Both before and after the 2011 "Triple Disaster" of earthquake, tidal wave, and consequent meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, anthropologist Satsuki Takahashi visited nearby communities, collecting accounts of life and livelihoods along the industrialized seascape. The resulting environmental ethnography examines the complex relationship ... Show More
Apr 2025
Amy Zhang, "Circular Ecologies: Environmentalism and Waste Politics in Urban China" (Stanford UP, 2024)
After four decades of reform and development, China is confronting a domestic waste crisis. As the world's largest waste-generating nation, the World Economic Forum projects that by 2030, the volume of household waste in China will be double that of the United States. Starting in ... Show More
1h 7m
Yesterday
Katie Barclay, "The Kiss: A History of Passion and Power" (Reaktion Books, 2025)
The Kiss: A History of Passion and Power (Reaktion, 2026) by Professor Katie Barclay tells the surprising history of our most intimate gesture: the kiss. Richly illustrated, it explores a millennium of kisses, asking how and why the kiss has retained its power over the centuries, ... Show More
31m 30s
May 3
Arely M. Zimmerman, "Contentious Citizenship: Salvadoran Activism and Belonging Across Borders" (U Arizona Press, 2026)
Contentious Citizenship: Salvadoran Activism and Belonging Across Borders (U Arizona Press, 2026) reshapes how we understand belonging, identity, and political participation in the context of migration. Drawing on decades of Salvadoran activism from the 1980s solidarity movement ... Show More
23m 24s
Aug 2023
Satsuki Takahashi, "Fukushima Futures: Survival Stories in a Repeatedly Ruined Seascape" (U Washington Press, 2023)
Both before and after the 2011 "Triple Disaster" of earthquake, tidal wave, and consequent meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, anthropologist Satsuki Takahashi visited nearby communities, collecting accounts of life and livelihoods along the industrialized seas ... Show More
53m 1s
Apr 2024
Encore: Meltdown at Fukushima | Pressure | 2
<p>Crippled by a tsunami of unprecedented scale, one of the reactors at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is in danger of melting down. To save it, workers must do the unthinkable: Vent radioactive steam into the atmosphere, to avoid a larger catastrophe as explosive ... Show More
42m 27s
Sep 2023
Fukushima Nuclear Disaster
In 2011, Japan was hit by the worst earthquake in the country’s history. Enormous tremors caused devastation all throughout Japan, and the tsunami that followed wreaked further havoc. But the damage didn’t end there. 200 km north of Tokyo, the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plan ... Show More
54m 40s
Apr 2022
Meltdown at Fukushima | Pressure | 2
Crippled by a tsunami of unprecedented scale, one of the reactors at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is in danger of melting down. To save it, workers must do the unthinkable: Vent radioactive steam into the atmosphere, to avoid a larger catastrophe as explosive gas ... Show More
45m 56s
Oct 2019
The 2011 Tōhoku Tsunami Pt. 2
Following one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded, Japan was buffeted by an unbelievably powerful tsunami. Although they had attempted to prepare for such a disaster, their defenses were easily overthrown, and the result was one of the most devastating nuclear disaster ... Show More
40m 27s