Dr. Paula R. Curtis
@paularcurtis.bsky.social
Medievalist. Historian. Japan. Project Juggler. DH. Extremely Tired. Good & Bad cats. 🐾 Rock art. 🎨 Operations Leader @jppinfo.bsky.social, UCLA http://prcurtis.com/
Support open-access projects:
http://patreon.com/prcurtis, http://ko-fi.com/prcurtis
Support open-access projects:
http://patreon.com/prcurtis, http://ko-fi.com/prcurtis
Pinned
Hello new folks! If you've just followed, I'm a historian of medieval Japan working on metal caster networks & documentary forgery. I manage @jppinfo.bsky.social, which facilitates greater equity and inclusion in the Japanese humanities. I also do East Asia + digital humanities and post cat chaos. 🐾
With my last full lecture of the year done yesterday I finally took a little time to work on the rock garden, which needed some soil work, fence repair, and cleaning. Almost got plot 3 done! Sadly because karma is a bitch today some guy came to work on a sewage line and tore plot 2 to pieces. 😭
November 26, 2025 at 1:31 AM
With my last full lecture of the year done yesterday I finally took a little time to work on the rock garden, which needed some soil work, fence repair, and cleaning. Almost got plot 3 done! Sadly because karma is a bitch today some guy came to work on a sewage line and tore plot 2 to pieces. 😭
Foolish mortal, you dare disturb me, Rigatoni, in my kingdom of trash, where I am most powerful?
November 25, 2025 at 3:11 PM
Foolish mortal, you dare disturb me, Rigatoni, in my kingdom of trash, where I am most powerful?
how ready are you for the day and is it this ready 🙃
November 25, 2025 at 2:47 PM
how ready are you for the day and is it this ready 🙃
“You brought home 20 lbs of @jppinfo.bsky.social merch just for ME?”
November 25, 2025 at 2:26 AM
“You brought home 20 lbs of @jppinfo.bsky.social merch just for ME?”
A shitty AP World textbook spent only two pages on Japan, mostly about WWII, but had a single unsatisfying paragraph about monumental architecture/painting and the 16th century unifiers. The seed was planted and now I work on medieval Japanese artisans. ✌🏻
November 23, 2025 at 1:55 AM
A shitty AP World textbook spent only two pages on Japan, mostly about WWII, but had a single unsatisfying paragraph about monumental architecture/painting and the 16th century unifiers. The seed was planted and now I work on medieval Japanese artisans. ✌🏻
After a week of torrential rains and three days of a cold I took a walk to the store today and my body acts like I got it a 2 hour massage it’s so happy to be functional again.
November 23, 2025 at 1:51 AM
After a week of torrential rains and three days of a cold I took a walk to the store today and my body acts like I got it a 2 hour massage it’s so happy to be functional again.
seems like a real generous "a late start date can be considered" 😂
November 22, 2025 at 12:37 AM
seems like a real generous "a late start date can be considered" 😂
To five years of chaos and mischief with my tiny demon child Rigatoni, a personality of her times.
November 21, 2025 at 4:37 PM
To five years of chaos and mischief with my tiny demon child Rigatoni, a personality of her times.
Does anyone else have the experience of persistently getting sudden onset colds that only last for 48 hours? Like, once or twice a month? 😬 Seems bad?
November 20, 2025 at 10:29 PM
Does anyone else have the experience of persistently getting sudden onset colds that only last for 48 hours? Like, once or twice a month? 😬 Seems bad?
I think we are in a fight.
November 20, 2025 at 6:28 PM
I think we are in a fight.
dying to be a deviant
The sick, disgusting pleasure of a full night’s sleep. Only true perverts will understand
November 20, 2025 at 4:13 AM
dying to be a deviant
The real teaching question is do students fully appreciate that I am ready and eager to edit Irasutoya images to make sure a samurai can accost a bored turkey, just for their slide-based entertainment.
November 20, 2025 at 12:40 AM
The real teaching question is do students fully appreciate that I am ready and eager to edit Irasutoya images to make sure a samurai can accost a bored turkey, just for their slide-based entertainment.
Was privileged to have Kelin Michael, a fellow at the Hammer Museum, guide my students through a couple dozen early modern and modern prints today! Along with some guiding through the current ukiyo-e exhibit that’s there through the end of the month. 😀
November 19, 2025 at 10:03 PM
Was privileged to have Kelin Michael, a fellow at the Hammer Museum, guide my students through a couple dozen early modern and modern prints today! Along with some guiding through the current ukiyo-e exhibit that’s there through the end of the month. 😀
When you just want to loaf but mother let a DOG in for a whole minute. 🥺
November 19, 2025 at 3:47 PM
When you just want to loaf but mother let a DOG in for a whole minute. 🥺
Reposted by Dr. Paula R. Curtis
New publication on archaeology & Japanese eco-nationalism. Had a lot of fun writing this over the summer. My co-author Claudia Zancan provided several new insights that had not occurred to me before, especially with respect to the Kofun period.
www.frontiersin.org/journals/env...
www.frontiersin.org/journals/env...
