University of Heidelberg

Contact information

Karl Jaspers Centre,
Voßstraße 2, Building 4400
69115 Heidelberg
Germany

Email:

fuess@asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de

Phone:

+49 (0) 6221 54 4080

Fax:

+49 (0) 6221 54 4490

About Harald Fuess

Team | Research | Teaching | Ph.D. Students | Publications | Cooperation

Harald Fuess studied History and Japanese Studies at the Universities of Princeton (B.A.), Tokyo and Harvard (M.A., Ph.D.), and is now Professor for Cultural Economic History at Heidelberg University. His research interests are transcultural business and consumption history of Asia and Europe as well as social and legal history of Japan.

Office hours: by appointment

Administrative Assistant

Shupin Lang, M.A. (Heidelberg)

Phone: +49 (0) 6221 54 4362
Email: lang@asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de

Projects

• C11 Medicine and Religion
• C12 The Asian Sea
• Professorship Cultural Economic History

Curriculum vitae

Harald Fuess is Professor for Cultural Economic History at Heidelberg University's Cluster of Excellence "Asia and Europe in a Global Context" where he was also elected as speaker for Research Area C "Health and Environment." His additional Heidelberg teaching affiliations include memberships in the Centre for East Asian Studies and the Department of History.

After a childhood in France and teenage years in Germany, Harald Fuess received his academic training at Princeton University (B.A.) and Harvard University (M.A., Ph.D.) and lived in Japan for a total of 15 years. Before taking up his post at Heidelberg University, he was a Director of the White Rose East Asia Centre at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom and Associate Professor for Modern Japanese History at Sophia University in Japan. He also worked in financial service consultancy for the Boston Consulting Group in Frankfurt and was a research fellow at the German Institute for Japanese Studies in Tokyo (DIJ). He held visiting appointments at Oxford University, the University of Duisburg-Essen, Columbia University, and the University of Tokyo. For 2008-2011 he has been elected president of the European Association for Japanese Studies (EAJS), which is the world's largest research association for the study of Japan.

His numerous publications in several languages cover aspects of the history of Japan, gender, consumption, cultural-economic relations, and Eurasian cultural flows. His monograph Divorce in Japan: Family, Gender and the State, 1600-2000 (Stanford University Press, 2004) was reviewed over 25 times in journals and newspapers in English, German, French and Japanese and nominated for major academic prizes.

Membership in Academic Associations

• EAJS European Association for Japanese Studies (Europe)
• BAJS British Association for Japanese Studies (United Kingdom)
• AAS Association for Asian Studies (United States)
• RAS Fellow, Royal Asiatic Society (United Kingdom)
• AHA American Historical Association (United States)
• VHD Verband der Historiker Deutschlands (German Historical Association)
• GJF Gesellschaft für Japanforschung (German Society for Japanese Studies)
• VSJF Vereinigung für Sozialwissenschaftliche Japanforschung (Social Science Research on Japan in Germany) 

Doctoral and MA students

I am willing to supervise Ph.D. and M.A. students in the field of Global and Economic History as well as Japanese Studies (Modern Japan). Prospective doctoral students should contact me with a dissertation proposal of 3-5 pages and CV before 31 March if they would like to start with a fellowship in the autumn semester of the same year.

Thesis Funding
The Graduate Academy Heidelberg offers comprehensive information on Ph.D. scholarships, fellowships and dissertation grants (including financing from the State of Baden-Württemberg or one of the "Begabtenförderungswerke"). Please review these possibilities and/or contact the Graduate Academy Service Point for individualized counsel.
For funding of research and fieldwork in Japan please refer to the scholarships and grants offered by the Japan Foundation, JSPS, the DIJ, the DAAD, and the DGIA travel grants.
PostDocs who want to come to Heidelberg can obtain funding from the Humboldt-Foundation or the DFG among others.
Additionally, please review the Cluster's call for applications for its GPTS programme (Deadline 2012: 15 May).

