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Kjell Ericson

@kjelldericson.bsky.social

190 followers 190 following 50 posts

Historian teaching and researching at intersections of environment, technology, and Japan @ Kyoto University.

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Kjell Ericson @kjelldericson.bsky.social · Jan 17

My essay with Matthew Booker, "Seed Oyster Inspection, Matsushima Bay, Circa 1958," is now online in Environmental History! It's a first step in our project to rethink Northeastern Japan and the North American Pacific Northwest in aquacultural terms.

www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Seed Oyster Inspection, Matsushima Bay, Circa 1958 | Environmental History

Abstract This gallery essay opens with a photograph of people in northeastern Japan’s Matsushima Bay packing seed oysters for export to the North American Pacific Northwest. The photo offers opportuni...

www.journals.uchicago.edu

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Victor Seow @eastasiascitech.bsky.social · 5d

How did Korean firms like Hanjin carry containerization from Vietnam’s Cam Ranh & Qui Nhon to Busan, transforming ports & unsettling U.S. contractors like Lusteveco? 🚢

John DiMoia @ Harvard #STinAsia, Tue Oct 14, 10:30 ET

Zoom registration: seow.scholars.harvard.edu/STinAsia

#histstm #histtech 🧪

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Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History @bcricciinstitute.bsky.social · 2d

Our librarian Mårten Söderblom Saarela will give three online talks for the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia, on November 8, 2025, 9:00am-1:30pm Eastern time. The theme of the talks is "The Jesuit Mission to China." For details and registration, see ncta.princeton.edu.

The poster for the event. RSVP at https://ncta.princeton.edu/registration/

A sea monster from Ferdinand Verbiest’s Chinese world map Kunyu quantu (1648). Photograph taken from a reproduction held at the Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History, Boston College.

A diagram showing sunrise and sunset from Adam Schall von Bell’s Chinese treatise Yuanjing shuo (Explanation of the telescope; 1626). Photograph taken from an undated Japanese manuscript copy held at the Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History, Boston College.

A drawing of a European telescope from Adam Schall von Bell’s Chinese treatise Yuanjing shuo (Explanation of the telescope; 1626). Photograph taken from an undated Japanese manuscript copy held at the Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History, Boston College.

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Emily Pawley @emilypawley.bsky.social · 9d

In food history, we notice how super-refined foods--gelatin, vienna sausage, white bread--lose class and become horrifying once they become industrialized. Suddenly, fingermarks in bread dough demonstrate skill, not clumsiness.

Post-chatGPT, I'm feeling this about writing. Smoothness feels gross.

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Animal History Group @animalhistories.bsky.social · 15d

Announcing the new Animal History Group seminar series for the 2025-26 academic year! - All seminars held online at 8pm UK time. 🎉 The details are here: animalhistorygroup.org/seminar-seri...
And here is a list for your calendar! 🧵💚

Seminar Series

Term One Our Seminar Series is back for 2025/2026. Seminars will be held at 8pm (GMT). Please sign up using the links below. Joining information will be sent shortly before the event. 15 October 20…

animalhistorygroup.org

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David Fedman @dfeds.bsky.social · Sep 2

A new essay from me synthesizing the rich body of media criticism in Japanese focused on the practice of "August journalism" (八月ジャーナリズム): the tendency for rehearsed, compressed, and hollowed-out coverage of war memory each August.

apjjf.org/2025/9/fedman

“August Journalism” Studies: Lessons in World War II Reporting from Japan’s Season of Remembrance - Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus

[…]

apjjf.org

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Colin Schultz @colinschultz.bsky.social · Sep 1

Congratulations to @clarewatson.bsky.social, whose Hakai Magazine story on an inventive scheme to cleaning up ghost fishing gear is going to be included in this year's anthology of Best Australian Science Writing:

hakaimagazine.com/news/using-t...

www.linkedin.com/posts/clare-...

Using Trash to Track Other Trash | Hakai Magazine

An Australian organization is taking “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” to heart with its ghost net clean-up program.

hakaimagazine.com

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Kjell Ericson @kjelldericson.bsky.social · Aug 29

In this case specifically, I'd also rather not be eating raw oysters in Louisiana...in August.

Kjell Ericson @kjelldericson.bsky.social · Aug 29

Sad intersections with my current research.

The US and Canada began shared shellfish sanitation regulations in 1948, with one US observer noting in the 50s that "cooperative efforts with Canada have been built on a long history of parallel development in the two countries."

Perhaps no longer.

Nevin Thompson @nevint.bsky.social · Aug 29

Not sure if I’d be eating raw oysters in the U.S. these days. Even so, even in Canada, which still generally follows science-based health protocols, we get noravirus contamination in oysters when boats dump their black water close to the oyster beds.

Gizmodo @gizmodo.com · Aug 28

Both deaths are linked to oysters harvested in Louisiana, but the oysters were eaten at separate restaurants in Louisiana and Florida.

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Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · Aug 28

I finally read computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum’s 1976 classic “Computer Power and Human Reason.”

This book deserves a massive revival in our current age of grotesque and largely thoughtless AI creep into everything:

JOSEPH WEIZENBAUM
COMPUTER POWER AND HUMAN REASON
FROM JUDGMENT TO CALCULATION

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Carlos Noreña @carlosfnorena.bsky.social · Aug 28

NEW: Tenure-track position in History at UC Berkeley in the GLOBAL HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY.

We are casting a wide net here: *all* periods, places, and fields are under consideration.

