NEW PHD FUNDING: Research the National Maritime Museum's remarkable oral history collection of merchant seamen (1890s-1950s) with NMM's Lucy Dale & Dr Hannah Stockton & University of Portsmouth's @bradbeaven.bsky.social & @karlbell.bsky.social www.findaphd.com/phds/project... . Start date: Oct 2026

1/ Paul Ehrlich died this week at 93. The takes split into hagiography and dismissal. But the interesting question isn't whether he got it right, he didn't, it's why he got it wrong, and who was asking the right questions instead 🧵

5/ Ehrlich reduced human society to population biology. Commoner brought ecology to political economy. Where Ehrlich saw carrying capacity, Commoner saw feedback loops between capital, technology and nature. The difference in method produced the difference in politics.

I've posted a linked up list of tables of contents for the 1944-5 issues of Azad Hind, the Japanese-supported Indian National Army and Provisional Government of India's newspaper, issues of which can be found on Internet Archive and Wikimedia Commons: froginawell.net/azad-hind/

While researching the history of bringing bikes on buses, I just discovered something: in the mid 20th century, buses in Australia and New Zealand had hooks on the front or back for mothers to hang prams off! Bus pram hooks were apparently a unique NZ+Aus phenomenon, found nowhere else in the world.

**Postdoc positions** Kyoto University has opened up applications for the Hakubi Project, due May 17, 2026. This is a cream of the crop postdoc ("all fields, from basic to applied"), 5 (FIVE!) years, great research budget. Please apply or let others know! www.hakubi.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en/recruitme...

Was hearing a weird amount of pop culture critics throwing shade on Sinners this past week, but I have to say, after hearing Ryan Coogler lifting up educators & saying he's honoured by professors who might teach his work, if you still don't understand why people dig this man, you're choosing not to.

Deadly Divide will be out next month and you can now pre-order it from UNC press using this 30% off discount code: 01SOCIAL30

Becoming oddly interested in the physical infrastructure of the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Fascinating Bloomberg piece from 2023. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

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.

🚨Call for Papers! 3–4 September, Universität 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: ‘Recording nature and writing the self: time, entomology and the archive in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries’. Closes 3 May. With Ruth Abbott, Staffan Müller-Wille, Ed Turner & me. @theul.bsky.social @zoologymuseum.bsky.social www.ccc.cam.ac.uk/initiatives/...

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

Call for Papers: Women’s Fieldwork and the Making of Nineteenth Century Natural History Collections We seek articles to complete a special issue on women’s field collecting, and contributions to nineteenth century natural history for Nuncius. #Histsci #NaturalHistory #WomensHistory #Fieldwork

🧵1/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.

Nice visit to the last day of the Taishõ visual arts exhibition at the Asahi Ōyamazaki Villa Museum of Art. I'm no film production scout, but my vote goes here as a future Knives Out shooting location.

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."

The Kumano Sea coast, outlined by and inscribed upon a skipjack tuna, 1984

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 🎥 digitalmedia.sheffield.ac.uk/media/Multis...

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

最高気温40℃以上の日の名称について気象庁がアンケートを実施しています。すぐ選んで送信できるのでぜひ。 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 can’t enroll in majors like Af-Am Studies and WGSS because they’re getting messages from all sides that they’re 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, 1958–Present', by Oscar Hartman Davies.

My first proper blog post for @globalmarhist.bsky.social 🙌🏻 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 – @angecass.bsky.social & Paul Merchant for @lseimpactblog.bsky.social @renewbiodiversity.bsky.social @britishlibrary.bsky.social

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...

"Don't be surprised if Komatsu bulldozers are at the bottom of the sea." Japanese machinery company Komatsu advertises a remote-controlled submersible bulldozer in 1969, as part of what its executives and many others imagined to be a burgeoning age of marine exploration and extraction.

1/ A thread on my new article, which I hope makes a few interesting points. First, there’s a need to understand the complexity of how archaeological knowledge travelled and was made at a time of huge change in the world (post-WW2). Are we really so confident in confining that knowledge to…

Job alert! We are looking for talented PhD researchers to write a dissertation on Benzaiten worship in modern Japan or Mazu pilgrimages in Taiwan, as part of the ERC project "Maritime Goddesses: Transnational Connections, Blue Environments, and Ritual Care in East- and Southeast Asia" (MARGO).

This local Wolfdog joined an Olympic ski event and triggered the finish-line camera. This is Nazgul. He snuck into a cross-country skiing sprint this morning and raced the homestretch with some competitors before being escorted home. 14/10 someone get him a medal

Watch the cross country skiing team sprint, stay for the occasional doggo on the piste

Come see me speak on the “Mining Pasts of the Nintendo Game Boy” at Harvard on Monday, February 23rd! Grateful to my hosts @eastasiascitech.bsky.social and @harvardusjapan.bsky.social.

I don’t know who needs to hear Jesse Jackson leading the kids on Sesame Street in this beautiful call-and-response reminding them that every child is somebody, but here it is

I cannot stress enough how much these kinds of notes mean to teachers. Or anyone, really. If someone has made a positive impact on your life, reach out and let them know. It'll make their week.

In 'Squid and Socialists', Donghyun Woo analyses how squid in the East Sea undermined production quotas and eluded state planning from 1945 to 1964, showing how nonhuman herd agency exposed the limits of Pyongyang’s efforts to discipline oceanic nature. 🗃️ #envhist doi.org/10.3828/whpe...

A snowy election day in Kyoto

There isn't a sigh hard enough for these dumbass headlines. Warriors were a SOCIAL GROUP, and later a legal classification. Gender was not relevant to whether one was part of a warrior group/family/etc. You might as well write: THIS JUST IN: WOMEN EXISTED! www.the-independent.com/asia/japan/b...

初めて選挙に参加したのは2000年のブッシュ対ゴアーの大統領選だった。ブッシュがその怪しい状況で大統領になっても、ま〜、政治は私とそんなに関係あるかって甘い考えも恥ずしいほど新鮮に覚えてる。2001年の９・11後、弟が軍隊に入って、米国法によればまだお酒も飲めない年齢で戦場に出って、怪我だけして生き残ったと言いながら言葉だけで伝わらないダメージも受けた。 戦後日本を守ってきたものは憲法９条だ。"soft power"の戦略も批判しているが、日本の（選挙権がない）住民として、米国の”永遠の戦争”に傷ついた家族の一員として、それを何よりも強調した。 選挙権ある皆様に、よろしくお願いいたします。

I don't say this often but: I'm so proud to be a climate and environment reporter. We cover an issue that is vitally important to humanity and the natural world. 14 of my climate colleagues at the Post were laid off today and I'm devastated. www.climatecoloredgoggles.com/p/washington...