Completed Dissertations

Sven Matthiessen, M.A. Hamburg (Sept. 2008- Mar. 2012)
"The Japanese Greater East Asia Co- Prosperity Sphere and the Philippines"

Doctoral Students under Supervision

Charlotte Kroll, M.A. Goettingen (April 2010-)
"Carl Schmitt in der chinesisch-sprachigen Gegenwartsdiskussion"

Biru David Binder, M.A. Cologne University (Sept. 2010 - )
"Body of the Nation: Transnational hegemonic masculinities in the publications of the Kokuryûkai"

Chung-Yam Po, M.A. Hong Kong Baptist University (Sept. 2010 - )
"Sea-Strokes: Conceptualizing the Maritime World in Early Qing China"

Nicole Keusch, M.A. Humboldt University, Berlin (Nov. 2010 - )
"Japanese studies on Africa: Historiography of a research area"

Lars Schladitz, M.A. Erfurt (April 2011-)
"Whaling as a transnational cultural practice, Japan 1868-1934"

Björn-Ole Kamm, M.A. Leipzig (April 2011-)
"Self- and Other-Labeling Processes surrounding 'the otaku'"

Till Knaudt, M.A. Bochum (Oktober 2011-)
"Studentenbewegung, Terror und Antiimperialismus in Japan, 1969 – 1972"

Selected publications

Books

2015 expected. The Republic of Commerce: Consular Courts and Conflict-Resolution in East Asia.

2012 expected. Corporate Capitalism and Consumer Culture: A Transnational History of Beer in Japan.

2004. Divorce in Japan: Family, Gender and the State. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

1998. Editor of The Japanese Empire and Its Postwar Legacy. Munich: Iudicium.

1997. Coeditor with Hendrik Meyer-Ohle, Japanstudien (Special Issue on Consumption and Services in Japan in the 1990s). Munich. Iudicium.
Book Reviews and Encyclopedia Entries

Reviews of "Divorce in Japan: Family, Gender and the State"

List of Reviews in English, German, Japanese, and French

1. 2004 The Law and Politics Book Review 14, no.10 (October): 776-779 (Leonard Schoppa),
2. 2004 Historische Literatur 2, no. 4 (October – December): 415-417 Sebastian Conrad,
3. 2004 Monumenta Nipponica 59, no.4 (Winter): 547-49. Gail Lee Bernstein,
4. 2004 Canadian Journal of Sociology Online (November): 1-2 Karen Kobayashi,
5. 2004 American Historical Review 109, no.5 (December): 1549-1550 Elise K. Tipton,
6. 2004 Asian Studies Review 28, no.4, (December): 439-441 Merry White,
7. 2005 Rekishi Hyôron (Review of History), 660 (April): 23-36. "Gendai no amerikajin ga miru Nihon no kindai joseishi (Contemporary American Views of Modern Japanese Women's History)," Anne Walthall,
8. 2005 Colloquy. Alumni Quarterly of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Harvard University (Spring): 14.
9. 2005 Japan Times 29 May Jeff Kingston,
10. 2005 Pacific Affairs 78, no.1: 140-141. Aya Ezawa
11. 2005 Journal of Social History 38, no. 4 (Summer): 1136-1138. Anne Walthall,
12. 2005 American Journal of Sociology 111, no.1 (July): 333-335. James M. Raymo,
13. 2005 Law and Social Inquiry 30, no.4 (Fall): 861.
14. 2005 Social Forces 84, no.1 (September): 613-614. Yean-Ju Lee,
15. 2005 Japan Forum 17, no.3 (November): 432-435. Sean Curtin,
16. 2005 Histoire sociale – Social History 38, no. 76 (novembre-November): 511-513. Millie Creighton,
17. 2005 Nachrichten der Gesellschaft für Natur- und Völkerkunde Ostasiens (News of the East Asia Society) no. 177-78 (December): 287-291. Margaret Neuss-Kaneko,
18. 2005 Japanstudien 17: 285-291. Andrea Germer,
19. 2006 Contemporary Sociology 35, no.1 (January): 28-30. Merry I. White,
20. 2006 Journal of Japanese Studies 32, no. 1 (Winter): 212-215. Anne E. Imamura,
21. 2006 NWSA Journal (Journal of the National Women's Studies Association) 18, no. 2 (Summer): pp. 244-48. Kaye Broadbent,
22. 2006 Canadian Journal of History/Annales canadiennes d'histoire XLI (Autumn/automne): 419-421. Leslie Winston,
23. 2006 Japan Studies Review 10: 129-132. Bernice J. deGannes Scott,
24. 2006 Ebisu no. 36 (automne-hiver 2006).(Jean-Pascale Bassino),
25. 2007 Zeitschrift für japanisches Recht/Journal for Japanese Law 24 (Winter)

