Prof. Dr. Hans Martin Krämer

Hans Martin Krämer (born 1972) studied History, Japanese Studies, and Philosophy at Heinrich Heine University (Düsseldorf, Germany), Sophia University (Tokyo, Japan), and Ruhr University (Bochum, Germany). After research stays at the University of Tokyo, Harvard University, and the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Kyoto, Japan), he was assistant professor for Japanese Studies in Bochum. Since 2012, he is professor for Japanese Studies (History/Society) at Heidelberg University in Germany. His work has appeared in The Journal of Asian Studies, Monumenta Nipponica, Social Science Japan Journal, and a number of other German-, Japanese-, and English-language venues.

Full CV

The PhD dissertation, submitted in 2005 and published as a book in 2006, dealt with higher education reform in Japan between 1919 and 1952. While the conventional view holds that the reforms introduced by the US American occupation authorities after the end of World War II were epoch-making, this study stresses the preparatory character of reform discourse and practice before 1945, especially during the 1930s. As a result, common conceptions about prewar and wartime fascism and postwar democracy, especially the social values associated with these epochs, are called into question.

In 2012, Hans Martin Krämer submitted his Habilitation thesis on the subject of the birth of a modern concept of religion in Japan. Based on conceptual history, it is shown that the assumption of cultural dominance by the West, which emphasizes how “religion” in Japan has been and is shaped by a Christian Protestant understanding, is simplistic. An analysis of both the early modern prehistory of the neologism shūkyō 宗教 as well as debates on religion and state in the early Meiji period (between roughly 1868 and 1876) shows that the Japanese actors had their own interests and agendas, largely independent from the supposed semi-colonial dependence on the West.

1. Mahāyāna in Europe: Japanese Buddhists and Their Contribution to Academic Knowledge of Buddhism in Nineteenth-Century Europe

2. Spiritual Pan-Asianism: The Religious Dimension of a Political Movement in Early Twentieth-Century Japan

 

Examples for institutions include Japanese muslims, the secret society Kokuryūkai 黒竜会, the theosophical movement in Japan, Baha’i adherents, or a part of the new religious movements such as the Japanese Ōmotokyō 大本教 or the Chinese Shijie hongwanzi hui 世界紅卍字会. Individuals who combined political pan-Asian agendas with religious goals, many of whom were united in the anti-colonial struggle in India, include James Cousins, Paul Richard, Ōkawa Shūmei 大川周明, or Tanaka Ippei 田中逸平. The French Paul Richard, a former Protestant pastor, then a protagonist of spiritual and theosophical circles in Paris, before traveling to India where he met the political activist and later guru Sri Aurobindo, is a particularly interesting example, not in the least because it is so little known. In 1914 Richard traveled to Japan together with his wife, who was later to become the spiritual leader of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram; both stayed in Japan for four years, where they built extensive networks with anticolonial activists from all over Asia, at the same time never giving up a spiritual vision for a religiously united Asia. The first goal of this project is to collect the writings and papers of Richard, which are to be found all over Europe, India, Japan, and North America (where Richard spent the last years of his life), an effort which has already started with the help of collaborators from Japan, the United States, India, China, and several European countries.

 

3. Progressive Theory and Social Practice in a Working-Class Neighborhood: The Tōkyō Imperial University Settlement House, 1923–1938.

4. The Social History of Human–Animal Relations in Early Modern Japan

 

While this explanation is plausible in itself, it operates on the unquestioned assumption of a lack of intensive contact with animals in Japan before the nineteenth century. Beyond stating that there was no intensive mass animal farming in premodern or early modern Japan, however, the history of everyday experiences of Japanese with animals has in fact never been the subject of research. To what degree were animals actually used in everyday life, especially in farming? How close did humans and (production) animals live together? Due to a dearth of sources, these questions are not easy to answer. A first attempt will be made, however, by tapping agrarian manuals (nōsho). These were produced in great numbers during the Tokugawa Period (1603–1868), and although most of them do not treat animals as their main subjects, many do in fact contain chapters, passages, or brief remarks about animals. Based on the 72-volume edition Nihon nōsho zenshū 日本農書全集, such passages will be evaluated, before drawing on further textual and visual sources at a later stage of the project.

 

A complete list of all publications is available via the Heidelberger Dozentenbibliographie.