Kjell ERICSON

My research lies at intersections of environmental history and the history of science and technology. I have related historical interests in animal studies, ocean and maritime history, and more-than-human histories of migration and transplantation. At present I have two primary projects. The first project rethinks aquacultural history by tracing the simultaneously global and coastal histories of Japan’s Shima region, which has been reshaped by saltwater pearl cultivation since the late nineteenth century. A second project, conducted jointly with Professor Matthew Booker of North Carolina State University and the United States National Humanities Center, follows the transpacific dynamics of a massive twentieth-century trade in living “seed” oysters between Northeastern Japan and the North American Pacific Northwest.