Citations from Reviews in English

"Harald Fuess has to be congratulated for producing the most comprehensive English-language social history of Japanese divorce to date, making a significant contribution not only to Japanese studies but also to the field of family studies. His masterful use of such a wide and diverse range of material, as well as a commendable array of research techniques and skills, places this impressive work in a class of its own."
        Sean Curtin, Japan Forum

"In this deceptively slim volume, Harald Fuess takes on a monumental task... . This book … will be with us for some time. It is a rich resource that will provide the starting point for much new research and will be widely cited by anyone writing on divorce and marriage in Japan. It will also be a book to come back to again and again to incorporate a segment or an insight into a lecture or to remind oneself of the array of perspectives and data that must be brought together to adequately analyze any phenomenon."
        Anne E. Imamura, Journal of Japanese Studies

"The first book in the topic to appear in English. Tapping a rich vein of primary source materials in his survey of four centuries of divorce patterns, customs, and laws, Harald Fuess shows how divorce in Japan has deviated from the West European and American experience and continues to confound conventional wisdom. High frequency of divorce, for example, is not a uniquely modern, Western phenomenon, and divorce does not automatically increase in the course of industrialization and urbanization."
         Gail Lee Bernstein, Monumenta Nipponica

"This book is a must-read for social scientists with research interests in the areas of gender, marriage and the family, and demography. Its inclusion of discussions on sociological issues ranging from cultural change to gender, class and status inequality certainly make it an excellent supplemental read for graduate courses on social inequality, social institutions, and social processes."
        Karen Kobayashi, Canadian Journal of Sociology Online

"Divorce in Japan is an invaluable contribution to scholarship on Japan, not just for what it reveals about divorce, marriage, and family, but for the comprehensive use of materials and its theoretical underpinnings. Fuess is to be commended for his meticulous methods of interpretation and his expression of compelling findings in a clear, unequivocal prose style."
        Leslie Winston, Canadian Journal of History

Articles and book chapters

2012 expected. Harald Fuess. "The German Origins of a Japanese Jesuit University: Nationalism, State, and Religion." (under review by a journal)

2012. Harald Fuess. "明治期の結婚と離婚. 異文化社会的視点で見た近代社会の遷移" [Marriage and Divorce in Meiji Japan. The Transition to Modern Society as Seen from a Different Socio-Cultural Perspective]. In 歴史人口学からみた結婚・離婚・再婚 [Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage as Seen from Historical Demography] edited by Satomi Kurosu. Reitaku University Press, pp.157-189.

2007. "Ehebruch als Verbrechen: Der Europäische Beitrag zur Frauendiskriminierung in Japan." [Adultery as a Crime: The European Contribution to Legal Inequality in Japan] Zeitschrift für Japanisches Recht/Journal of Japanese Law. 24 (Winter): 107-136.

2006. "Investment, Importation, and Innovation: Genesis and Growth of Beer Corporations in Pre-war Japan." In Institutional and Technological Change in Japan's Economy: Past and Present. Edited by Janet Hunter and Cornelia Storz. London: Routledge, pp. 43-59.

2005. "Men in the Women's Kingdom: Fatherhood in Taishô Japan." In Public Spheres, Private Lives in Modern Japan 1600-1950. Edited by Gail Lee Bernstein, Andrew Gordon, and Kate Nakai. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, pp. 259-292.

2005. "Deutsche Jesuiten in Japan" [German Jesuits in Japan]. Japanstudien 17, 83-108.

2003. "Der Aufbau der Bierindustrie in Japan während der Meiji-Zeit: Konsum, Kapital und Kompetenz" [The Origins of the Beer Industry during the Meiji Period: Consumption, Capitalism, and Competencies]. Bochumer Jahrbuch für Ostasienforschung 27, 231-267.

2000. "Home, School and the Middle Class: Paternal Narratives of Child Rearing in Fujin no tomo, 1908-1926." In Gender and Modernity: Rereading Japanese Women's Magazines. Ed. Ulrike Wöhr, Barbara Sato and Suzuki Sadami. Kyoto: The International Research Center for Japanese Studies, pp. 69-83.

1999. "Als Japan die Welt anführte.'Das Land der schnellen Eheschließung und der schnellen Scheidung,' 1870-1940" [When Japan Led the World. 'The Country of Fast Marriage and Fast Divorce"]. Nachrichten der Ostasiatischen Gesellschaft 171/172, 75-92.

