PART II: Japan as Method. What I found exciting as a German studying Japanese history was the change of perspective it entailed. For good reason, schooling in German history and public debates centered on National Socialism, the Second World War and the Holocaust. The purpose of national history after 1945…
This three-part blog series is a slightly revised version of an essay I wrote for the 30th anniversary essay contest of the Toshiba Foundation. PART I: The Global Entanglements of Japanese Culture. Fifteen years onwards, I cannot say for sure what first piqued my interest in Japanese studies. I know…
Since its establishment in February of last year, Tokyo College has undertaken a diverse range of activity on the basis of its adoption of four interdisciplinary research themes of importance to the contemporary world under the…
The blue-tiled room in the photograph shows artwork at the Museum of the Qasr Prison in Iran. The building, which had been used as a prison from 1929, was opened as a museum in 2012, with…
During my dissertation research conducted during the 2016-2017 academic year, I was based at Kyushu University in Fukuoka, some 1,500 kilometres away from my primary research site. My research focuses on the 19th century Japanese colonization…
In a time of pandemic crisis, language issues are central. We linguists question how to best inform citizens in multilingual societies in order to foster better international cooperation in a global world. To demonstrate the impact…
In my previous two blogposts, I introduced two specific functions that science can offer society in an emergency. One is to explain rationally and from a scientific viewpoint the crisis the society is confronting. The other…
In my previous posting on this topic, I examined the history of quotidian social practices, mask-wearing in particular, which have been relatively distinctive in Asia in general, and Japan in particular. This practice helps explain the…
In this and one upcoming blog posting, I offer some thoughts on what historical inquiry can offer to an understanding of the COVID 19 pandemic, focusing mainly on Japan, with some attention as well on Taiwan…
