VSJF 2025 Special Issue MINIKOMI: Austrian Journal of Japanese Studies (Available for download: here)
This special issue of the MINIKOMI: Austrian Journal of Japanese Studies acts as a preparatory and complementary material to the 2025 Annual Conference of the German Association for Social Science Japanese Studies. After the decision was made to organize the annual conference of the German Association of Japanese Studies (VSJF) in Vienna in 2025, a keystone decision was to combine the conference theme “(Un)Democratic Futures: Japan and the Global Trajectories towards an (Un)Equal World” with a practice befitting the underlying reasoning of the conference. Following an understanding of the global political conjuncture as anti-democratic in its tendencies and severely threatened by a looming planetary collapse, a limitation to the study of Japan and the presentation of results in Vienna became undesirable. Rather, the attempt to focus on community building through generosity, solidarity and multi-level exchange of pro-democratic ideas between scholars in Japan and in Europe was to be at the center. Along these lines, collecting, translating, and publishing the work of scholars presenting at the conference whose work cannot fully be appreciated by a wider audience due to existing language barriers became the goal for this issue. A class focusing on translating political research from Japanese to English with assistance from generative AI was held in the winter term of 2024 for this purpose. Students achieved something amazing and their efforts cannot be valued high enough.
Table of Contents
- Introduction to the Special Issue: Democratic Futures Now!
—————————- Andreas Eder-Ramsauer - Introduction II – An experiment of didactics: Translating politics – AI-assisted translating of political research
—————————- Anna Linder - Zwischen Sozialwissenschaft und Kritik: Zusammenhang des Wissens im Nachkriegsjapan (社会科学と批評の間−戦後日本における知の連関)
—————————- Uno Shigeki (Translation by: Kobayashi Kanau) - Envy, Justice, and Democracy (嫉妬・正義・民主主義)
—————————- Yamamoto Kei (Translation by: Robin Herzeg, Matsumoto Momo, and Manuel Steiner) - Biopolitics and necropolitics during the pandemic from a gender perspective: The case of contemporary Japan (ジェンダーからパンデミック下の生政治・死政治を考える: 現代日本の場合)
—————————- Takeda Hiroko (Translation by: Klemens Bardakji and Simon Kaiser) - An Examination of the Concept of ‘Honorary Male’: Why are Female Leaders Criticized? (「名誉男性」概念をめぐる考察: 女性リーダー批判の背景をさぐる)
—————————- Suzuki Ayaka (Translation by: Audrey Chau, Nina Urban, Johanna Wieser, and Julian Wollinger) - Buried Thorns: For a Queer Politics of a Potentially Invisible Multiplicity (埋没した棘: 現れないかもしれない複数性のクィア・ポリティクスのために)
—————————- Shimizu Akiko (Translation by: Melanie Biebl and Nathalie Winsauer) - The Regionalism of Tamanoi Yoshirō: Its Timeliness and Potential for the Anthropocene (玉野井芳郎の地域主義：人新世におけるその現代性と可能性)
—————————– Nakano Yoshihiro (Translation by: Georg Langeder and Daniel Taubinger) - The US-Japan Alliance in the Post-COVID Era – Intensifying US-China Rivalry and the Wavering Deterrence of US Forces (ポストコロナ時代の日米同盟: 先鋭化する米中対立、揺らぐ米軍の抑止力松岡美里 国際関係理論、安全保障研究)
—————————— Matsuoka Misato (Translation by: Rabia Deveci and Katja Palaszewski) - 民主主義への不快感 (“Demokratische Malaise”, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte)
—————————— Veith Selk (Translation by: Kobayashi Kanau) - 民主的な権威理論に向けて (Toward a theory of democratic authority)
—————————— Viktoria Huegel (Translation by: Kobayashi Kanau) - 干渉されずにいること: アイデンティティ・ポリティクス批判における消極的自由と社会的自由の混同 (“In Ruhe gelassen werden Das Zusammenspiel von negativer und sozialer Freiheit in der Kritik an Identitätspolitik“)
—————————— Karsten Schubert (Translation by: Kobayashi Kanau) - ガヴァメンタリティーの秘密―男性中心主義的なエコノミー概念と再生産の抑圧 (“Das Geheimnis der Gouvernementalität: Der maskulinistische Ökonomie-Begriff und die verdrängte Reproduktion”)
—————————— Gabriele Michalitsch (Translation by: Kobayashi Kanau) - 私が計画経済について知っている二、三のこと (“Zwei oder drei Dinge, die ich über die Freie Planwirtschaft weiß”
—————————– Jan Groos (Translation by: Kobayashi Kanau) - 山本太郎とれいわ新選組 ―新自由主義日本のための、愛と、ポピュリズムと、ラディカルなデモクラシー(“Yamamoto Tarō and Reiwa Shinsengumi: Love, Populism, and Radical Democracy for a Neoliberal Japan”)
—————————– Andreas Eder-Ramsauer (Translation by: Park Seong-Joon)
