Becoming oddly interested in the physical infrastructure of the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Fascinating Bloomberg piece from 2023.
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Announcement of the premiere of LINE, specifically touting the inability of loved ones to communicate during the East Japan Earthquake and tsunami as a selling point
A post on Twitter reminds people of something many have forgotten: When the Great East Japan Earthquake happened 15 years ago, LINE - now Japan's most popular messaging app with 100M users - didn't exist. It was actually developed in response to the disaster.
๐จCall for Papers!
3โ4 September, Universitรคt Augsburg: 2-day workshop on "theorising uncharismatic species in environmental history". Who are they? Where are their voices in the historical record? What insights do they offer to the field of environmental history? Be there! Abstracts due 15/05/2026!
Fully funded PhD studentship: โRecording nature and writing the self: time, entomology and the archive in the nineteenth and twentieth centuriesโ. Closes 3 May.
With Ruth Abbott, Staffan Mรผller-Wille, Ed Turner & me. @theul.bsky.social @zoologymuseum.bsky.social
www.ccc.cam.ac.uk/initiatives/...
A sign showing the outline of the 3.11 Tsunami Memorial Museum in Ishinomaki. The building is 6.9 meters tall, the same height as the tsunami that hit the town.
Interior of the 3.11 Tsunami Memorial Museum in Ishinomaki.
On the 15th anniversary of the 3.11 earthquake, thinking about my visit to the Tsunami Memorial Museum in Ishinomaki last November, with my colleague and co-researcher Matthew Booker. We were struck by how much energy is being put into telling the stories of the disaster and the region.
Hear about the newest books on #JapaneseEmpire at #AAS2026 on March 14, 5:45-7:15pm, with Kristin Roebuck, @hannahjshepherd.bsky.social, Holly Stephens, and me, Laura Hein as mod
@asianstudies.org @columbiaup.bsky.social @ucpress.bsky.social @uchicagopress.bsky.social @yalepress.bsky.social
Picture of women on a beach John Leech, โThe mermaids' hauntโ. The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1854 - 1869. The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs. Picture Collection, The New York Public Library.
Call for Papers: Womenโs Fieldwork and the Making of Nineteenth Century Natural History Collections
We seek articles to complete a special issue on womenโs field collecting, and contributions to nineteenth century natural history for Nuncius.
#Histsci #NaturalHistory #WomensHistory #Fieldwork
๐งต1/x Lots of blunt and contradictory conclusions by (de)generative AI on extent of #DEI in #AsianStudies projects that had received funding from #NEH
Americans have no idea how much the world is shook, folks. Here in Thailand they have a running tally of how many days' worth of fuel the country has left.
The "digital environment," doesn't just refer to the affordances of the platform, but the structures of moderation (including TOS) that organize such an environment. Environments are more than digital structures; they include the social structures of the platform, which folks keep ignoring.
Entrance to the Asahi ลyamazaki Villa Museum of Art
Garden, pond, and greenhouse area of the Asahi ลyamazaki Villa Museum of Art
Tunnel driveway to the Asahi ลyamazaki Villa Museum of Art
A sculpture of an alarmingly gangly rabbit
Nice visit to the last day of the Taishรต visual arts exhibition at the Asahi ลyamazaki Villa Museum of Art.
I'm no film production scout, but my vote goes here as a future Knives Out shooting location.
Illustration of a great white shark telling surrounding fish and squid in Japanese that humans are the scariest of all.
Amid unusual great white shark sitings that disrupted ama breath-divers' fisheries activities in southern Mie Prefecture for weeks in 1991, an illustration of a shark trying to convince nearby sea creatures that they have little to fear from a great white: "Humans are the scariest of all."
A map of the Kumano Sea off the coast of Mie, Japan, surrounded by the outline of a katsuo or skipjack tuna
The Kumano Sea coast, outlined by and inscribed upon a skipjack tuna, 1984
A morning port scene, with the sea and islands in the distance
Back in the old stomping grounds/waters for the day...
A fascinating conversation, with huge resonances for those of us who work on histories of technology and environment
1/ Calling all ECRS - we have 4x 3 year post docs on Multispecies Mutualisms working with us at Sheffield. Don't want to read through all the stuff to work out if its right for you? Here is a short video explainer ๐ฅ
digitalmedia.sheffield.ac.uk/media/Multis...
