Well, today was my last full day in Japan for the summer ☹, but I got to take one last tour of Tokyo while going on a shorter run and listening to talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was an engaging discussion on the latest in US labor developments at Power at Work with Seth Harris, Elizabeth Ford, Patricia Campos-Medina, and Michael Green https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7XFkDAzQCg

Next was an important talk by Suresh Naidu on the economic geography of American slavery at the Santa Fe Institute. Naidu methodically builds up a model to demonstrate the massive short-term economic costs borne by slaves, with obvious implications for reparations. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DPHo8sK-LY

Next was “Game Production Studies,” edited by Olli Sotamaa and Jan Svelch. This is a fascinating macro look at video game creation, with different academic chapters focusing on careers, economics, and sociology of this field. I especially liked the chapters on French game workers (Hovig Ter Minassian & Vinciane Zabban) and on the Czech game industry (Jaroslav Švelch). Highly recommend the whole volume https://www.routledge.com/Game-Production-Studies/Sotamaa-Svelch/p/book/9781041179979

Last was “Alaska's History” by Harry Ritter. This is a brisk tour through Alaskan history, spending a bit of time with the indigenous peoples and then quickly reviewing important figures from colonization forward. I do like that there's a further reading section at the end for the interested reader, and given the paucity of academic authored books on this topic this is a good brief and necessarily limited read https://bookshop.org/p/books/alaska-s-history-revised-edition-the-people-land-and-events-of-the-north-country-harry-ritter/353958fc0ce4ba6a