What We're Reading This Week

Julia Klimova, University College London

Vladimir Akimov, “30 atmospheric photos of May Day parades,” Russia Beyond

As Russia and some other former Soviet countries celebrate labour day, Vladimir Akimov shares photos of this holiday from the Soviet Union.

Gillian Brockell, “The Armenian ‘genocide’: This is what happened in 1915,” The Washington Post

Gillian Brockell explains the events of 1915 following the US’s recognition of Armenian genocide.

Hana Rudolph, “Japanese Americans who helped liberate Dachau knew the shared history of anti-Jewish and anti-Asian hate,” The Times of Israel

Hana Rudolph reports that “Japanese-American soldiers also rescued thousands of survivors of a Nazi death march nearby, caring for them until medical personnel could arrive” and reminds readers that their “communities have been inextricably linked throughout U.S. history.”

Alice George, “The sad, sad story of Laika, the space dog, and her one-way trip into orbit,” Smithsonian Magazine

Alice George remembers the first mammal in orbit following the International Day of Human Space Flight.

Nicholas Sy, Unviersty of the Philippines Diliman

Gwen Katz, Thread on problems with AI-colorized photos, Twitter

To test AI colorization, Gwen Katz digitally desaturates Russian color photographs taken between 1909 and 1915, re-colorizes them using DeepAI Image Colorization API and compares the result with her originals. Her finding: “AI colorization strips away the vibrant colors from history and replaces them with a world of dull tans, muddy browns, and slate grays.”

Raphael Tsavkko Garcia, “Deleting Yahoo Answers is a disastrous idea. For history's sake, we need to preserve our digital record,” Business Insider

On May 4, Yahoo Answers entered read-only mode. By June 30, its content will be deleted. Raphael Tsavkko Garcia explores the implications of this impending loss of historical data. Will external digital archiving attempts save it all in time?

Dick van der Meij, “An enigmatic Javanese manuscript in the British Library: Sĕrat Jaya Lĕngkara, Add 12310,” Asian and African studies blog, British Library

Dick van der Meij explores scribal errors and their corrections to understand the production process behind the otherwise beautifully written and illustrated 19th century Javanese manuscript: Sĕrat Jaya Lengkara.