A poster with the text: "This talk examines how Japanese settlers reimagined and branded Mt. Asahidake, Hokkado's highest peak, to advance colonial goals. For the Ainu, it was a sacred and distant realm, but after Hokkado's annexation in 1869, settlers replaced Ainu cosmologies with new narratives. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Hokkaido government, educators, journalists, and alpine clubs sought to bring the mountain closer everyday life by promoting its sublime beauty and accessibility, while the Imperial Japanese Army elevated it as a symbol of Japanese spirit. These redefinitions transformed Mt. Asahidake into a symbol of Japanese imperial identity, illustrating how mountains served as tools of dominance and regional assertion within the empire. Chris Tsui Shuen Lau is a historian of modern Japan and a postdoc at the University of Tรผbingen, Germany. Her research focuses on cultural, social, colonial, and global history. Her current project explores modern mountaineering in the Japanese empire, using Mt. Asahidake in Hokkaido and Yushan in Taiwan as case studies to investigate how mountains were reimagined and repurposed for colonial objectives."
Tomorrow at HKU! All are welcome.
A talk by Chris Tsui Shuen Lau: "From Ainu Cosmologies to Imperial Symbols: The Colonial Narratives of Mt. Asahidake in Hokkaido, 1900s-1930s"
Date: March 4, 2026 (Wed)
Time: 17:00-19:00
Venue: CRT-5.41, 5/F, Run Run Shaw Tower,
Centennial Campus, HKU
Higher ed programs should teach more about history/philosophy/sociology of science
my favourite history paper has to be "Fanon and the CIA Man" on American Historical Review because it's such a fascinating snapshot of Cold War-era colonialism and anti-colonialism: it's extremely readable
academic.oup.com/ahr/article-...
British supermarket chain Waitrose suspending the sale of mackerel to take "a decisive stand against overfishing".
International Council for the Exploration of the Sea says the Northeast Atlantic mackerel population has fallen so drastically its ability to recover is not guaranteed
u.afp.com/Su4E
ๆ้ซๆฐๆธฉ40โไปฅไธใฎๆฅใฎๅ็งฐใซใคใใฆๆฐ่ฑกๅบใใขใณใฑใผใใๅฎๆฝใใฆใใพใใใใ้ธใใง้ไฟกใงใใใฎใงใใฒใ
www.jma.go.jp/jma/press/26...
Going to be talking about punk rock and Kyoto on 16 March as part of the Kyoto lectures series. Come join me in person or online
Students feel like they canโt enroll in majors like Af-Am Studies and WGSS because theyโre getting messages from all sides that theyโre not remunerative. And yet they desperately want the knowledge, so classes are full. That seems to be the situation everywhere.
New article!
'Samplers of the marine environment: Knowing the oceans with seabirds, 1958โPresent', by Oscar Hartman Davies.
My first proper blog post for @globalmarhist.bsky.social ๐๐ป This is the source I repeatedly return to when I teach others about Caribbean slavery.
There is so much that can be gleaned from this source alone. My post discusses some of the features!
Latest issue of Journal of Asian Studies contains the forum "Digital Humanities in/and Asian Studies," edited by Kate McDonald and me. It features contributions from scholars working in South, Southeast, & East Asian studies, as well as in Asian-American studies. read.dukeupress.edu/journal-of-a...
That amazing feeling when a kindly museum director calls to follow up about my query--by apologizing for the vast amounts of uncatalogued documents that I'll have to sift through.
Now I await a visit to thumb through the archives and chat with someone who has curated them for over half a century...
What oral histories can teach us about effective environmental research โ @angecass.bsky.social & Paul Merchant for @lseimpactblog.bsky.social
@renewbiodiversity.bsky.social @britishlibrary.bsky.social
Importantly perhaps, this ad is from December 1969, a few months after the moon landing.
Erase the horizontal sea level line and touch up a few things, and the illustrated underwater scene could just as easily be made to represent a vision of Komatsu bulldozers on the moon.
reminder that Miles Macleod, @federicoboem.bsky.social @yjerden.bsky.social & I have a call for papers out for a special issue on scientific "bubbles" with Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. nominal deadline July 15, plus or minus.
www.sciencedirect.com/special-issu...