I'm on the search committee, so do let me know if you have questions.

Assistant Professor – Global History of Technology - Department of History

University of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now!

aprecruit.berkeley.edu

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Dr. Nick Posegay @nposegay.bsky.social · Aug 27

There will be many casualties from UChicago ending ('pausing') PhD admissions in Humantities, but one which I am keenly aware of: this is close to a death sentence for teaching cuneiform in the United States (esp. Sumerian, Hittite, Elamite, Eblaite, Luwian) and it will affect the whole world.

Annette Yoshiko Reed @annetteyreed.bsky.social · Aug 27

“Chicago has long helped to keep alive tiny fields & esoteric areas of humanistic study... Without the univ’s support, & the continued training of grad students who can keep these bodies of kn going, entire spheres of human learning might eventually blink out.” www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...

If the University of Chicago Won’t Defend the Humanities, Who Will?

Why it matters that the University of Chicago is pausing admissions to doctoral programs in literature, philosophy, the arts, and languages

www.theatlantic.com

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Arin Dube @arindube.bsky.social · Aug 26

Hear me out: Blue books and in class exams are back, but let's be real: penmanship is so passé.

I propose a disruptive, portable, innovation in classroom tech.

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Kjell Ericson @kjelldericson.bsky.social · Aug 26

Off to Mie for a quick research trip.

Nothing like the Kintetsu Ise-Shima Liner's modular (and, fortunately, no longer accessible) smoking pod.

A non-accessible smoking pod area in the Kintetsu Ise-Shima Liner train.

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Ben Gross @bhgross144.bsky.social · Aug 26

Many thanks to our friends @hyperallergic.com for spreading the word about @ransomcenter.bsky.social's 2026-27 #fellowships!

Learn more by visiting the Center's website: www.hrc.utexas.edu/fellowships/

#Humanities #Photography #Literature #ArtHistory #RareBooks #Theatre #FilmHistory 🗃️📜📚

UT Austin’s Harry Ransom Center Provides Funded Fellowships in the Arts and Humanities

The humanities library and museum will award up to 50 fellowships to support scholars, artists, and writers conducting on-site archival research.

hyperallergic.com

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Kjell Ericson @kjelldericson.bsky.social · Aug 25

Wow, today's downpour ended up being the heaviest rains in downtown Kyoto since 1906.

www3.nhk.or.jp/kansai-news/...

京都市で「記録的短時間大雨情報」相次ぐ低地浸水など警戒を｜NHK 関西のニュース

【NHK】近畿地方には局地的に発達した雨雲がかかっていて、京都市では、２５日夕方猛烈な雨が降って、「記録的短時間大雨情報」が相次いで発表されました。…

www3.nhk.or.jp

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Kjell Ericson @kjelldericson.bsky.social · Aug 25

Estimates continue to rise...

Hourly rainfall prediction for Kyoto of 86, 72, 30, and 30 millimeters.

Kjell Ericson @kjelldericson.bsky.social · Aug 25

I've certainly never seen this level of predicted hourly rainfall before...

Can't say that it feels like 57mm per hour yet, but wow ☔

Current hourly rainfall forecast for Kyoto of 57, 50, and 34 millimeters.

Kjell Ericson @kjelldericson.bsky.social · Aug 25

Feeling rather lucky to have made it home on my bike just before the start of this huge thunderstorm in Kyoto ⛈️

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Patrick McCray @patrickmccray.bsky.social · Aug 24

In which a NYT writer, allegedly in possession of an abundance of something, imagines that *all* human knowledge ever produced has somehow been digitized...this person has never seen an archive.

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Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales @annales.ehess.fr · Aug 22

Le nouveau numéro des Annales est sorti sur @universitypress.cambridge.org
Au programme, un numéro double consacré aux #animaux (pour la première fois dans l'histoire presque centenaire des #Annales).

Bonne lecture et à bientôt pour une présentation détaillée !

▶️ www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

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Kjell Ericson @kjelldericson.bsky.social · Aug 22

Back in Kyoto with lingering jet lag. The main upside is the ease with which I can go jogging at 5am, in the "crisp" 27C hours before the scorching miasma kicks in.

Reposted by Kjell Ericson

Melina Antonia Buns @melinabuns.bsky.social · Aug 21

excited to share the call for the workshop

EXTRACTIVE NATURES / NATURES OF EXTRACTION

happening at @uobrisceh.bsky.social on 6-7 Nov 2025,
 made possible by the @britishacademy.bsky.social

deadline: 10 September!

full call below ⤵

#envhist #envhum

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Scott Gregory @xiaoshuoing.com · Aug 18

We founded the U of Arizona Center for East Asian Studies three years ago with a US Dept of Education grant. Last Friday marked the end of year 3 of 4. Though the grant was for four years, we have not received word about year 4 funding. Without this support, we have no choice but to close down.

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Anna Alexandrova @annaalexandrova.bsky.social · Aug 2

It used to be completely the opposite, science as the gateway to morality. Such historical swings between thinking that science or humanities are the foundation of ethical life show that neither is inherently

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The Journal of Japanese Studies @jjs-jrnl.bsky.social · Aug 4

Explore JJS's Summer 2025 issue: online.ucpress.edu/jjs?searchre.... Discover new book reviews and articles by Reut Harari, Edwin Michielsen, Andre Haag, Melek Ortabasi, Brian Hurley, and Satoru Hashimoto’s timely Perspectives article “Repairing a Form of Life: Ritual in Ibuse Masuji’s Black Rain.”

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