About

Michael Fisch is an Associate Professor of Anthropology and of Social Sciences in the College at the University of Chicago. His research is situated at the intersection of sociocultural anthropology and science and technology studies, focusing on the dynamic relationship between changing conceptualizations of nature, culture, and technological innovation that inform experiences of immersive technological mediation. Fisch develops ethnographically performative approaches to explore practices, experiences, and schemas within Tokyo’s commuter train network, as exemplified in his work 'Anthropology of the Machine: Tokyo’s Commuter Train Network.' Currently, he is engaged in developing a project on 'experimental ecologies' that contest and re-conceptualize disaster infrastructure design in post-3.11 Japan, including locally developed alternatives to large-scale seawalls intended for tsunami protection.

Research topics

• History
• Sociology
• Demography
• Geography

Selected publications

• 21112 Quellen zum einundzwanzigsten Jahrhundert (von 2010 bis 2014)

  2026-01-23

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
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• 111 Quellen zum einundzwanzigsten Jahrhundert (von 2005 bis 2009)

  2026-01-23

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
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• 46313 Quellen zum einundzwanzigsten Jahrhundert (von 2015 bis 2019)

  2026-01-23

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
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• 69714 Quellen zum einundzwanzigsten Jahrhundert (von 2020 bis 2024)

  2026-01-23

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
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• Five commentaries on ‘Waves Dangerous, Domesticated and Diagnostic’ plus Stefan Helmreich’s response

  MAST. Maritime studies/Maritime studies · 2025-02-13

  articleOpen access

  Abstract This review article engages with Stefan Helmreich’s paper ‘Waves dangerous, domesticated, and diagnostic’ as well as his ‘A Book of Waves’. It offers a set of critical commentaries on key themes raised in these works unpacking the role of wave science, technology and power in various contexts: On treating waves as an outside enemy to be fought by hard barriers between land and water, or as objects of commodification when models functions as ways to claim and export knowledge thereby overriding other forms of knowing waves and protecting coasts; On the role of the state in coastal governance in the Global South and on transdisciplinary approaches dealing with the systemic nature of coastal risks and resilience; On comparison and integration of modern wave science with indigenous knowledges; On the importance of social besides physical oceanography; On practices of attuning not only to the daily tidal schedule and coastal weather, but also to the oceanic rhythms, tempos, and shifts that materialize the ocean’s potentials and risks, and on waves as carriers of meaning. The review paper ends with a response by Helmreich.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Dreihundertdreißig Jahre Wissenschaft zu Qur’ān und Islam

  2025-08-01

  book1st authorCorresponding

  Der vorliegende dritte Band der Gesamtbibliographie Dreihunderdreißig Jahre Wissenschaft zu Qur’an und Islam umfasst Einträge aus den Jahren 2005 bis 2024. Die Gesamtbibliographie besteht aus vier Bänden und verzeichnet knapp zwanzigtausend Einträge aus den Jahren 1694 bis 2024 (plus Nachträge). Die Einträge sind konsequent chronologisch angeordnet und wurden sämtlich im Autopsie-Verfahren überprüft. Sie enthalten neben vollständigen Autornamen und Titeleinträgen detaillierte Informationen zum Gegenstand und zum Publikationsort. Sämtliche Einträge sind ins Deutsche übersetzt und kommentiert. Komplimentiert werden sie durch ein Register, das im vierten Band geliefert wird. Diese Bibliographie stellt für die Forschung ein unverzichtbares Standardwerk dar.

  PublisherDOI

• Adelbert von Chamisso (1781–1838)

  2023-01-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
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• Acknowledgments

  Duke University Press eBooks · 2023

  • Geography
  • History
  DOI

• Japan’s Extreme Infrastructure: Fortress-ification, Resilience, and Extreme Nature

  Social Science Japan Journal · 2022 · 38 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Sociology
  • History

  Abstract How have massive concrete walls become thinkable as resilient infrastructure for an extreme nature, and what will collective life become in the shadow of such concrete resilience? These questions hold increasing importance as cities and nations throughout the world contemplate the construction of giant concrete barriers to resist the forces of extreme weather and rising sea levels. This article turns to Japan’s ‘fortress-ification’ of its northeast coast with giant concrete seawalls in wake of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake in order to explore the convergence of resilience thinking, concrete walls, and extreme nature. Treating fortress-ification as an empirical phenomenon and analytic, the argument tracks the emergence of fortress-ification as a manifestation of a kind of resilience thinking that derives from a synthesis of logics of disaster prevention and disaster reduction. Ultimately, the argument posits that the resilience thinking behind fortress-ification engenders adaptation to extreme nature without providing meaningful environmental mitigation. The result is disaster infrastructure with highly questionable efficacy that seals the population within an ecologically empty present while restricting access to better alternative ecological futures.

  PublisherDOI

• Staging Encounters with the End in Pre-Apocalyptic-Post-3.11 Japan

  Ethnos · 2021 · 24 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • History

  his paper offers a critical engagement with endings in relation to formulations of crisis and futures through two sites that stage an encounter with the end. The first is the permanent exhibit at Japan’s National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in Tokyo. This site, I show, asks us to reflect on how we think about the end of civilisation as an immanent crisis to be overcome through an innovation that allows us to escape accountability for conditions in the present. As such, I argue, it ultimately encourages us to cultivate attention and accountability toward material and conceptual problems in the present. The discussion then takes the idea of cultivating attention to the present to northeast Japan. I show there how an ending inflicted on the coastal residents by the tsunami of March 2011 has made space for precisely this kind of attention and accountability to the present.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Andrea Ballestero

  Southern California University for Professional Studies

  17 shared

• Matthew H. Alford

  Scripps Institution of Oceanography

  16 shared

• Ayesha Hameed

  16 shared

• Grace Kim-Butler

  University of Rochester

  16 shared

• Nils Bubandt

  16 shared

• Daniela Gandorfer

  University of Rochester

  16 shared

• Lucas Bessire

  Pacific Standard

  16 shared

• Adrienne Man- Nov

  University of Rochester

  16 shared

Awards & honors

• 2021-2022 Fulbright Scholar -- Sabbatical Research in Japan
• Recipient of National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Gra…