sakura christmas
@prof-christmas
historian | japanese empire, environment, technology | wabanaki territory more here:
A visual stunner from Nozomi Naoi, THE LAND OF HAPPINESS, coming out in August from @mitpress.bsky.social, on the art history of Japanese department stores with 100+ color illustrations (!!!) Can’t wait to assign parts to my #Tokyo lecture! #デパート mitpress.mit.edu/978026205442...
400 years in the future, archaeologists announce that they’ve discovered a new type of witches’ marks. The marks:
#CFP Porous Worlds: Histories, Environments, and Material Relations at the Surface-Subsurface Interface (Bergen, October 28-29, 2026), due September 1. Workshop explores relationship between surface and subsurface w/ keynote by @gabriellehecht.bsky.social #envhist #envhum #extractivism #histstm
Ridiculously excited for Holly Stephens, whose EMPIRE BY ASSOCIATION, will be out in September, on the economic history of rural Korea under Japanese colonialism, now with a vibrant new cover by @yalepress.bsky.social Just about every history book starts with one of two openers, either
@mondomascots.bsky.social Hokkaido really does have the most unhinged mascots of Japan There’s also Marimokkori, a portmanteau of marimo (Aegagropila brownii, moss balls found in Lake Akan) and mokkori (onomatopoeia for the tent made by an erection)
Wow, @universitypress.cambridge.org keeps putting out bangers on early modern Japan! Can’t wait for Laura Nenzi’s Japan After Dark, which challenges the idea that 19th-c. electrification disenchanted night www.cambridge.org/core/books/j... #envhum #envhist #histstm #AsianStudies
Proofs for #territorialnatures are here from @uchicagopress.bsky.social! Applied the Page 99 test and of course it opens to some Marxist theory—I swear the rest of the book isn’t like this! 🤦 #envhist #histstm #AsianStudies #mongolsky #tengri
Finally, a Japanese postcard wrapper from the prewar period, titled “Mongol Customs,” featuring a Halh-a woman in ceremonial dress with felt gers in the background
Yet another Japanese postcard from the prewar period, which likely documents herding camps gathering for a seasonal fair or market in Inner Mongolia
Close up of the borderlands between sedentary farming (red) and mobile herding (green) in Aru Horchin Banner, Inner Mongolia (then Manchukuo) From 興安局調査科, ｢興安西省阿魯科爾沁旗實態調査報告書｣ (1941).
Close up of the borderlands between Mongol (blue) and Han (red) in Kingġan Province, Manchukuo, with arrows denoting seasonal migration From 国務院興安局調査科, ｢満洲帝国内旧蒙古地帯民族分布図｣ (1940).
Another Japanese postcard from the prewar period, titled “Mongol Plains,” which portrays steppe grasses as barbed borders with a Buddhist stupa on the horizon (alas, my personal favorite for the book cover)
The graphic designer cropped this image, a Japanese postcard from the prewar period that depicted a Mongol ceremony at a cairn, or ovoo (oboġ-a). Ovoos serve as boundary markers and shamanistic shrines (usually for sky worship, though—spoiler alert!—my book doesn’t actually deal with religion).
What’s the back story behind your book cover? What were some of the alternate images that you considered? Here are the ones I submitted to @uchicagopress.bsky.social #territorialnatures #AsianStudies #envhist #histstm #mongolsky #tengri
Here’s the Manchukuo Airways extension! (Sorry for the low resolution, I’d have to dig through my fieldwork files for a better one.)
@astanley711.bsky.social once told me that revising from dissertation to book was like performing “open-heart surgery,” but after mapping out the changes, I think I took out all the vital organs and put them back in the wrong place 🫣 What reorganizing did other people do? #territorialnatures
I thought historians didn’t subscribe to this way of thinking.
Conference in celebration of Sam Yamashita’s prolific career—so many Pomona grads in our field!
Sneak peek into what my book is about, now that it is off to the typesetter—TOC for #territorialnatures is up on the @uchicagopress.bsky.social site. Thanks to my manuscript workshop, I abandoned chronological argument for a thematic one, embedding it into the book structure. #envhist #histstm
Mes amies, I’ll be in #montreal soon to give a book talk on #territorialnatures, hosted by @dcporter.bsky.social: FASCIST SHEEP (yes, really) Land and Livestock in Inner Mongolia under Japanese Rule Wednesday April 8 at 4:00 PM McGill University 680 Sherbrooke, Room 1041 #envhist #envirohist
I found Word at a very Chinese time in its life #chinamaxxing #microsoftword #territorialnatures
24/ Sound on for cub cries! Many MFW agents like Matt also work for outfitters as guides for game hunters from out of state. That job can seem like a conflict of interest, but “harvesting” (~3000 bears/year) apparently keeps bear population in check! We have few bear attacks in Maine as a result.
23/ If MFW weren’t able to tranq mama, they would have checked on her cubs in two days to see if she’d return. Otherwise they would go to rehab until they can survive on their own. MFW will place this bear back in the den, remove human scent from her cubs, and it’ll all have seemed like a bad dream!
22/ Also I can’t help myself!! The fur is actually pretty rough.