Frontiers | Environmental archaeology and eco-nativist discourse in modern Japan
Claims that Japanese society has lived in “harmony” with Nature and can therefore provide lessons for global sustainability have a long history. While such “...
www.frontiersin.org
November 18, 2025 at 5:36 PM
New publication on archaeology & Japanese eco-nationalism. Had a lot of fun writing this over the summer. My co-author Claudia Zancan provided several new insights that had not occurred to me before, especially with respect to the Kofun period.
www.frontiersin.org/journals/env...
www.frontiersin.org/journals/env...
Reposted by Dr. Paula R. Curtis
I'm delighted to share this new article, co-authored with Pier Carlo Tommasi and Jeffrey Niedermaier, on the experience of running an uta-awase (poetry contest) for first-semester students of Classical Japanese! The fourth annual uta-awase is coming up in a few weeks 😊😊
jll.pitt.edu/ojs/JLL/arti...
jll.pitt.edu/ojs/JLL/arti...
Contesting the “Classical,” Creating Communities: The “Intercollegiate Classical Japanese Poetry Contest” within the Landscape of 2020s North American Bungo Pedagogy
| Japanese Language and ...
jll.pitt.edu
November 17, 2025 at 9:34 PM
I'm delighted to share this new article, co-authored with Pier Carlo Tommasi and Jeffrey Niedermaier, on the experience of running an uta-awase (poetry contest) for first-semester students of Classical Japanese! The fourth annual uta-awase is coming up in a few weeks 😊😊
jll.pitt.edu/ojs/JLL/arti...
jll.pitt.edu/ojs/JLL/arti...
Reposted by Dr. Paula R. Curtis
Even as someone whose philosophical work is intrinsically historical, I would not know how to be a philosopher in a School of Human Narratives and Creative Expressions. Our disciplines are not just words we can switch out of for marketing purposes.
"The plan would reorganize the departments and their faculty members into an array of “schools,” “centers” and “institutes.” Among those that administrators have floated are the School of Human Narratives and Creative Expressions & the Institute for Complex Systems and Algorithmic Infused Societies"
"[admin]...who regard the...students of their own universities with such contempt as to be undeserving of the education that in many cases those administrators themselves, or their parents, or their children received...are an enemy of the educational enterprise"
🎁 link
www.wsj.com/opinion/mont...
🎁 link
www.wsj.com/opinion/mont...
November 17, 2025 at 10:19 PM
Even as someone whose philosophical work is intrinsically historical, I would not know how to be a philosopher in a School of Human Narratives and Creative Expressions. Our disciplines are not just words we can switch out of for marketing purposes.
Exhausted from my one class about to end but also fantasizing about developing new paired co-taught museum-oriented classes that currently exist only in my mind. 🥲
November 17, 2025 at 8:41 PM
Exhausted from my one class about to end but also fantasizing about developing new paired co-taught museum-oriented classes that currently exist only in my mind. 🥲
this is so pure
November 17, 2025 at 8:34 PM
this is so pure
Looking forward to seeing folks in Laos very soon! 😀 I've never been to Southeast Asia either, so be gentle with me. 🙏
JPP will be attending the 9th Biennial Conference of the Japanese Studies Association of Southeast Asia (JSA–ASEAN) at National University of Laos! Would you like to learn more about our digital resources, funding opportunities, & works in progress? Considering submitting a proposal for a project?
November 17, 2025 at 2:48 AM
Looking forward to seeing folks in Laos very soon! 😀 I've never been to Southeast Asia either, so be gentle with me. 🙏
Reposted by Dr. Paula R. Curtis
If you are not in academia, you might not know this, but job interviews used to be held at conferences IN HOTEL ROOMS. Women candidates in a hotel room alone with often all-male committees. People sitting on beds! The horror stories I've heard.
I thing I sometimes thing about is that university departments were still doing job interviews in hotel rooms in the mid aughts
November 16, 2025 at 7:42 PM
If you are not in academia, you might not know this, but job interviews used to be held at conferences IN HOTEL ROOMS. Women candidates in a hotel room alone with often all-male committees. People sitting on beds! The horror stories I've heard.
oh hell yeah retooting this post so hard
my husband just said, “what is a post on bluesky called again? a toot?” honestly dude that would be less embarrassing
November 15, 2025 at 5:03 AM
oh hell yeah retooting this post so hard
adulthood is being SO excited your weighted blanket is being delivered today so you can promptly take a nap of desperation
November 14, 2025 at 5:40 PM
adulthood is being SO excited your weighted blanket is being delivered today so you can promptly take a nap of desperation
Reposted by Dr. Paula R. Curtis
I've been unsuccessful in locating info on annual conferences for the Chinese Association For Japanese Studies 中华全国日本学会 and Taiwan Society of Japan Studies 當代日本研究學會. Namely: Is registering as a member required to present? Are there event participation fees? If anyone knows, it would be appreciated!
November 14, 2025 at 4:40 AM
I've been unsuccessful in locating info on annual conferences for the Chinese Association For Japanese Studies 中华全国日本学会 and Taiwan Society of Japan Studies 當代日本研究學會. Namely: Is registering as a member required to present? Are there event participation fees? If anyone knows, it would be appreciated!