Spiegel-Bilder. Die Darstellung von Kindern und Jugendlichen in Illustrierter Beobachter und Shashin shūhō, 1938 und 1943 by Lukas Frank is the latest addition to our DIJ Monograph Series. Frank’s book compares patterns of pictorial representations of children and youth in German and Japanese press photography of the late 1930s and early 1940s on the basis of two important illustrated magazines of the time: the Illustrierter Beobachter and Shashin shūhō (写真週報, Photographic Weekly). The study shows similarities and differences of pictorial propaganda in both countries, explains general trends in the design of propaganda, and analyses the organisation and function of propaganda in radical nationalist states. Connections between German and Japanese photography and their influences on the pictorial propaganda of the magazines are also addressed, as are representations of Germany on the Japanese side and of Japan on the German side. Details

We have just published the autumn issue of our DIJ Newsletter featuring updates on our research, publications, and events, including three upcoming Web Forum sessions on Digital Transformation; two CfP for a workshop on health infrastructures and a conference on sustainable societies; new book publications by our researchers Barbara Geilhorn, Sonja Ganseforth and our alumnus Hanno Jentzsch; an interview with our new senior research fellows Celia Spoden and David M. Malitz; a new contribution to our Catchword series; and much more. We hope you will enjoy exploring this new edition of the DIJ Newsletter. If you haven’t done so yet, you can subscribe to receive it directly to your inbox. The full issue and subscription form are available here.

The latest issue of Contemporary Japan is now available online and in print. It features original research articles exploring: 1) how crime prevention (bōhan) became a widespread concept in low-crime Japan (Schimkowsky); 2) changing media representations of the imperial family from the Meiji era to the dawn of the Reiwa era (Anzai); 3) and a critical discussion of the role of satirical depictions of Japan in Victorian British cartoons (Matthewson). In addition, we continue our Invited Commentary section with the historian Gerhard Krebs’ critical analysis of the argument regarding Imperial Japan’s expansionist ambitions by Gerhard L. Weinberg, whose works have suggested that Japanese imperial ambitions extended as far as the Caribbean. Lastly, our book review section includes a broad range of important publications in the fields of philosophy, history, anthropology, gender studies, food studies, and religious studies. Please see the full issue here