Torsten Weber
Principal Researcher
Modern East Asian History
Science Communication & Public Relations
Since April 2013
weber@dijtokyo.org
Profile on ORCID
Torsten Weber is a historian of modern and contemporary East Asia specializing in the history of Japanese-Chinese relations and interactions. Trained in History and East Asian Studies at the universities of Mainz, Shanghai (Fudan), London (SOAS), and Leiden, he received his Ph.D. in Japanese Studies from Heidelberg University in 2012. His monograph Embracing ‘Asia’ in China and Japan. Asianism Discourse and the Contest for Hegemony (Palgrave Transnational History Series, 2019) analyzes how ‘Asia’ as a contested concept in mainstream public discourse has challenged political and epistemological hierarchies in East Asia and the world. At the DIJ, Torsten’s research includes projects on the First World War and the interwar period in East Asian history, happiness in modern Japan’s socio-political discourse, war memory and the ‘history wars’ in East Asia. For his ongoing research project on John Rabe’s Nanjing war diaries he was awarded a three-year research grant by the German Research Foundation (DFG). Since February 2020, Torsten has been in charge of the DIJ’s science communication and public relations.
Research blog on the Rabe Diaries project: https://rabediaries.hypotheses.org/
Current DIJ Projects
John Rabe's Nanjing Diaries － Testifying and Contesting War Experiences in China and Japan
History Politics in East Asia
Completed DIJ Projects
Global Dimensions of the First World War and the Interwar Period in East Asia
Socio-political discourse on happiness in Imperial Japan: Towards a historical contextualization of the Japanese concept of happiness
Recent Publications
Weber, Torsten & Scherer, Anke (2022). "Geschichte und Geschichtsbewusstsein in Japan im Jahr 2021". In: Japan 2022. Politik, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (pp. 260-280). Iudicium.
Weber, Torsten (2022). "Alternative internationalisms in East Asia: The Conferences of the Asian Peoples, Japanese-Chinese Rivalry, and Japanese Imperialism 1924-1943". In: Legg, Stephen, Heffernan, Mike, Hodder, Jake & Thorpe, Benjamin (Eds.),
Placing Internationalism. International Conferences and the Making of the Modern World (pp. 199-215). Bloomsbury.
LINKWeber, Torsten & Scherer, Anke (2021). "Geschichte und Geschichtsbewusstsein im Jahr der Jahrestage 2020". In: Chiavacci, David & Wieczorek, Iris (Eds.), Japan 2021: Politik, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (pp. 213-233). Iudicium.
Weber, Torsten (2021). "Olympic Dreams and Traumata. Looking back at Tokyo 2020".
IIAS Newsletter, Vol. 90 (pp. 14-15).
LINKWeber, Torsten (2021). "Pan-Asianism". In: Ness, Immanuel & Cope, Zak (Eds.),
The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism (pp. 2164-2174). Palgrave Macmillan.
LINKWeber, Torsten (2021). "Finding China’s ‘Asia’ in Japanese Asianism". In: Henshaw, Jonathan, Smith, Craig A. & Smith, Norman (Eds.),
Translating the Occupation. The Japanese Invasion of China, 1931–45 (pp. 209-222). University of British Columbia Press.
LINKWeber, Torsten (2020). "A Lost Chance for Peace: The China Crisis of 1919 and the Debate on Japanese-Chinese Friendship in Japan". In: Minohara, Tosh & Dawley, Evan (Eds.),
Beyond Versailles. The 1919 Moment and a New Order in East Asia (pp. 185-206). Lexington Books.
LINKWeber, Torsten (2020). "Tokyo’s 1940 "Phantom Olympics" in public memory: when Japan choose war". In: Holthus, Barbara, Gagné, Isaac, Manzenreiter, Wolfram & Waldenberger, Franz (Eds.),
Japan through the lens of the Tokyo Olympics (pp. 66-72). Routledge.
LINKWeber, Torsten (2020). "Success story: The 1964 Tokyo Olympics". In: Gagné, Isaac, Holthus, Barbara & Waldenberger, Franz (Eds.),
Japan through the lens of the Tokyo Olympics (pp. 52-52). Routledge.
LINKWeber, Torsten (2019).
Embracing ‘Asia’ in China and Japan. Asianism Discourse and the Contest for Hegemony, 1912-1933. Palgrave Macmillan (Palgrave Macmillan Transnational History Series).
LINKWeber, Torsten (2019). "Der schwierige Umgang mit der Schuld".
Damals, Jg. 51, Heft 7 (pp. 42-46).
LINKWeber, Torsten (June 27, 2019). "Die Nanking Tagebücher John Rabes – Historische Quellen im multilingualen Kontext".
TRAFO Blog for Transregional Research.
LINKWeber, Torsten (2018). "Apology Failures: Japanese Strategies in Dealing with its Imperialist Past Towards China and Korea". In: Bevernage, B. & Wouters, N. (Eds.),
The Palgrave Handbook of State-Sponsored History After 1945 (pp. 801-816). Palgrave.
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