https://jonathangalka.com Jonathan Galka Sun, 27 Aug 2023 11:33:50 +0000 https://jonathangalka.com en https://jonathangalka.com/Homepage Thu, 10 Aug 2023 15:18:59 +0000 Jonathan Galka https://jonathangalka.com/Homepage I am an interdisciplinary historian and ethnographer of modern sciences &amp; environments focusing on oceanic extraction. I also love mollusks. As of July 2026, I am Assistant Professor of the History of Science&nbsp; in the Department of History &amp; Philosophy at KTH Stockholm and in the Centre of Excellence for Anthropocene History. I was formerly a&nbsp;Postdoctoral Fellow at NUS Asia Research Institute. I am affiliated with the Max Planck-NTU CCA Centre for Biocultural Worlding.&nbsp; Member of the Deep Currents Collective. Editor at H-Oceans. &nbsp; https://jonathangalka.com/In-Such-Abundance-A-History-of-the-Ocean-that-Minerals-Promised Thu, 10 Aug 2023 15:36:06 +0000 Jonathan Galka https://jonathangalka.com/In-Such-Abundance-A-History-of-the-Ocean-that-Minerals-Promised IN SUCH ABUNDANCE: A HISTORY OF THE OCEAN THAT MINERALS PROMISED <img width="3024" height="4032" width_o="3024" height_o="4032" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/2c5c09029cb9ffe7d4fc25dc656ade2124bfb1097f4ce9b3489af7d75ec96175/IMG_9370.jpeg" data-mid="187987713" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/2c5c09029cb9ffe7d4fc25dc656ade2124bfb1097f4ce9b3489af7d75ec96175/IMG_9370.jpeg" /> Frontispiece to Manganese Nodules: Research Data and Methods of Investigation by Ronald K. Sorem and Ronald H. Fewkes. 1979, University of Washington Press.&nbsp; Deep-sea sciences and deep-sea laws evolved through one another during the mid-20th century. How are resource-making and governance mutually implicated in the history of the modern ocean?&nbsp; How did the way that ideas about material abundance were conceived in the mid-20th century engender a working vision of the ocean that makes a more full and just vision of abundance impossible to envision?&nbsp; This book project takes up these questions in the context of deep-sea manganese (now called polymetallic) nodules, asking how historicizing the history of ocean science’s outsides might bear on resolving lasting challenges to collective oceanic governance. Though once again making headlines as a potential mineral resource frontier, manganese (polymetallic) nodules have commanded interest since the 1870s, and especially since the late 1950s. During the 1960s, against a background of deep seabed resources, the deep ocean simultaneously became a both resource environment and a site broadly deemed in need of governance.The most salient feature of deep-sea minerals since their popularization at the end of the 1950s, and indeed still today, is their purported volume. Scientists and technologists in the mid-20th century characterized them as abundant, nearly limitless in quantity, and potentially even self-renewing. This book takes abundance as the organizing logic structuring debates over the future of shared seabed. This is not to claim that mineral abundance arrived to universal acclaim. Rather, for a wide variety of people — economic geologists, engineers, geochemists, ecologists, resource economists, and ocean politicians — abundance was an imposition that required creative negotiation by key figures at the center of making and using knowledge about the deep seabed who were frustrated by the hold that nodules had on seeing the future ocean. And yet, the story about endless valuable minerals on the seabed stuck. This book tells the story of how, and with what consequences.&nbsp;As a critical analysis of the mutual becoming of ocean science and ocean law, the project offers new approaches to the historical study of oceanic and other shared environments, while also offering paths forward through staid conflicts in seabed governance. <img width="3024" height="4032" width_o="3024" height_o="4032" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7f855500f7ba204345df2c64a2e6ee7443a69d887209bbf25a99d97113295b86/IMG_9192.jpeg" data-mid="187987685" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/7f855500f7ba204345df2c64a2e6ee7443a69d887209bbf25a99d97113295b86/IMG_9192.jpeg" /> Cover of Saturday Review, featuring Arvid Pardo against a background of oil and shipping infrastructures.&nbsp; <img width="3024" height="4032" width_o="3024" height_o="4032" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/43c8ab464fe8dbb3ba6c8058190cf5154ec73e6296e42eda13af72272e0c555e/Fish-vs-oil-catch.jpeg" data-mid="188988120" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/43c8ab464fe8dbb3ba6c8058190cf5154ec73e6296e42eda13af72272e0c555e/Fish-vs-oil-catch.jpeg" />“The Global Grab Bag.” Offshore oil resources versus fisheries catches after the innovation of exclusive economic zones. Arvid Pardo Collection, IMLI Library, Malta <img width="3024" height="4032" width_o="3024" height_o="4032" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/4e5c80075d4a7a04e33a3727aeb94fce6642dded4186b06463aefafd8957ddf7/NIEO---LOS.jpeg" data-mid="188988117" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/4e5c80075d4a7a04e33a3727aeb94fce6642dded4186b06463aefafd8957ddf7/NIEO---LOS.jpeg" /> Scenes from the 1975 event, “The New International Economic Order and the Law of the Sea,” held at the Center for Democratic Institutions, Santa Barbara, CA An outline of the project:Introduction: A World in a Nodule Ore: Precarious Inexhaustibility and the Assembly of an Oceanic ResourceFraming Vastness and Value Between Diplonauts and MinersOrder for the Infinite Offshore&nbsp; Rocks Like Fish or Oil“The Nodules are Alive and Well on the Sea-Floor” Dreaming with Minerals and Anticolonial Worldmaking at Sea Conclusion: The Seabed, UngovernedEpilogue: “The Marine Revolution which cannot be stopped” <img width="3871" height="2225" width_o="3871" height_o="2225" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/fc25ee3e87bd9b21969881e356ce42adbcabff982ae6d0d1ef699c2ff49159a1/Map-of-global-sediments.jpeg" data-mid="188988119" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/fc25ee3e87bd9b21969881e356ce42adbcabff982ae6d0d1ef699c2ff49159a1/Map-of-global-sediments.jpeg" /> “Plate XI: Deep Sea Deposits.” John Murray and Johan Hjort, The Depths of the Ocean (London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1912). https://jonathangalka.com/Deep-Seawater Thu, 10 Aug 2023 15:18:58 +0000 Jonathan Galka https://jonathangalka.com/Deep-Seawater DEEP SEAWATER’S AMBIVALENT ABUNDANCE&nbsp; My most recent research concerns the relationship obtained in seawater between vertical depth, temperature differentials, (deep) time, and the making of oceanic value through experiments with deep seawater in coastal and island environments.