The rise of populist politicians has significantly influenced political communication and public discourse around the world. In the light of the ongoing mediatization of politics, populist politicians have been found to manage new media as alternative platforms for political communication particularly effectively.

The study combines quantitative and qualitative methods to examine the reception of right-wing populist communication in the Japanese blog scene using the digital analysis tool TopicExplorer. Besides introducing this tool, the presentation will show how digital methods such as topic modeling can be used to determine relevant discourses and narratives in a Japanese blog corpus regarding the topic of migration.

Speaker:
Katharina Dalko, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg

Today’s working environment is heavily driven by dynamic digitalization, but leadership is more than just a digital investment. It requires leaders to build and foster meaningful relationships, understand and implement new technologies, as well as build a meaningful culture of innovation.

The workshop offers a glimpse into our research with case studies from our global partners and assists participants in exchanging experiences and innovative ideas on their personal leadership behavior. Prof. Dr. Sabine Remdisch will talk about digital leadership and the new skillset of the future leader. Christian Otto will give an in-depth look into the importance success factors of integrating new technologies into leadership.

Speakers:
Sabine Remdisch, Leuphana University, Lüneburg
Christian Otto, Leuphana University, Lüneburg

With around 1.5 million foreign workers and over a million permanent and long-term foreign residents, Japan is experiencing unprecedented levels of immigration. In 2019 three new residence statuses were added to the Immigration Control Act. Furthermore, the government promises to foster social integration by strengthening Japanese language education and providing public services in multiple languages. But access to non-temporary or even permanent resident is highly selective.

Focusing on the recent additions to Japan’s immigration control legislation, Naoto Higuchi identifies a shift from a preferential treatment of foreigners based on “blood ties” to a neoliberal model based on meritocracy. The new residence categories “Specified Skills 1 & 2” enable immigration authorities to select migrants and determine their rights and length of stay based on performance, gauged by language ability and skill acquisition. In contrast, the newly prepared visa status for fourth-generation Nikkeijin looks — at first glance — like a continuation of immigration based on ethnic selection criteria. Yet, the government changed its policy to exclude Nikkeijin from social integration by limiting their stay to maximum five-years, and the road to permanent residence is becoming increasingly based on meritocratic selection criteria. The new movements raise interesting puzzles for exploring the future of migration to Japan.

Speakers:
Naoto Higuchi, Tokushima University
Kristin Surak, University of London

Im Jahr 2019 feiern wir den 120. Geburtstag des japanischen Literaturnobelpreisträgers Yasunari Kawabata (1899–1972).

Zu diesem Ereignis stellen die International House of Japan Library, die Bibliothèque de la Maison franco-japonaise und die Bibliothek des Deutschen Instituts für Japanstudien Werke von und über Kawabata in englischer, deutscher und französischer Sprache aus.

The spread of information on developmental disorders, mainly Autism Spectrum Disorder and ADHD, as well as changes in disability employment legislation have led to an increased number of diagnoses and a heightened interest in the subject of employment for individuals on the spectrum both in Japan and in the international context. Little research exists, however, on the perspective of employees on the spectrum, their actual employment situation, the opportunities and hurdles they face, and their coping strategies.

Japanese companies and employment facilities use the designation of disability to create employment structures that often differ from general employment structures in regards to work content, remuneration, or career opportunities. Based on preliminary findings from six months of participant observation in privately organized gathering spaces for persons with developmental disabilities and qualitative interviews with the participants in those spaces, this study reveals how individuals on the spectrum make use of the employment structures provided for them, or eschew them to find different ways of employment.

Public and academic interest in literature from Japan’s rural north culminated in consecutive Akutagawa Prizes awarded to Numata Shinsuke, Wakatake Chisako, and Takahashi Hiroki in 2017 and 2018. Despite mainstream success, however, the bulk of literature published by Tōhoku writers in minor or independent magazines remains unexplored.

This talk will explore women’s writing published in northern Tōhoku in the present moment and trace legacies of local print culture from the mid-1940s. It will introduce the print history of regional women’s magazines, as well as explore the fiction and essays of women writers that are rarely included in literary histories of the period. Tōhoku writers critiqued the gender politics of the postwar moment, reconfiguring what it means to scale literature to the region or the nation. Reviewing the history of rural literary production and gendered politics of democratization uncovers legacies that connect the postwar moment to our conceptualization of regional space and literary production in Japan’s peripheries today.

Speaker
Eric Siercks, University of California

Japan’s and Germany’s ambitious national frameworks of Society 5.0 and Industry 4.0 acknowledge the importance of education and research as key success factors in the digital transformation. Universities are not only to develop the necessary human capital and to contribute to technological advances, they are also to play key roles with regard to social inclusion and life-long learning. To do so, they are expected to deepen and widen cross-organizational and international cooperation. Last, but not least they are urged to adjust their core activities of teaching, research and administration to take advantage of new digital technologies. How are universities in Germany and Japan responding to these challenges? How do they see themselves affected? What strategies do they pursue? Our two speakers are best suited to answer these questions based on their leading positions and professional careers in higher education and research institutions in Germany and Japan.

Speakers:
Bernd Huber, President of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Miho Funamori, Strategy Manager at the Research Center for Open Science and Data Platform at National Institute of Informatics