1999. "Zwischen Strenge und Liebe-Das Vaterbild im Japan des frühen 20. Jahrhunderts" [Between Strictness and Love: The Image of the Father in the early 20th Century]. In Japans Kultur der Reformen. Edited by Werner Schaumann. Tokyo: OAG, pp. 173-192.

1998. "Overview." In The Japanese Empire and Its Postwar Legacy. Edited by Harald Fuess. Munich: Iudicium, pp. 11-13.

1998. "Neue Väter braucht das Land. Die Krise der Männlichkeit im Japan der 1990er Jahre" [The Nation Needs New Fathers: The Crisis of Masculinity in 1990s Japan]. Japanstudien 10, 405-413.

1997. With Hendrik Meyer-Ohle. "Konsum und Dienstleistung im Japan der 1990er Jahre - Einleitung" [Consumption and Service in 1990s Japan: An Introduction]. Japanstudien 9, 15-23.

1997. "Die japanische BGB-Reformkontroverse (1996): Japanische Identität und die Rolle der Frau" [The Japanese Civil Code Controversy of 1996: Japanese Identity and the Position of Women]. Japanstudien 9, 255-286.

1997. "A Golden Age of Fatherhood? Parent-Child Relations in Japanese Historiography." Monumenta Nipponica 52 (3): 381-397.

Book Reviews and Encyclopedia Entries

2010. Harald Fuess. Review of Penelope Francks "The Japanese Consumer: An Alternative Economic History of Modern Japan" in Japan Forum 22 (1-1), 245 - 246.

2010. Harald Fuess. Review of Erik Esselstrom's "Crossing Empire's Edge: Foreign Ministry Police and Japanese Expansionism in Northeast Asia" in Pacific Affairs: An International Revue of Asia and the Pacific January Volume 82, no.4 (Winter).

2008. Harald Fuess. "International Trade in East Asia, 1650-2000" and "Foreign Investments in East Asia, 1850-2000" In Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World: 1750 to the Present. Edited by Peter N. Stearns. Oxford University Press.

2008. Harald Fuess. Review of Reinhard Zöllner, "Geschichte Japans." For H-Soz-u-Kult 10 Sept 2008. Reprint in Historische Literatur 7, no. 4 (Oct.-Dec. 2008)

2008. Harald Fuess. Review of Katja Cwiertka, "Japanese Cuisine." Japan Forum 20, no.3, pp. 435-437.

2008. Harald Fuess. Review of Miyako Inoue's "Vicarious Language: Gender and Linguistic Modernity in Japan." Journal of Asian Studies 67, no. 2, pp. 722-24.

2008. Harald Fuess. Review of Hans Martin Krämer's "Neubeginn unter US-amerikanischer Besatzung? Hochschulreform in Japan zwischen Kontinuität und Diskontinuität, 1919–1952" Monumenta Nipponica 63, no. 1 (May), pp. 172-74.

2007. Harald Fuess. Review of Mikael Adolphson's "The Teeth and Claws of the Buddha: Monastic Warriors and Sôhei in Japanese History." Notizen der Ostasiatischen Gesellschaft 5 (Mai): 51-54. Reprinted in Nachrichten der Ostasiatischen Gesellschaft (2007).

2004. Harald Fuess. Review of Eiji Takemae's "Inside GHQ: The Allied Occupation of Japan and Its Legacy." Monumenta Nipponica 59, no. 2 (Summer): 263-265.

2003. Harald Fuess. Review of Anne Walthall's "The Human Tradition in Modern Japan" and Susumu Saga's "Memories of Wind and Waves: A Self-Portrait of Lakeside Japan." Monumenta Nipponica 58, no. 1 (Spring): 122-125.

2002. Harald Fuess. Review of Maik Hendrik Sprotte's "Konfliktaustragung in autoritären Herrschaftssystemen. Eine historische Fallstudie zur frühsozialistischen Bewegung im Japan der Meiji-Zeit." Nachrichten der Ostasiatischen Gesellschaft 171/172, 307-309.

1999. Harald Fuess. Review of Britta Woldering's "Akai tori in den Jahren 1918/19: Die Entstehung einer modernen japanischen Kinderzeitschrift." Monumenta Nipponica 54, no. 3 (Autumn): 415-416.

1998. Harald Fuess. Review of Muriel Jolivet's "Japan: The Childless Society." Monumenta Nipponica 53, no. 1 (Spring): 142–144.