The world watched in disbelief when a giant tsunami overran the coasts of Northeast Japan on March 11, 2011, and flooded the reactors of Fukushima Daiichi. Within minutes of a magnitude 9.0 earthquake, waves towering up to 14 meters swept across fields and towns, flooding the plant built right on the shoreline in one of the most seismically active zones on earth. In the aftermath of the triple disaster – an earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown – a broader awareness emerged that ‘natural’ disasters are never simply ‘natural,’ but deeply intertwined with human activities.

How can Japan’s long history of coping with disaster help understand the challenges of living in a world of shifting environmental risks? How will climate change reshape our landscapes and economies? And why is a multi-disciplinary approach that puts scientific inquiry in a conversation with the humanities, essential for navigating today's environmental challenges?

Join us for a Talk at the Library with Jonas Rüegg, historian of Japan, East Asia, and the Pacific, as we explore historical disasters in Japan and discuss critical perspectives on how scenarios of changing environmental risks change the way we interpret memories from the past.

This event is for Asia Society Members only. If you are not yet a Member, you can easily become a one by selecting "I am not yet a Member" during the registration process. 

Jonas Rüegg is a scholar in the field of environmental history of Japan, East Asia, and the Pacific. Having obtained his PhD from Harvard University in 2022, he now teaches at the University of Zurich. Before his studies in the United States, Jonas served the embassy of Switzerland in Japan, and is looking back on years of research at Tokyo University and Academia Sinica in Taiwan. His book The Kuroshio Frontier: Empire and Environment in the Making of Japan’s Pacific will come out from Cambridge University Press in 2024. Jonas’ projects investigate the social and environmental cost of Japan’s industrial revolution and the transformations it brought to the Asia-Pacific’s maritime peripheries. Building on sources in seven European and Asian languages, his research into the unequal histories of environmental change is dedicated to local perspectives on global challenges. In the context of his new, multi-year project on the history of the Japanese Empire in the Pacific, Jonas is also working with local artists and educators in Micronesia and other places at the forefront of climate change. In 2024 he won the MJHA Dissertation Prize. Jonas is a Asia 21 Fellow and Gen A Alumnus.

About Talks at the Library

Talk at the Library is a members-only series where we invite an expert to our office library (or on Zoom), over lunch, for a conversation on specific niche topics on a variety of countries and regions of Asia. The program consists of a moderated discussion and subsequent audience Q&A. Participants have the opportunity interact with the experts, asking questions live or online.