&nbsp;These interests are distilled principally in the processes of surfacing deep seawater in multi-use flow-through systems, networking ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC), seawater air conditioning (SWAC), mariculture, and desalination.&nbsp;Deep seawater users’ networked technologies of food and energy production in particular present a space for the consideration of historical cross-currents at the interface of natural and built environments. Obtaining energy through OTEC, for example, is a process restricted in potential application to mostly small, mostly tropical, islands. It also figured prominently in mid-20th century discussions of the potential contribution of renewable ocean energy to postcolonial economic development on independent terms. As such, deep seawater stories might engage with efforts to rethink the operative logics and historical understandings of energy transition, small island development, and American and other empire.&nbsp; <img width="3024" height="4032" width_o="3024" height_o="4032" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7aa8e60a2d70be85c2c560b7c34d07a94a7bf370c644957ef06c4126c7bd67c3/Makai-Scale-Up.jpg" data-mid="237178268" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/7aa8e60a2d70be85c2c560b7c34d07a94a7bf370c644957ef06c4126c7bd67c3/Makai-Scale-Up.jpg" />Makai’s Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion&nbsp;Scale Up. Credit: Jonathan Galka. July 2025. <img width="4032" height="3024" width_o="4032" height_o="3024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d04c47fe9f666bfd7cf9a562d9b8912475de9c4af4f0c29a8f35964b45c80596/multi-purpose-SAGA-otec.jpg" data-mid="237178269" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/d04c47fe9f666bfd7cf9a562d9b8912475de9c4af4f0c29a8f35964b45c80596/multi-purpose-SAGA-otec.jpg" />Multi-purpose OTEC Laboratory control panel, Institute of Ocean Energy (IOES), Saga University, Japan. Credit: Jonathan Galka. March 2025. Historically, this project traces transoceanic connections among sites in the French colonial Caribbean and the West African coast, the U.S. territories of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, South Pacific small island states, Hawai’i, and Okinawa. Ethnographically, I follow the work that deep, cold, water does, whether chanelled toward the production of aquacultural envirnoments for coldwater fish, shellfish, and mollusks as in contemporary Hawai’i and Japan, bound up in the making of other renewables projects, or circulated as a valuable base and additive for other consumable products. Altogether this project pursues how scientists’ aspirations to design technologies that facilitate synchronicity with earth systems processes (tapping into a planetary metabolism) have shaped orientations to the ocean as a site of excess, to the role of outside science in democratic governance, and to methods for confronting a (changing) climate.&nbsp; <img width="3024" height="4032" width_o="3024" height_o="4032" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/2b47abec55c6cc1f92da371a78c011ba88c57f8ec0942757806847eb20402439/IMG_3561.JPG" data-mid="226030132" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/2b47abec55c6cc1f92da371a78c011ba88c57f8ec0942757806847eb20402439/IMG_3561.JPG" /> Juvenile Yezo Abalone shell hot-glued into the palm of a solar-powered tourist souvenir hula dancer at Big Island Abalone. November 2023.&nbsp; <img width="424" height="690" width_o="424" height_o="690" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8a7476e57277d54a5e67381d8557fc121db4886befe1fbb96b7828a9b82e1b7e/Picture1.jpg" data-mid="237569516" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/424/i/8a7476e57277d54a5e67381d8557fc121db4886befe1fbb96b7828a9b82e1b7e/Picture1.jpg" /> A schematic of the multi-use deep seawater system installed in Kona, Hawai’i.&nbsp; <img width="3024" height="4032" width_o="3024" height_o="4032" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/31f6b74ab876ee69f5a31598813f6a645f184f4ae92b374a0d27ba83cf10a2b2/Kumejima-oysters.jpg" data-mid="237178267" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/31f6b74ab876ee69f5a31598813f6a645f184f4ae92b374a0d27ba83cf10a2b2/Kumejima-oysters.jpg" />Oysters with reduced shell weight grown from spat on nutrient rich deep seawater on Kumejima, Okinawa. Credit: Jonathan Galka, March 2025. If you’re interested in the historical or contemporary context of oceanic energy generation, especially when it moves across terrestrial and aquatic islanded environments, I’d love to talk about it. https://jonathangalka.com/Mollusks-Malacology Thu, 10 Aug 2023 15:18:56 +0000 Jonathan Galka https://jonathangalka.com/Mollusks-Malacology Mollusks, Malacology, Multispecies Histories As a longstanding member of the Broward Shell Club, I have a lifelong love for the history of snails, snail sciences (both vernacular and professional), and snail technologies. I am interested most by what partnering with mollusks might teach us about our shared environments, about what it means to be committed to nonhuman others, and in how collectors, scientists, engineers, and a broad array of other humans have conceived those relationships in the past and present. Some recent and ongoing projects are outlined below. Liguus Landscapes: Amateur Liggers, Professional Malacology, and the Social Lives of Snail Sciences Liguus fasciatus is a species of tree snail endemic to Southern Florida and Cuba, but they are also more than this. To understand what Liguus are, this paper examines snail enthusiasts, collectors, researchers, and conservationists — collectively self-identified as Liggers — in their varied landscapes. Beginning with an examination of early Liggers’ work in