Researcher examines the history and impacts of earthquakes in Japan

Greg Smits, associate professor of history at Penn State, started his extensive studies of Japanese earthquakes with a browse through a bookstore. Greg Smits' interest in earthquakes began with a catfish. A book full of catfish, to be precise. Back in 2002, Smits, then an assistant professor of history at Penn State, was poking around a used book store in Tokyo, looking for titles relating to his specialty, the intellectual history of Japan, when a large and colorful volume caught his eye. It was a comprehensive, illustrated treatment of namazu-e, the brash, fantastic, often satirical prints depicting namazu - mythical giant catfish - that proliferated in the aftermath of the great Ansei Edo earthquake of 1855. Its price had been marked down drastically, and the bargain was too good to resist. "I bought the book and took it home, and it sat on a shelf for years," Smits recalls.