Bryan R Paradis
Lecturer
Dr. Paradis is a historian of environment, climate, natural disasters., and US-Japan relations. His research examines how the environments societies try to beautify and improve quietly generate new ecological vulnerabilities for both humans and the non-human world. His work asks why the places people love most are often the hardest to protect from environmental change, and why societies continue to live with the risks those places create.
Dr. Paradis’s current book project traces an environmental and geopolitical history of Japanese cherry trees in Washington, D.C., from the late nineteenth century to the present, arguing that efforts to promote the city’s iconic cherry trees as instruments of cultural diplomacy and imperial ambition transformed the National Mall into a fragile environmental system that experiences frequent flooding. The project shows how beautification and cultural diplomacy embedded ecological risk into one of the world’s most iconic urban sites, revealing how efforts to protect symbolic environments can lock them into forms that limit adaptation to contemporary climate conditions.
Education
Ph.D. in History, University of Pittsburgh
M.A., in History, University of Pittsburgh
B.A., in History, Flagler College
Specialization in Teaching
History of Climate
Natural Disasters
Science and Technology
Modern United States
Research Interests
Natural Disasters
US-Japan
History of Engineering