Florida and Cuba, I demonstrate how notions of taxonomy and biogeography informed later efforts to understand Liguus hybridization and conservation. A heterogeneous community of Liggers has had varied and at times contradictory commitments and genealogizing those commitments illuminates the factors underpinning a decision to undertake the until now little-chronicled large-scale and sustained transplantation of every living Floridian form of Liguus fasciatus into Everglades National Park. The social history of Liggers and Liguus fundamentally blurs distinctions between professional scientists and amateur naturalists. The experiences of a cast of Liggers and their Liguus snails historicize the complex character of human-animal relations and speak to the increasing endangerment of many similarly range-restricted invertebrates. <img width="3024" height="4032" width_o="3024" height_o="4032" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ef63b2adbf19a5ce0ba0104a7fbae5a21300a5cead7a0159e9c702102f4e291c/Liguus.jpeg" data-mid="188988196" border="0" data-scale="71" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ef63b2adbf19a5ce0ba0104a7fbae5a21300a5cead7a0159e9c702102f4e291c/Liguus.jpeg" />Florida Tree Snails (Liguus fasciatus) arranged by color form. Coll. Bob Pace.&nbsp; <img width="3014" height="3027" width_o="3014" height_o="3027" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9a030d18e3ddbf3712758aee750d10feeb57106e9f1448095736f4ac585d01ad/Partula-on-souvenir-purse.png" data-mid="188988213" border="0" data-scale="91" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/9a030d18e3ddbf3712758aee750d10feeb57106e9f1448095736f4ac585d01ad/Partula-on-souvenir-purse.png" /> Partula treesnails, adorning a mid-20th century souvenir, French Polynesia.&nbsp; Mollusk loves: Becoming with native and introduced land snails in the Hawaiian Islands Hawaiian island land snails once represented one of the most diverse archipelagic evolutionary radiations. Historically, indigenous Hawaiians (Kānaka maoli) and Westerners also heard some snails (kāhuli) sing. Today, most of these species are extinct or endangered. One major cause has been the intentional mid-20th century introduction of a Floridian land snail, Euglandina rosea, for the biological control of another mollusk, Lissachatina fulica.&nbsp; First considering the evolutionary biological work of John Gulick and his counterparts to genealogize contemporary snail-love, I then elaborate on what care and hope might mean with Pacific Island land snails living through ongoing environmental dispossession and alteration. I then reconsider Euglandina on parallel conceptual terms, engaging natural historical and laboratory accounts to think with the introduced mollusk beyond its categorization as ‘alien invader’. Loving Euglandina as well as kāhuli may help realize livable futures for indigenous and introduced Hawaiian island mollusks alike, in a world hopefully full of snail-song. <img width="876" height="620" width_o="876" height_o="620" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3149079e35fc20b9604a15d353db2ec416d597eae88b235c7e8a794f3d839c19/Merkel---Monitor.png" data-mid="188988460" border="0" data-scale="100" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/876/i/3149079e35fc20b9604a15d353db2ec416d597eae88b235c7e8a794f3d839c19/Merkel---Monitor.png" /> Angela Merkel and the Dreissena Monitor. From the Archives of Jost Borcherding. For some time now I have&nbsp; been interested in role role that bivalve mollusks, especially mussels including&nbsp;Dreissena spp., have had in the design of technology for both passive and active biomonitoring of a broad array of pollutants across a range of settings. My interest spans the 140+ year history of noticing a shared chemical environment with mollusks, but it has centered primarily on the history of mussel-monitoring plans and devices designed in the 1970s and 1980s, especially the Mosselmonitor and the Dreissena Monitor.&nbsp;My interests in the history of passive and active biomonitoring with mussels have led me to investigate the US Mussel Watch Program and the subsequent International Mussel Watch. Inspired by episodes of coastal pollution in Southern California, the Mussel Watch programs were conceived (but never entirely realized) as late-20th century projects with globalizing aspirations. They sought to construct a nationwide and then worldwide network of bivalved mollusks and human monitors as passive indicators of new and complex environmental pollutants. <img width="4032" height="3024" width_o="4032" height_o="3024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/79282d4ac627495964d2d08f933c840238ad18248b9e10602ec0c410ad67a9d3/IMG_6057.jpeg" data-mid="188988432" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/79282d4ac627495964d2d08f933c840238ad18248b9e10602ec0c410ad67a9d3/IMG_6057.jpeg" /> Crassostrea virginica collected in Laguna Madre, Mexico, as part of the IMW. COll. Dept. of MOllusks, Harvard MCZ.&nbsp; <img width="4032" height="3024" width_o="4032" height_o="3024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/68b7758456508103cc4bf87e69b02825ded7bd384392a7d3da7f7d30e6b4858c/IMG_6056.jpeg" data-mid="192091327" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/68b7758456508103cc4bf87e69b02825ded7bd384392a7d3da7f7d30e6b4858c/IMG_6056.jpeg" /> Isognoma alatus&nbsp;collected in Bowden, Jamaica, as part of the IMW. coll. Dept. of Mollusks, Harvard MCZ.&nbsp; <img width="4032" height="3024" width_o="4032" height_o="3024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/661dbad8586f474187f909e7581fadc04a9695405745322e3d57822d3ec84053/IMG_6060.jpeg" data-mid="188988431" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/661dbad8586f474187f909e7581fadc04a9695405745322e3d57822d3ec84053/IMG_6060.jpeg" /> Mytella guayanensis collected in Caroni Swamp, Trinidad, as part of the IMW. coll. Dept. of Mollusks, Harvard MCZ.&nbsp; Most recently, I have begun to research the dynamics of in situ and ex situ conservation among invertebrates in the ancient lakes of Central Sulawesi, Indonesia.