Eight decades after the end of the Second World War, Germany’s dealing with  its past still attracts attention as exemplary or exceptional. In East Germany, a doctrinal anti-fascism soon prevailed, while in West Germany, the path to a self-critical confrontation with the past was taken: a decades-long, arduous process marked by social learning successes, but also by setbacks and scandals. Historian Norbert Frei provides an overview of how Germans have dealt with their Nazi history and analyzes the current state of Germany’s memory culture. Former diplomat Yoshinori Katori will offer a comparative perspective on memory culture in Japan with a focus on current issues of historical reconciliation between Japan and South Korea. The presentations will be followed by a Q&A session and a small reception. This is an onsite only event. Details and registration here

Japanese author Shimao Toshio (1917–1986) exemplifies the postwar tensions between cultural production and debates on national identity in Japan. His Southern Island essays explore the relationship between Japanese and Ryūkyū cultures, presenting peripheral regions as vital to Japan’s cultural landscape. While his works attracted the attention of intellectuals such as Okamoto Keitoku and Arakawa Akira and became part of broader discussions on Okinawan culture and the anti-reversion movement of the 1960s and 1970s, they were also criticized for essentialist depictions that appeared to affirm Japan’s claims over the Ryūkyū Islands. This presentation examines Shimao’s conception of culture and identity within the discourse of postwar cultural homogeneity, employing a combination of quantitative text analysis using KH Coder and qualitative interpretation to reveal how his writings simultaneously reflect and question dominant narratives of Japanese identity. Details and registration here

Diese interaktive Schreibexpedition führt über die Grenze zwischen Denken und Schreiben, zwischen Wissenschaft und Literatur, zwischen Fakt und Fiktion. Ausgehend von Szenen aus dem Romanprojekt Chicksexing – Die Wahrheit stirbt zuletzt erzählt die Autorin und Kulturwissenschaftlerin Regina Klein (Klagenfurt) von einer Frau, die die Geschichte ihres Vaters sucht – eines japanischen Kükensortierers, der in den 1970er Jahren in Deutschland arbeitete. Ihre Reise führt über Kontinente und Generationen hinweg, von einem kleinen westdeutschen Dorf über die Alpen zum Saiko-See am Fuße des Fuji-san. Fünf Lebensgeschichten verweben sich zu einem Netz aus Lüge, Loyalität und Erinnerung. Doch die Veranstaltung ist mehr als eine Lesung: Das Publikum erlebt, wie sich Forschen in Erzählen verwandelt – wie Denken zu Schreiben wird und Schreiben zu Spiel. Die Kooperationsveranstaltung zwischen dem DIJ und der Abteilung für Deutsche Sprache und Studien der Sophia-Universität Tokyo wird organisiert von Carolin Fleischer-Heininger und Manuela Sato-Prinz. Details und Anmeldung hier

Although the Second World War was truly global, historians of the war have been remarkably Eurocentric and America-centric. They fail to appreciate that one of the key belligerents was a non-Western society and that the Asia-Pacific theater constituted one half of the war. This talk argues that by integrating scholarship on Japan into the history of the Second World War, we may ask better comparative and transnational questions about war and society. Wartime Japan should no longer been seen as an exceptional, bizarre case, but as a part of the global history of 20th-century warfare. This lecture reveals the important role of Japan in the transnational circulation of ideas that resulted both in a “global war on civilians” and in efforts to construct “home fronts” that mobilized civilians. The presentations will be followed by a Q&A session and a small reception. Details and registration here