New book chapter and article by Harald Kümmerle on Mathematical Knowledge and Digital Sovereignty

Two new studies by DIJ researcher Harald Kümmerle were recently published. His book chapter „Bridging Göttingen and Tokyo: Oral Culture and the Dynamics of Mathematical Knowledge“, published in Felix Klein’s Foreign Students. Opening Up the Way for Transnational Mathematics (Birkhäuser Cham 2025), examines the reception of Felix Klein’s school of mathematical productivity in Japan, particularly at Tokyo Imperial University, whose central position within Japan contrasts with Göttingen University’s peripheral position within Germany. The study focuses on the work of two Japanese mathematicians, Tsuruichi Hayashi and Takuji Yoshiye. Harald’s article „Datenströme und Raumordnung. Japans Regulierungsmodell im globalen Kontext“ (Data flows and spatial order. Japan’s regulatory model in a global context), published in German in the Zeitschrift für Digitalisierung und Recht (4/2025), studies how data flows are embedded in geographical and economic orders and constitute spaces themselves. Focusing on developments in Japan, the article shows that data flows are not only technical or regulatory objects, but space-constituting phenomena in which Japan’s consensus-oriented regulatory model appears as a relevant factor in global order-making.