&nbsp;There is change afoot in these lakes. These five lakes and their drainages are home to several spectacular evolutionary radiations: mollusks of the genus Tylomelania, shrimp of the genus Caridina, and Telmatherinid silversides, to name a few. Even though in the late 1990s, these species flocks were among the least degraded in the region, today, as the group Sulawesi Keepers implores, much of the “freshwater fauna of Sulawesi is at risk of extinction.” This research will investigate how novel forms of conservation practice are emerging between aquarists and hobbyists in Europe, nickel mining’s interest in in situ interventions, and the local communities bordering&nbsp;Sulawesi’s ancient lakes. <img width="4032" height="3024" width_o="4032" height_o="3024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1fda382581623db999d7b9a5257f8670f89a647f51954e26647cdcc88e8d990b/Bitung-Mine.jpg" data-mid="221806657" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/1fda382581623db999d7b9a5257f8670f89a647f51954e26647cdcc88e8d990b/Bitung-Mine.jpg" /> Open-pit gold mine, Pinasungkula, Bitung, North Sulawesi. https://jonathangalka.com/Insurgent-Seabed-Archive Thu, 10 Aug 2023 15:18:57 +0000 Jonathan Galka https://jonathangalka.com/Insurgent-Seabed-Archive INSURGENT SEABED ARCHIVE: CURATING SEABED MEMORIES&nbsp; How particular knowledge about the environment becomes standard (or, whose stories are told, and how) is an animating question of my work. How is the ocean remembered? What is saved that recalls those memories? What might it mean to make not only more, but better, archives of ocean history? And how, with those diverse archives, might we develop better accounts of the ocean that speak to social and environmental change in its situated manifestations?Not only is it true that what gets stored and storied is political, but on top of this, archival access can be political and is often simply expensive. In response, I am collaboratively assembling an Insurgent Seabed Archive that&nbsp;begins from the conviction that more just, representative ocean governance requires more, and different, stories. The INSURGENT SEABED ARCHIVE, an effort supported by the NTU CCA’s Climate Crisis &amp; Cultural Loss project, collects and curates memories of the seabed, where both ‘memories’ and ‘seabed’ are meant in their broadest possible senses.&nbsp;Structured as an iterative call-and-response, the INSURGENT SEABED ARCHIVE presents multiple sides of the story of ocean histories: the dominant narrative proffered by the Nii Allotey Odunton Museum of the International Seabed Authority in Kingston, Jamaica, alongside dispersed and plural counter-narratives by interlocutors, both human and more-than-human, whose lives have gravitated toward the oceanic and the benthic. These stories have been reassembled into an alternative seabed archive that questions how particular knowledges and frames of apprehension about the seabed environment became standard, and how we might develop accounts of the ocean that speak directly to social and environmental change in its situated manifestations. <img width="3024" height="4032" width_o="3024" height_o="4032" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c5c58ad899cd1d619402f8b8aa47178c888d282eb3f7597233622c9b1ea3e45a/IMG_5743.jpeg" data-mid="188988823" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c5c58ad899cd1d619402f8b8aa47178c888d282eb3f7597233622c9b1ea3e45a/IMG_5743.jpeg" /> Deep-sea Deposits. Chart 1, Sir John Murray and Alphonse François Renard, Report on Deep-Sea Deposits Based on the Specimens Collected During the Voyage of H.M.S. Challenger in the Years 1872 to 1876 (H.M. Stationery Office, 1891). The Insurgent Seabed Archive’s first appearance in the world is at Ocean Space, Venice (March 23, 2024 - November 11, 2024). Contributions appear from&nbsp; Rachel Reeves, Amelia Hine, Charity Edwards, Jason Crow, Sonya Schoenberger, Tirza Meyer, Mats Ingulstad, Helen Rozwadowski, Katherine Sammler, Charne Lavery, Laurence Publicover, Tamsin Badcoe, Stefan Helmreich, Joe Riley, Jonathan Galka, Jess Auerbach, and Giulia Champion. <img width="3024" height="4032" width_o="3024" height_o="4032" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/72db3d579dab83233e6d6ed7e8ab99f96a4c39af01da42f1c21ed4101aa3e39b/IMG_9544.jpeg" data-mid="210699569" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/72db3d579dab83233e6d6ed7e8ab99f96a4c39af01da42f1c21ed4101aa3e39b/IMG_9544.jpeg" /> <img width="4032" height="3024" width_o="4032" height_o="3024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/2b12ccec1f7597943c67905ddcaf580891e3747ab93477534be040e44fcbc778/IMG_9550.jpeg" data-mid="210699571" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/2b12ccec1f7597943c67905ddcaf580891e3747ab93477534be040e44fcbc778/IMG_9550.jpeg" /> <img width="3024" height="4032" width_o="3024" height_o="4032" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/55009719c005570253bd320e1d9882f1036a86ba7a1b5ec6251dbb0845390aa7/IMG_9557.jpeg" data-mid="210699572" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/55009719c005570253bd320e1d9882f1036a86ba7a1b5ec6251dbb0845390aa7/IMG_9557.jpeg" /> <img width="4032" height="3024" width_o="4032" height_o="3024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/32737d86f6b52d7038debf0059ce667a6e9325e9e1eecd7739eb70adaae436df/IMG_9569.jpeg" data-mid="210699573" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/32737d86f6b52d7038debf0059ce667a6e9325e9e1eecd7739eb70adaae436df/IMG_9569.jpeg" /> <img width="3024" height="4032" width_o="3024" height_o="4032" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/478dd7c34d250db3252e15edf45742f7d510473e63ff1d6d2c32e2505c12f984/IMG_9549.jpeg" data-mid="210699570" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/478dd7c34d250db3252e15edf45742f7d510473e63ff1d6d2c32e2505c12f984/IMG_9549.jpeg" /> The Insurgent Seabed Archive’s second appearance in the world is at the Nanyang Technological University’s Art, Design, &amp; Media Gallery, Singapore (April 12, 2024 - May 31, 2024 2024). <img width="1512" height="2016" width_o="1512" height_o="2016" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/2665c9524ca119516947e5bd795dc32666f7ec0286874eb8221c06fa9ed055e5/IMG_0588.jpg" data-mid="210699582" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/2665c9524ca119516947e5bd795dc32666f7ec0286874eb8221c06fa9ed055e5/IMG_0588.jpg" /> <img