This book (written by a scholar with language competency in Japanese using LLMs to translate secondary scholarship Korean, which he cant read) raises important questions we as a field have to face about expertise and translation, as well as what the role of language-learning is in history (🧵)

"Let's Raise More Dogs!"--a few pics of some very good doggies from a 1960s North Korean magazine. One on the left is from the unique NK "Pungsan" breed, described as "docile to humans but fierce towards its enemies."

Happening tomorrow! Really looking forward to chatting with @sayakachatani.bsky.social

can't think of a time i've smashed the order button harder www.sup.org/books/asian-...

Trump on wars longer than the current Iran mess, we have an 8 year Korean War…has he been reading Bruce Cumings and co. and is going for 1945-1953? 🤔😜

In a week! Sayaka Chatani (National University of Singapore) on her new book “A Nation Within: North Korean Zainichi in Postimperial Japan”, in conversation with Yumi Kim (University of California Berkeley) and Joseph Seeley (University of Virginia). Register for Zoom here: mjha.org/event-6602790

Three incredible books—one big honor: 📚 Poet-Monks (@tommazanec.bsky.social) 📚 Ecological States (Jesse Rodenbiker) 📚 Border of Water and Ice (Joseph A. Seeley) All 2026 ACLS OA Book Prize + Arcadia Awards finalists! Congrats! 🎉 🔗 bsky.app/profile/acls...

Excited to share my latest article in @modamhist.bsky.social. Focuses on a top-secret Army dog-training project that used Japanese Americans as live bait during World War II.

Announcing the 2026 finalists for ACLS Open Access Book Prizes + Arcadia Open Access Publishing Awards! Five books in six categories—anthropology, environmental humanities, history, literary/media studies, multimodal, and political science—advance to the final round of $50k prizes: bit.ly/43rZPDD

So thrilled to have my book named as a finalist for the ACLS @acls1919.bsky.social Open Access Book Prizes and Arcadia Open Access Publishing Awards!! Many thanks to all who helped this happen, especially my editors at the OA Environments of East Asia book series at Cornell!

Thrilled that my article on postal horses in ancient China has been published in the latest #AnimalHistory! 🐎 What do excavated administrative texts from 1st C. BCE-CE tell us about equine life and labour on the edge of empire? A lot, it turns out! (1/4) #Xuanquan #postalhorses ✉️🛞🐴

if you happen to be 1) interested in Korea; 2) interested in the environmental humanities; and 3) in SoCal in early June, please consider coming to a conference I've organized with my dear colleagues Eleana Kim, Albert Park, and Juwon Lee. Details 👇

an embarrassment of riches in the latest issue of Environmental History www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/eh/current

14 May 4pm EASTERN Dr. #RussellBurge #Seoul #Korea #History #booktalk #koreasociety "The Promised Republic: Developmental Society and the Making of Modern Seoul, 1961-1979" Zoom registration: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

The scheduled air routes of the Japan Air Transport Co. (Oct. 1938 – Mar. 1939), which doubles as a fascinating diagram of the civil aviation infrastructure then collapsing the distance of the Japanese empire

Tomorrow! Really looking forward to moderating this discussion about @hannahjshepherd.bsky.social's fantastic new book!

Come check out Library Journal's Day of Dialog on May 7! Amazing authors and librarians will be chatting about upcoming books. (As a little debut author, I'm honored to be on a panel with some big stars in historical fiction 😄)

Check out my new article! It argues that the rise of continental drift should be understood within the context of the geopolitical shift that came from decolonization. lmk if you can't access! #histsci #STS www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Out today!

A new review essay of unique ambition analyzes my book along with 23(!) others for insights into the nature of late Qing enviro-governance, foregrounding "adaptive resilience" rather than decline. Glad my efforts with Qing docs added to the conversation! www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

I created a deep linked and searchable table of contents index for issues of the prewar "Japan Magazine" found on Internet Archive, with over 200 issues and several thousand articles. Useful for history students working only with English sources: froginawell.net/indexes/japa... #japan

I'm practicing explaining my book so I don't freeze up when people ask me what it's about

Newest review of my book and first in a sinological journal. Many thanks to Ruochen Chen at WashU for the kind review. Chen presses me for a little more on Chinese politics of the Yalu border, but also ends review with this lovely bit of writing: brill.com/view/journal...

