phase of obscurity, as the most renowned Chinese herbalist, Li Shizhen 李時珍 (1518–1593), conflated it with the pea. A disparate identity of the legume emerged around the same time, as the bean garnered attention from famine relief specialists, consequently transforming into a source of sustenance. The multiple lives of the chickpea were characterized with a common emphasis on its foreignness, drawing connections to various Eurasian cultures beyond China. The plant’s enduring presence, coupled with ongoing allusions to its alienness, makes it a perpetual foreigner in the broad expanse of the Chinese empire.

Grassroots participation in Nigeria’s democratic governance, through the local government system, has remained a problem, even with the Constitution guaranteeing democratically elected local government councils and their autonomous operation as a third tier of government. The state governments have continued to encroach upon the autonomy of the local governments, thus hindering effective grassroots participation in democratic governance. To address this, the Supreme Court, in a majority judgment in Attorney General of the Federation v Attorney General of Abia State and 35 Others, reaffirmed the democratic status and autonomy of local government councils. This article examines the extent to which the judgment guarantees the independence of the local governments; it finds that the judgment has been more symbolic than impactful in resolving the issues of local governments’ autonomy. It therefore advocates for constitutional alterations to explicitly define the status and functions of the local governments in Nigeria.

This article examines the tabular presentations in Sima Qian’s Shi ji and Gu Donggao’s Chunqiu dashi biao through the lens of a siege in 630 bce. Recognized as exemplary historical tables of the Spring and Autumn Period, the two tables process historical narratives at both micro and macro levels in an unprecedented manner, aiming to provide a larger picture of general historical trends. By emphasizing a visual and spatial representation of history in its tabular design, the Shi ji table invites the reader to examine the text nonlinearly and to construct a dialectical relationship between it and related narrative chapters. On the other hand, Gu’s text-oriented tables, usually misunderstood as a mere continuation of those in the Shi ji, require a linear reading and cannot directly produce a visual representation of the general patterns of the Spring and Autumn Period. However, to compensate for the lack of a visual overview, Gu composed “impromptu poems” (kouhao), which orally sketch general historical trends, to help beginners memorize the history of the Spring and Autumn Period. This article aims to demonstrate the use of tabulation at the crucial beginning point of Chinese historiography and its reinvention in the late imperial period.

This paper conducts a comprehensive exploration of methodology in historical linguistics, focusing on language subgrouping. Employing Tangut, a severely eroded medieval language, as a case study, it scrutinizes previous linguistic analyses that depart from the rigorous Neogrammarian method, specifically referencing Beaudouin (2023). These non-compliant analyses have impeded recent progress in understanding the genetic relationships within Burmo-Qiangic, a field marked by prolonged debates and with gradual advancement recently. In a subsequent step, adhering to Neogrammarian principles, namely, Ausnahmslosigkeit der Lautgesetze and positive shared innovations in language subgrouping, the paper discusses the plausibility of, as well as the good practice to argue for, a “Tangut-Horpa clade” within the Gyalrongic branch of Burmo-Qiangic. By advocating for the universality of these Neogrammarian principles, the paper aims to improve the accuracy and reliability of subgrouping languages characterized by significant typological diversity. This, in turn, contributes to a deeper comprehension of rigorous methodology within the context of the Sino-Tibetan language family.

This article has a two objectives. The first objective is to investigate the history of identity politics in Bangladesh from the British and Pakistani periods to the post-independence era. It argues that the syncretic culture that flourished during the Muslim rule was deliberately disrupted by the British divide-and-rule policy of partitioning Bengal in 1905 along religious lines, fomenting such communal hatred between Hindus and Muslims that resulted in the partition of 1947, with East Bengal joining Pakistan. This also sowed the seeds of identity politics and a “pendulum syndrome” in future Bangladeshi politics, marked by a perpetual strife between advocates of ethnolinguistic nationalism on one side and religious nationalism on the other, which has become a perennial source of violence and volatility for the nation, hindering its growth and progress. The second objective is to explore how Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore has been drawn into this strife, facing accusations of being an Islamophobe and a Hindu chauvinist, and why there have been recurrent attempts to replace his song as the country’s national anthem. The article concludes with a rebuttal to such accusations based on evidence highlighting the song’s historical contributions to the nation despite the ongoing campaigns against it.