Max Weber’s popularity in Japan remains unbroken. To mark the 100th anniversary of his death, the prestigious intellectual journal Gendai Shisō (現代思想) has published a special issue (12/2020) dedicated to his works and intellectual influence. Leading Japanese intellectuals and Weber scholars have contributed 24 essays to this issue, including Mishima Ken’ichi (“Disenchantment Reconsidered”), Suzuki Masahiro (“Weber in Contemporary Chinese Thought”), and Konno Hajime (“Imagining Max Weber as a Prophet”). For the Max Weber Foundation’s blog “Max Weber in der Welt”, our Senior Research Fellow and historian Yufei Zhou has written a detailed review of this special issue which introduces the individual contributions.

After 23 years, the DIJ has replaced its print edition of the DIJ Newsletter with a new, email format. Most sections from our print version remain but we have also added some new ones, such as ‘DIJ in the Media’, ‘Alumni News’, and ‘Social Media’. The new format enables us to share more information on our recent research and publication activities with you more directly and more frequently. Also new in this issue: you will find links to information on our DIJ webpages in German, Japanese, and English whenever content in these languages is available. We hope you will enjoy exploring this new DIJ Newsletter and the selection of activities and output of the DIJ and its researchers during the past months.
If you would like to receive the next issue of our newsletter in your inbox, please subscribe here.

DIJ Director Franz Waldenberger has contributed the chapter “The Japanese Economy” to the recently published Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Japan, edited by Hiroko Takeda and Mark Williams. The chapter analyzes the development of the Japanese economy over the last 40 years. It covers the advantages of Japan’s institutional set-up in the 1980s, the burst of Japan’s ‘bubble economy’, the  so-called ‘lost decades’ of low growth and recession as well as recent government initiatives to stimulate productivity growth with corporate governance and ‘work-style’ reforms. The chapter also contains an outlook on future developments. In addition to the challenges posed by the global pandemic, climate change, and digital transformation, they are characterized by unprecedented demographic change, a deflationary environment and huge government debt supported by an extreme expansion of the monetary base.

Studying Japan. Handbook of Research Designs, Fieldwork and Methods (Nomos 2020), edited by Nora Kottmann and Cornelia Reiher, is the first comprehensive guide to qualitative methods, research designs and fieldwork in social science research on Japan. More than 70 Japan scholars from around the world provide an easy-to-read overview of qualitative methods used in research on Japan’s society, politics, culture and history. The book covers the entire research process from the outset to the completion of a thesis, paper, or book. The authors give basic introductions to individual methods, discuss their experiences when applying these methods and highlight current trends in research on Japan. The authors include DIJ researchers Isaac Gagné, Sonja Ganseforth, Markus Heckel, Barbara Holthus, and Franz Waldenberger as well as DIJ alumni Verena Blechinger-Talcott, Steffen Heinrich, Carola Hommerich, Katharina Hülsmann, Hanno Jentzsch, Susanne Klien, Annette Schad-Seifert, Kai Schulze, Gabi Vogt, Cosima Wagner, Anna Wiemann, and Urs Matthias Zachmann. The book can be purchased from the publisher.