width="1512" height="2016" width_o="1512" height_o="2016" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/2b516f3c03c90fcba21d9cfb541a833e5d6fea602ef161b3b72e767ac0da6156/IMG_0594.jpg" data-mid="210700305" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/2b516f3c03c90fcba21d9cfb541a833e5d6fea602ef161b3b72e767ac0da6156/IMG_0594.jpg" /> <img width="1512" height="2016" width_o="1512" height_o="2016" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/071ceb9d2e9c62c7b3d75068f64ed06a6c5b8169567af78fbbba65ce325f206c/IMG_0562.jpg" data-mid="210700304" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/071ceb9d2e9c62c7b3d75068f64ed06a6c5b8169567af78fbbba65ce325f206c/IMG_0562.jpg" /> <img width="1512" height="2016" width_o="1512" height_o="2016" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/4ef678a017d5adceda390fd270d25bfcc8348dc098ac5163b0ab8f32b39be1d5/IMG_0586.jpg" data-mid="210699581" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/4ef678a017d5adceda390fd270d25bfcc8348dc098ac5163b0ab8f32b39be1d5/IMG_0586.jpg" /> <img width="2016" height="1512" width_o="2016" height_o="1512" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e59b908bae25e0613c356ece57249cb8b56936ceeb6028c0f384aa1f793a9862/IMG_0558.jpg" data-mid="210700303" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/e59b908bae25e0613c356ece57249cb8b56936ceeb6028c0f384aa1f793a9862/IMG_0558.jpg" /> <img width="1512" height="2016" width_o="1512" height_o="2016" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/985573723024f7eb0c89bf229a3c88ed723257760f1060beb5af0e76ae7fb35a/IMG_0592.jpg" data-mid="210699584" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/985573723024f7eb0c89bf229a3c88ed723257760f1060beb5af0e76ae7fb35a/IMG_0592.jpg" /> <img width="2016" height="1512" width_o="2016" height_o="1512" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/bca55796b82ca7e8f2ab7c3d605bedc880b926cc7a6ec65681395990d3a3a75b/IMG_0556.jpg" data-mid="210700302" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/bca55796b82ca7e8f2ab7c3d605bedc880b926cc7a6ec65681395990d3a3a75b/IMG_0556.jpg" /> <img width="1512" height="2016" width_o="1512" height_o="2016" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ab1ca2ef997b6d380edbf2a871213e2dab399b51d16e90e413bb27d202066715/IMG_0591.jpg" data-mid="210699583" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ab1ca2ef997b6d380edbf2a871213e2dab399b51d16e90e413bb27d202066715/IMG_0591.jpg" /> The Insurgent Seabed Archive’s third appearance in the world is at the National Gallery of Kingston, Jamaica, as part of the Deep Currents Collective’s co-curated event Our Future Seabed, held coincident with the 30th session of the International Seabed Authority (July 20-25, 2025).&nbsp; <img width="3024" height="4032" width_o="3024" height_o="4032" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f3064a2fbc483d07cb1cd5861764de1284587c03744064d1acb287db21528eeb/Kingston-ISA-1.jpg" data-mid="237178336" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/f3064a2fbc483d07cb1cd5861764de1284587c03744064d1acb287db21528eeb/Kingston-ISA-1.jpg" /> <img width="853" height="1280" width_o="853" height_o="1280" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3c51af267b2c8cbd4a3b84657b5b08ea09ddae8d80c745163e8e6f976cc8db96/54338e80-942b-4b36-bd6d-b8ae069d41ae.JPG" data-mid="237178356" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/853/i/3c51af267b2c8cbd4a3b84657b5b08ea09ddae8d80c745163e8e6f976cc8db96/54338e80-942b-4b36-bd6d-b8ae069d41ae.JPG" /> <img width="3024" height="4032" width_o="3024" height_o="4032" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/901ce47b3339a44020010e52e70708293b300cbdbd85601658358f72d2bf10f9/Kingston-ISA-2.jpg" data-mid="237178337" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/901ce47b3339a44020010e52e70708293b300cbdbd85601658358f72d2bf10f9/Kingston-ISA-2.jpg" /> <img width="3024" height="4032" width_o="3024" height_o="4032" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/849607baa50058298ef98e148bc5fd6f8e7a327ac8cfdcf5a118ccf044dce135/IMG_4858.jpeg" data-mid="188988824" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/849607baa50058298ef98e148bc5fd6f8e7a327ac8cfdcf5a118ccf044dce135/IMG_4858.jpeg" /> Unattributed drawing of an unnamed woman. UELH, HMS Challenger Papers. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; The archive will grow and appear elsewhere in time, both in physical and digital form. If you’d like learn about how to contribute a submission, please get in touch.︎ jgalka@g.harvard.edu <img width="3687" height="2293" width_o="3687" height_o="2293" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/cf4cda8b7ce78e1208d49d73dcbdae42a0e3fb17930147daace23615ddf11a10/IMG_4821.jpeg" data-mid="189260207" border="0" data-scale="91" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/cf4cda8b7ce78e1208d49d73dcbdae42a0e3fb17930147daace23615ddf11a10/IMG_4821.jpeg" /> Sketch near Suva, Fiji, with writing by Fijian girl. Artist: J. J. Wild. UELH, HMS Challenger Papers. Gen. 30, no. 2. https://jonathangalka.com/Writing-Speaking Sun, 27 Aug 2023 11:33:50 +0000 Jonathan Galka https://jonathangalka.com/Writing-Speaking WRITING &amp; SPEAKING I have written mostly the histories of snails, deep-sea mining, and other oceanic extractive efforts during the last hundred-odd years.&nbsp; On deep seabed minerals, I have written about a deep-sea mining museum in rural Czechia, the place of the deep-sea in Singaporean future-proofing, on the links between 19th century abyssal sediments and mid-20th century economic geology, and on approaches to the study of manganese nodules as hybrid biogeological objects in large American research programming during the 1970s. On deep seawater, I’ve written about ocean thermal energy conversion and artificial upwelling projects in the Hawaii islands and in the US Virgin Islands.&nbsp;Forthcoming writing covers subjects related to deep-sea mining and ocean governance in Norway, the architectural history of upwelling experiments, and configurations of conservation practice in Sulawesi’s ancient lakes. &nbsp; On snails, I have written about social networks and the making of ecological knowledge about tree-snails, and the kinds of possible ethics of engagement generated by molluscan species introduction and extinction in the Hawaiian Islands.