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

They fixed it! My article is now open access. academic.oup.com/ahr/article/...

We have an exciting lineup of @greenhouseuis.net #envhum book talks for the spring. Mark your calendars now to join the talks live at 4pm Central European time on Mondays. All are welcome. Here's what we have set for the first 5 talks. 👇

Interesting mixed medium approach to this Asahi feature on opium and Japanese occupied Manchuria: www.asahi.com/special/manc...

Thankful to Adam Cathcart for his thoughtful review of Border of Water and Ice in the new issue of American Historical Review. Please check out @sino-nk.bsky.social for Adam and colleagues' cutting-edge analysis on the Sino-Korean border and broader PRC-DPRK relations past and present. sinonk.com

We've added a new post to our blog, by Björn Billing on 'Visualising Icebergs in the Early Modern Period'; read it here: whitehorsepress.blog/2025/12/22/v... #envhist @eandhwhp.bsky.social #iceberg #arctic

Pleased to share the Spring 2026 schedule for the SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN ASIA online seminar series @ Harvard! Talks are over Zoom on Tuesdays, 10:30–11:45 am EST. REGISTRATION: seow.scholars.harvard.edu/STinAsia #histstm #histsci #histtech #histmed #envhist #envhum #sts 🧪

TIL that the animator behind the 1964 Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which I and many others grew up with, was a former Japanese propagandist who saw WWII's end in the puppet-state of Manchukuo and later worked in China for the CCP, making his first puppet animation about Chiang Kai-shek.

What does Gen AI mean for the work of the historian and the value of historical experience, skills and craft? 'The Historian in the Age of AI' by @chriscampbell1.bsky.social. New Comment article now available in 'Transactions of the Royal Historical Society' bit.ly/4atErTB #Skystorians 1/2

Ad for hunting gear/guns that ran in the Japanese settlers' newspaper 京城日報 in colonized Korea (1925). Many elite male settlers emulated the sporting practice of White hunters (complete with dogs), while Korean access to firearms remained strictly limited.

Issue no. 4 is out! It features a 'Tracks in the Field' essay, four research articles, plus book reviews!

Another excellent issue of Animal History is now available! This issue includes an exciting article on mules as vital transport in Yunnan 🐎🐂🐂 #animalhistory online.ucpress.edu/ah/article-a...

Excited to dive into this newly published history of Pusan/Fukuoka as "imperial region" bound together by the fluid borderland of the Tsushima Strait. Many congrats to @hannahjshepherd.bsky.social , who will be hosting for a book talk @modernjapanhist.bsky.social in May! mjha.org/event-6433046

❄️ Our Winter Sale is here! Use the code 09WINTER and get 44% off from November 10 to December 5, 2025. 📚 🔗Access to US & Canada: www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/books/ 🔗Access to the rest of the world: mngbookshop.co.uk/publisher/co... Order your next favorite title now!

Critiques of Meiji-era Japanese militarism/colonialism? Icy border crossings? Even tigers? Man, the anime Golden Kamuy hits all of the right buttons for me.

@cornellupress.bsky.social is having an amazing sale atm — 44% off until 12/5, including books by @josephaseeley.bsky.social , @timothymyang.bsky.social , and myself, among others!

In twelve hours!

Was thrilled to see this newly-published review of my book in the Journal of Asian Studies. Many thanks to Ted Boyle @borderthinking.bsky.social for the critically engaged review, especially his thoughts on my book's contribution to border studies. Full Review: read.dukeupress.edu/journal-of-a...

It’s Halloween! 🎃 Time to let your skeleton shine! 💀🦴 Are you a dancing skeleton? Celebratory skeleton? This spooky season enjoy these possibilities from the late 19th century by Kawanabe Kyōsai. #ハロウィン Held by the University of California San Francisco Library: calisphere.org/item/ark:/13...

Fun interlibrary-loan surprise. From Yale I got this interesting 1980s memoir of a Zainichi Korean describing North Korea's agricultural struggles. It was obviously marked up, and on the cover page I saw it was ex libris of Noriaki Tsuchimoto, the famed Japanese documentarian.

This is happening!!!! December 2: just in time for Christmas present season. I am still in the anxiety stage, not yet in the Saoirse Ronan as Jo March watching her book get published scene-stage, but I'm glad other people are excited already!