So excited to get a copy of @sayakachatani.bsky.social (with Kumhee Cho)'s new book. In sheer awe of the amazing research, incl. more than 200 interviews with members of the Zainichi/Chongryon community. I'll be moderating a book talk in June, so please join! mjha.org/event-6602790

While I was unable to attend the BHC meeting this year, I am honored that my book, "Making Mao’s Steelworks, was selected as a finalist for the Hagley Prize in Business History. I am very grateful to the prize committee, and congratulations to the recipient and fellow finalists.

My review of the volume _Oceanic Japan_ for the journal _Animal History_ is now online. Once a fish guy, always a fish guy. 🐟 🐠 🎣 🐡 online.ucpress.edu/ah/article/d...

Discount code for newly released and highly anticipated East Asian #envhist books, @mmuscolino.bsky.social‘s ”Remaking the Earth, Exhausting the People” AND “Revolutionary Natures”as well as @connieychiang.bsky.social’s “Nature Unfurled”

So excited for @mengxiseeley.bsky.social's Austen retelling set in Ming-dynasty China!

Updating my Two Koreas course syllabus for next quarter, and would LOVE recommendations on people's favorite teaching materials (films, primary docs, essays, visuals) on modern Korean history. If you could assign just 1 thing to undergrads coming to K history for first time, what would it be?

Check out W. Puck Brecher's review of Jonas Rüegg's "The Kuroshio Frontier: Empire and Environment in the Making of Japan's Pacific," published in 2026 by @universitypress.cambridge.org; review now available @hnetreviews.bsky.social #envhist #envhum #japan www.h-net.org/reviews/show...

Flights were horribly delayed and I barely got into Vancouver after midnight, but I'm here at #aas2026 ! Yay! Even brought an old AAS tote bag since there's not a new one this year (someone remind me what year was green?)

My first client I signed on the first month of this year is having her first cover reveal! I'm so excited!!! @mengxiseeley.bsky.social #writingcommunity #coverreveal #historicalromance #silkandsensibility #janeaustinretelling

Gearing up for #AAS2026! I'll be on two panels this year--one as discussant and the other as presenter. Excited to reconnect with friends and colleagues and learn more about the field in a whirlwind of nerdy revelry.

“A.I. chatbots contain the sum of all human knowledge” is so egregiously wrong that I don’t know what to say. Chatbots have been trained on corpus of digital(ised) text - ABSOLUTELY NOT the sum of all human knowledge. Paper, experience, embodiment, oral tales all missing. These people are fools!

This to me is the most interesting—that research on Uyghurs is now considered DEI (but not another oppressed group, Mongols in China). Learned Islamophobia or just nonsensical maybe?

More rich fruits of the imperial turn in Japanese Studies! One of the panels I'm most looking forward to at #AAS2026.

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

🧵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

Coming June 2026: www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

I got a discount code for sales of my book in March!

2/ My first book, “Territorial Natures: Imperial Japan and the Mongolian Question,” is coming out with @uchicagopress.bsky.social this August 2026. You can find it here: press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

I'm a bit late to this announcement but wanted to share that the newest issue of the JJS is now out! Very proud of the essays and book reviews inside. My coeditor Sabine Frühstück, the book review editor Jessamyn Abel, and our managing editors David and now Athena all did incredible work.

By happy coincidence, the latest issue of the Journal of Japanese Studies features my review of Stefan Huebner et al's great new edited volume, Oceanic Japan, and Huebner's review of my own book Border of Water and Ice. Check out JJS to see our evaluations of each other's work!

Territorial Natures: Imperial Japan and the Mongolian Question Sakura Christmas｜The University of Chicago Press press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

So incredibly excited and happy for Anri. A huge congratulations for such a well-deserved recognition of your brilliance. mjha.org/First-Book-P...

very excited to share the cover for our forthcoming book by susan burns on the history of medical modernization and public health in tokyo! featuring a bunch of color images and cool maps!

This watchful owl hits a little different when I'm seeing it on a digital scan and not the paper original, but still, I'll be careful! (Translation: "Warning: please do not put saliva on your fingers to open the pages"--from 1930s library book in Japanese-occupied Korea)

I'm excited to announce that my debut novel is going to be published! September 2026!

Maybe you've watched (and re-watched, and re-watched again ...) KPOP DEMON HUNTERS, but have you considered what the voices of its characters convey? Donna Lee Kwon examines the film from a voice studies perspective.

Next Thursday (1/22) at 8:00pm EST I am excited to chair an online discussion with Jung Lee (Ewha) about her new book on Japanese botany in colonial Korea, with Ian Miller (Harvard) as discussant. Welcome all interested in histories of Korea/Japan, plant science, and empire! mjha.org/event-6304789