&nbsp; I speak and organize panel sessions regularly on the history of oceanic environments and resource extraction, and on the contexts of invertebrate species conservation. I am also available to write book reviews, op-eds, and to consult on related concerns. <img width="3024" height="4032" width_o="3024" height_o="4032" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/fe0a4c99fd4bcf87bac579db3d4ecf1a5e2bfefae648edb6a9ed39f43956b8aa/IMG_7414.jpeg" data-mid="188999480" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/fe0a4c99fd4bcf87bac579db3d4ecf1a5e2bfefae648edb6a9ed39f43956b8aa/IMG_7414.jpeg" />Hippopus or Tridacna sp., Rawa Island, Malaysia Special IssuesSpecial Collection, 2026, “Doing Ocean Governance in Archipelagic Southeast Asia.” Maritime Studies. Editors: Jonathan Galka &amp; Laurie Bashford. Special Issue, 2026, “Epistemic Hospitality and Anthropogenic Impacts on the Oceans: Deep-Sea Mining.” Frontiers in Marine Science. Editors: Sandor Mulsow, Jonathan Galka, Stefan Braeger. Special Issue, 2025, “Thinking the World from the Deep Ocean: Seabed Mining Across Resource, Regulatory, and Ethical Frontiers.” Comparative Law Journal of the Pacific Special Issue XXVIII. Editors: Jonathan Galka, Hervé Raimana Lallemant-Moe, Nabil Ahmed, and Ute Meta Bauer. Authors: Sonya Schoenberger, Diva Jain, The Deep Currents Collective, Mekhala Dave, Mae Lubetkin, Yasmin Sani, Sun Woo Yoon. Forthcoming Writing “An Ocean in Common.” LIMN (Special Issue, The Great Offshore, forthcoming). “The Opening Process: Memory and Transition at Svalbard’s Deep-Sea Edge.” The Ocean Yearbook (Brill Nijhoff)&nbsp;(in review).&nbsp;“Tapping the Ocean’s Thermal Battery,” in The Built Ocean. Ed. André Tavares. (in review). “Using Deep Seawater in St. Croix and the Oceanic Scales of Planetary History” In Planetary Waters. Eds. Fabienne Will, Katrin Kleeman, and Noemi Quagliati. (forthcoming, Bloomsbury Press). “Deep Uncertainty: Law, Models, and Negotiating the Future Ocean in the 1970s.” In The Datafication of the Deep Sea. Eds. Susanna Lidström and Adam Wickberg. (forthcoming, Routledge).&nbsp; “Wallace’s Dreamponds: Seeing the Future in Sulawesi’s Ancient Lakes.” In Environmental Humanities in the Philippines and Southeast Asia. Eds. Ruel Pagasan, Patricia Dacudao, and Anthony Medrano. (in review, University of Philippines Press). Selected Published Writing “Waiting for Future Mineral Resources in the Singaporean Deep-Sea.” Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space 9 (5): 1714-1734.“Ambivalent Abundance: On Deep Hawaiian Seawater and the History of Pacific Archipelagic Futures after 1960.” Global Intellectual History, 1-25.&nbsp; E. DeLoughrey, S. Reid, G. Champion, K. Stewart, A. Limpo, J. Galka, M. Dave. “The Deep Currents Collective: A manifesto for the abyssal zones.” Comparative Law Journal of the Pacific, Special Issue XVIII. “‘The nodules are alive and well on the sea floor’: Deep ocean minerals, intertebrate traces, and multispecies histories of abyssal environments.” History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 47 (18).&nbsp; *Awarded Honorable Mention for the 2026 Jacqueline Carpine-Lancre Early Career Scholars Prize in Ocean History Galka, Jonathan M. “Bohemia at the Pacific Seabed: Archiving the Future of Deep-Sea Mining&nbsp; with the Interoceanmetal Joint Organization.” Social Studies of Science (OnlineFirst).&nbsp; Galka, Jonathan. “Oceans of Ooze: Deep-sea Sedimentary Data, Mineral Resource Frontiers, and Imperial Continuities in Ocean History.” Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences 53 (5), 481-517. Galka, Jonathan M. “Liguus Landscapes: Amateur Ligging, Professional Malacology, and the Social Life of Snail Sciences.”&nbsp;Journal of the History of Biology, 55 (4), 689-723. Galka, Jonathan M. “Mollusk Loves: Becoming with Native and Introduced Land Snails in the Hawaiian Islands.” Island Studies Journal 17(1), 102-122.&nbsp;Galka, Jonathan M &amp; Bashford, L. “Terraforming Beautiful China: Island-Building and Chang-E Lunar Exploration in the Making of the Chinese State.” International Quarterly of Asia Studies 53(3), 385-411. Boulicault, M., Perret, M., Galka, J., Borsa, A., Gompers, A., Reiches, M., Richardson, S. “The Future of Sperm: A biovariability framework for understanding global sperm count trends.” Human Fertility&nbsp;25 (5), 888-902. Book ReviewsReview of Martinez-Rius, Beatriz. New Deep Territories: A Story of France’s Exploration of the Seafloor. The Ocean Yearbook (Brill Nijhoff). Forthcoming. Review of Alaimo, Stacy. The Abyss Stares Back: Encounters with Deep-sea Life. H-Sci-Med-Tech. H-Net Reviews. Review of Bashford, Alison, Kern, Emily M., Adam Bobbette, eds, New Earth Histories: Geo-Cosmologies and the Making of the Modern World. International Journal of Maritime History 37 (3): 567-569. Review of Yin Han, Lisa. Deepwater Alchemy: Extractive Mediation and the Taming of the Seafloor. H-Oceans. H-Net Reviews. September 2024. Review of Helmreich, Stefan. A Book of Waves. H-Environment. H-Net Reviews. January, 2024. Review of Swanson, Heather Anna. Spawning Modern Fish: Transnational Comparison in the Making of Japanese Salmon. H-Environment. H-Net Reviews. June, 2023. Review of Anderson, Katharine; Rozwadowski, Helen M., eds. Soundings and Crossings: Doing Science at Sea, 1800-1970. H-Sci-Med-Tech, H-Net Reviews. September, 2022. Popular Writing with Godfrey Jordan Abage. “Deep seabed mining is back in Papua New Guinea’s Bismarck Sea. What’s new this time?” Extracting the Oceans: Scales and Eddies. February 3, 2025.&nbsp; Galka, Jonathan. “Around the World in Pursuit of (Vanishing) Sperm.” Harvard Gendersci Blog. May 4, 2021. Galka, Jonathan. “Sex, Gender, and Deep Space: Lessons from Earthly Anxieties Reproduced Past 100 Kilometers (Or, Who Gets to Take Up Space?).” Gendersci Blog. August 25, 2020.&nbsp; Galka, J., Gompers, A., Becerra, J. “A Haunted GWAS: The Missing Historical and Social Context in the ‘Gay Gene’ Study.” Gendersci Blog. December 19, 2019. &nbsp; Upcoming Talks “Ocean History as Planetary History,” Doctoral School in Planetary History, KTH Stockholm (November 24-26, 2026).