Following recommendations by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare regarding measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, the DIJ has decided to close its institute temporarily (incl. library) and to cancel all public events until further notice. We ask for your kind understanding.

Harald Kümmerle, senior research fellow at the DIJ since January of this year, has been selected as the recipient of the Johannes Zilkens Dissertation Prize 2020. Every year, the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes) awards this prize for an outstanding dissertation from the humanities and social sciences. It is endowed with 5,000 euros.

Kümmerle has defended his dissertation on the “Institutionalization of mathematics as a science in Meiji- and Taishō-era Japan” at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in January 2019. According to the interdisciplinary jury, it “impressively bridges mathematics, Japanese Studies, and social sciences”. The work gives “important impulses for the advancement of Japanese Studies, and extending beyond this, for the understanding of the development of sites of science and the organization of knowledge transfer”.

https://www.studienstiftung.de/aktuelles/artikel/studienstiftung-vergibt-promotionspreise-2020-arbeiten-aus-der-chemie-und-japanologie-ausgezeichnet/

Fujisawa, October 8, 2019 — IBER-Kotosaka of Keio University announced today that it will be collaborating with the German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ) to conduct a survey on the business and management environment of technology intensive startups in Japan.

This research project is a collaboration between not just Keio University and DIJ, but along with researchers from Korea University, Hoseo University, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, and Chongqing University

Barbara Holthus was interviewed for BBC on the continuing importance of mothers for providing lunch bento boxes to their children.

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Franz Waldenberger, Barbara Holthus, and Sonja Ganseforth appeared in an Austrian TV report on the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. They provided expert commentary on Japan’s Olympic legacy desires, anti-Olympic protests, and the Olympic agenda on diversity. The report was broadcast by the Austrian public TV station ORF during their flagship sports program “Sunday Sports” (in German) on June 16th.

The DIJ currently prepares a book covering a wide range of topics related to the Tokyo Olympics. Its tentative title is “Japan through the lens of the Tokyo Olympics” and it is due to be published in January 2020.

The DIJ Tokyo is partner with the multi-disciplinary and transnational EU project “ACCESS – Supporting Digital Literacy and Appropriation of ICT by Older People”, which is coordinated by Professor Claudia Müller of the University of Siegen. Goals are to explore and evaluate ways for elderly people to learn the usage of modern ICT solutions that promise a better social participation and an overall improvement of the quality of life. The DIJ is responsible for the project’s Japan-related research.