&nbsp; “Okinawan Deep Seawater, Modeling the Small Island State, and the Making of Prepackaged Futurity,” American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting 2026 (St. Louis, MO).&nbsp;“How Deep-sea Mining Lands,” Global Port Cities, Tulane Global Humanities Center (November 9, 2026).&nbsp; Past Talks““The Mines of Neptune”: Deep Seabed Mining, Ocean Territorialization, and the Undersea as Underground (1957-1982),” History of Science Society/European Society for the History of Science Joint Meeting (Edinburgh, UK). “Common Heritage, Inc.: A Prehistory of the Placeless Ocean,” Pacific History Association Annual Conference (Apia, Samoa). December 2025. “Historicizing Ocean Promise,” 12th International Platform on Ocean Energy for Young Researchers, Saga University Institute of Ocean Energy, (Saga, Japan). November 2025. “Worlding from the Deep Seabed,” NTU-KCL CLASS Workshop “What is ‘Worlding’ in Biocultural Worlding?” NTU Centre for Contemporary Art (Singapore). September 2025. &nbsp; “Tapping the Ocean’s Thermal Battery: On the Histories of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion’s Futures,” The Built Ocean, European Architectural History Network Annual Conference (Porto, Portugal). September 2025. “‘An Artificial Environment: Harnessing the Promise of Deep Seawater in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands (1960s-1980s),” International Congress of History of Science &amp; Technology (Ōtepoti Dunedin, Aotearoa New Zealand). July 2025.&nbsp; “Wallace’s Dreamponds: Seeing the Future in Sulawesi’s Ancient Lakes,” Environmental Humanities in the Philippines and Southeast Asia, Ateneo de Manila University (Manila, Philippines). May 2025.&nbsp; “Ambivalent Abundance: On Deep Pacific Seawater and the History of Archipelagic Futures,” Reimagining the Pacific, Institute for Advanced Global Studies, University of Tokyo (Tokyo, Japan). March 2025.&nbsp; Guest Speaker, “Unearthing the "Blue Frontier": The ISA's New Mining Code and the Future of Deep-Sea Mining,” Climate Transformation: Sustainable Societies Lecture Series, Climate Transformation Programme, NTU, Singapore. December 2024. “The Future of ‘Wallace’s Dreamponds’: Configurations of Conservation Practice in Sulawesi’s Ancient Lakes,” Biodiversity in Southeast Asian Freshwaters, NUS Asia Research Institute, November 2024. “The Nodules Are Alive and Well': Benthic Biota, Mineral Resources, and Multispecies Histories of the Abyssal Seabed” 4th World Congress of Environmental History Meeting (Oulu, Finland), August 2024. “Deep-sea Sedimentary Taxonomies, Technologies of Abundance, and the Logics of Resource Transitions,” SHOT-ICOHTEC Joint Meeting (Viña del Mar, Chile), July 2024. “Mineral Dreams: Manganese Nodules &amp; Anticolonial Worldmaking at Sea.” Consortium for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine Oceans Working Group, May 21, 2024. “The Work of Waiting for the Future in the Singaporean Deep-sea.” Critical Minerals in/as Context. Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, May 2024.&nbsp; “The Rocks are Alive and Well: Mineral Resources, Deep Ocean Life, and the History of Extraction at Sea.” Department of History, National University of Singapore, April 2024. “Political Rocks in the Wild Blue Yonder: Manganese Nodules, Comparison, and Making Ocean Resource Economics,” American Society for Environmental History Annual Meeting (virtual), Denver, CO, March 2024. Panel: “Speculative Practices in the Making of Deep-Ocean Frontiers.” Co-organizer: Giulia Champion. American Society for Environmental History Annual Meeting, Denver, CO, March 2024. Panel: “Oceans: Matter, Method, Meaning.” Co-organizers: Meghan Shea &amp; Ned Molder. Society for the Social Studies of Science Annual Meeting, Honolulu, HI, November 11, 2023. Panel: “When Species Travel: More-than-human ways of belonging in the Patchy Pacific.” Co-organizer: Anthony Medrano. Society for the Social Studies of Science Annual Meeting, Honolulu, HI, November 11, 2023.“The Nodules Are Alive and Well”: Benthic Biota, Mineral Resources, and Multispecies Histories of the Abyssal Seabed,” Society for the Social Studies of Science Annual Meeting, Honolulu, HI, November 11, 2023. “Dreissenid Dreaming: Biological invasion, technoscience, and mapping entanglements with&nbsp;mussels,”&nbsp;Learning from Aliens, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, Singapore, May 2023.&nbsp; “Microbial Mattering and the US Manganese Nodule Program, 1970s-1980s,” American Society for Environmental History Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, March 2022.&nbsp; Panel: “Marine Science and Sustainability.” Co-organizer: Aaron Van Neste.&nbsp;American Society for Environmental History Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, March 2022. “Seabed Topologies: Singapore, Nauru, and the Storage of Meaning in Deep Ocean Land,” Society for the Social Studies of Science Annual Meeting, Cholula, Mexico, December 2022.Panel: “Storage: Infrastructures, Politics, Imaginaries.” Co-organizer: Caroline White-Nockleby. Society for the Social Studies of Science Annual Meeting, Cholula, Mexico, December 2022. “Empire &amp; Ooze: HMS Challenger, Pelagic Sediments, and the Production of Resource Frontiers from the Deep Ocean,” Law &amp; Society Association Annual Meeting, Lisbon, Portugal (remote), July 2022.&nbsp;“Dreissenid Dreaming: On Bivalved Molluscan Entanglements,”&nbsp;Meaning in Evolution and Ecology working group, Yale University, New Haven, CT, May 2021.; Animal Studies Circle, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, May 2021.&nbsp; “Mussels, Modernity, and the Mobilization of Invertebrate Sensation,” Joint-Atlantic Seminar for the History of Biology, Philadelphia, PA (remote), April 2021.&nbsp; “Terraforming Beautiful China: Island-Building and Chang’E Lunar Exploration in the Making of the Chinese State,” Society for the Social Studies of Science Annual Meeting, Prague, Czechia (remote), August 2020. <img width="2788" height="2114" width_o="2788" height_o="2114" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/fc7fbd3bdd60746f76dbbacea2c0ab0a505c9e45fb2bf5feb0850c737f39fcd4/IMG_8997.jpeg" data-mid="189088344" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/fc7fbd3bdd60746f76dbbacea2c0ab0a505c9e45fb2bf5feb0850c737f39fcd4/IMG_8997.jpeg" /> Diary Entry, 18 August 1873, Diary of Sir J. Murray, NHM Archives, London, United Kingdom https://jonathangalka.com/Teaching Thu, 10 Aug 2023 15:18:58 +0000 Jonathan Galka https://jonathangalka.com/Teaching TEACHING I teach courses in the history of science within the Division of the History of Science, Technology, and Environment at KTH.&nbsp; In Fall 2026 I will teach on Oceanic Extractivism within the Winter Doctoral School in Planetary Histories at KTH.&nbsp; In Spring 2027 I am course responsible for the KTH first cycle course, AK1202: History of Science and Technology. A syllabus for this course is forthcoming.&nbsp; Before I arrived in Sweden, I twice taught for courses in the General Education program at Harvard. These were “Gender and Science,” and “Life and Death in the Anthropocene.” For both courses I was the recipient of a Certificate of Distinction in Teaching from the Office of Undergraduate Education. I have also advised senior honors theses in the History of Science Department at Harvard.&nbsp; Following teaching for “Life and Death in the Anthropocene,” I translated its undergraduate syllabus into one for a graduate reading and research course in the History of Science Department, called “Theorizing the Anthropocene.” That syllabus can be found here.&nbsp; <img width="3411" height="2305" width_o="3411" height_o="2305" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/292ca13605b211629f94630a48473a21da6f14837a73a92dcf3917f5fac22bfb/Pteropod-Ooze.jpeg" data-mid="188989306" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/292ca13605b211629f94630a48473a21da6f14837a73a92dcf3917f5fac22bfb/Pteropod-Ooze.jpeg" />Pteropod Ooze. Sir John Murray and Alphonse François Renard, Report on Deep-Sea Deposits Based on the Specimens Collected During the Voyage of H.M.S. Challenger in the Years 1872 to 1876 (H.M. Stationery Office, 1891). Eventually I’ll teach Ocean History. See an example syllabus here:&nbsp;Oceans of History. “This course asks these central questions: what is the ocean’s history? What does it mean to say that, not only does the ocean have a place in human history, but that the ocean also makes and holds history? How has historicizing the ocean differed across regions? Has it been a site of resistance to dominant narratives? Are there alternative oceanic histories?” <img width="3027" height="2268" width_o="3027" height_o="2268" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/36984fbc827215f86a91ce6254faf53733f3ae3ffabec23c22a5ddae49f3068f/Lobster-from-Challenger.jpeg" data-mid="188989497" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/36984fbc827215f86a91ce6254faf53733f3ae3ffabec23c22a5ddae49f3068f/Lobster-from-Challenger.jpeg" /> Photograph of a lobster specimen, item 73, gen. 29.4, env. 3, HMS Challenger Papers, University of Edinburgh Library Heritage Collections. https://jonathangalka.com/About Thu, 10 Aug 2023 15:18:59 +0000 Jonathan Galka https://jonathangalka.com/About My name is Jonathan (he/him). I am a historian and ethnographer of modern sciences &amp; environments. I am most interested in how archival and ethnographic methods can be brought to bear on how natural history, biology, and geology intersect with projects of resource-making, energy production, and environmental governance at sea. As of 2026, I am Assistant Professor of the History of Science in the Department of History of Science, Technology, and Environment and in the Centre for Anthropocene History at KTH Stockholm.&nbsp; My first book project examines how the co-evolution of ocean sciences and ocean law in the mid-20th century was deeply shaped by the speculative frontier of deep seabed minerals, with indelible impacts on the future possibilities for ocean governance.&nbsp; My next project follows from deep-sea minerals to deep seawater, and evaluates the (pan-tropical) histories and futures of attempts to bring cold, nutrient-dense water to the surface for the production of energy, food, freshwater, and cold air. Prior to arriving in Sweden, I was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Science, Technology, and Society Cluster of the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore. I earned my PhD in the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University in 2025. In Singapore, I work with the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art and the Max Planck-NTU Centre for Biocultural Worlding on projects related to climate crises, maritime cultural history, and vernacular ocean governance. I am founding a member of the Deep Currents Collective, an editor at&nbsp;H-Oceans, and secretary of The Pacific Circle.&nbsp; My work has been recognized and supported by the Canada Program at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, the German Maritime Museum &amp; Leibniz Institute for Maritime History, the World History Association, and by a Harvard University Presidential Fellowship.Please see respective pages on this site for more information regarding teaching, writing, and speaking. <img width="2320" height="3088" width_o="2320" height_o="3088" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a0b7158201de486f555825af5fcd674ab1187daa8a33393fea030fef8f79503d/IMG_9043.jpeg" data-mid="191334612" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/a0b7158201de486f555825af5fcd674ab1187daa8a33393fea030fef8f79503d/IMG_9043.jpeg" /> <img width="4032" height="3024" width_o="4032" height_o="3024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/56466dcdf6b5004614f7ef4e1b368a873bb5a28b18bebb7afa53177da1c3ae5f/IMG_3852.jpeg" data-mid="189070321" border="0" data-scale="97" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/56466dcdf6b5004614f7ef4e1b368a873bb5a28b18bebb7afa53177da1c3ae5f/IMG_3852.jpeg" />Depressiscala nautlae in beach drift. Boca Raton, Florida.&nbsp; As a queer, Latino, first-generation university grad, I am as passionate about mentorship as I am about my research. If you think it would be helpful to chat about your plans in academia (or about ocean history, multispecies methods, or snails), please get in touch. ︎ galka@kth.se