Hijiya Irmela Kirschnereit - Curriculum Vitae#

Academic Career

• 1980 Habilitation thesis, Faculty of East Asian Studies, Ruhr University Bochum
• 1975 Doctoral Dissertation, Japanese Studies, Ruhr University Bochum
• 1967 - 1975 studied Japanology, Sinology,Germanic Lit., Sociology, Communication Studies at Hamburg, Bochum, Waseda, and Tokyo Universities

Professional Career

• since 1991 Professor (Chair) of Japanese Studies (Literature and Cultural Studies), FU
• since 2016 Senior Professor, FU Berlin

Positions held

• 1985 - 1986 Associate Professor for Japanese Literature, Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo
• 1986 - 1991 Professor (Chair) for Contemporary Japanese Studies, Trier University
• 1996 - 2004 Director, German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ) Tokyo
• 2010 - 2015 Director, Friedrich Schlegel Graduate School of Literary Studies, FU Berlin

Professorial Positions declined

• Freiburg, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Cologne, Tübingen.

Fields of Scholarship

• Modern and contemporary literature and culture of Japan in its traditional and intercultural relations
• Comparative literature
• Genre theory
• Autobiography and autofiction
• Translation studies
• Lexicography
• Sociology of language
• Discourses of cultural/national uniqueness
• World literature
• History of Japan-related scholarship
• Food and hospitality studies

International activities (Selected)

• 1977 - 1996 Research stays in Japan app. every other year, funded by DFG (German Research Foundation), the Japan Foundation, and others.
• 1989 Visiting Professor, University of Vienna
• 1995 - 1996 Visiting research fellow, University of Hawaii, Princeton University
• 2008 Visiting research fellow, Gakushuin University, Tokyo
• 2012 Visiting research fellow, Tokyo University, Komaba Campus
• 2013 Visiting research fellow, Tokyo University, Hongo Campus
• 2015 Guest lectureship, Dept. Mod langs, lits. and cultures, University of Bologna
• 2018 - 2019 Guest professorship, Faculty of Letters, Keio University, Tokyo
  

Awards and Honors (selected)

• 1980 - 1985 Heisenberg scholarship of Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation)
• 1985 apl. Professor, Ruhr-Universität Bochum
• 1992 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of DFG
• 1993 Founding Member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (Berlin)
• 1995 Bundesverdienstkreuz am Bande (Cross of Merit on a Ribbon of the Federal Republic of Germany)
• 1995 Member of Academia Europaea (London)
• 2001 Eugen and Ilse Seibold prize, DFG
• 2011 Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon
• 2013 Member of Leopoldina, the National Academy of Sciences (Halle)
• 2014 Academic Prize for Culinary Studies (Wissenschaftspreis Kulinaristik)
• 2014 NIHU (National Institutes for the Humanities) Prize in Japanese Studies (Japan)

Memberships and Further Activities

• 2015 Berlin Board Member, Einstein Foundation, Berlin
• 1994 - 1997 President, European Association for Japanese Studies
• 1991 - 1996 Joint Committee for Japanese Studies, Social Science Research Center (SSRC), New York, and the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS)
• Editorial Board Member of Monumenta Nipponica (Tokyo), Annali dell’Università di Napoli degli Studi “L’Orientale” (Naples), Japan Forum (London); Border Crossings:The Journal of Japanese-Language Literature Studies (Korea University); Nihon kenkyū (Nichibunken, Kyoto).

An extended list of selected memberships can be found under “Mitgliedschaften und Ämter”: http://www.geschkult.fuberlin.de/e/oas/japanologie/institut/mitarbeiter/professoren/kirschnereit

Main research and related activities

Japan’s dialogue with the „West“ in the 20th century (Leibniz-Prize, 1992 - 1997), Editorship of „Japanische Bibliothek im Insel Verlag“ (Japan Library, 32+2 vols., 1993 - 2000), numerous conferences and publications with outside funding as Director of the German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ) Tokyo (1996 - 2004). Organized large international conferences since, e.g. MISHIMA! Worldwide Impact and Multicultural Roots (2010), and international workshops in cooperation with the Institute for Advanced Study, Berlin, the Japanese Academy of Sciences etc. in Berlin and Tokyo. Project leader and Co-Editor, Comprehensive Japanese-German Dictionary in 3 vols. (1998 - 2019), Head of Jury of 2 Translation Prizes (Lessing Prize of FRG and Dauthendey Feder of Goethe Institute Munich). Member and Section Head, Interdisciplinary Research Group „Self-narratives in trans-cultural perspective“ (DFG, 2004 - 2010), Principal Investigator: “Circulation of Knowledge. Transregional Studies“ (Institute for Advanced Studies, Berlin). Editor of Iaponia Insula (36 vols., 1994-). 2008 - 2011 Member of Interdisciplinary Research Group “Bildkulturen/Visual Cultures” (Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities); 2009 - 2013 Director of Research Project, Interdisciplinary Research Cluster Languages of Emotion: Coolness. Forms and functions of culture-specific affect control in American and Japanese literature and culture. 2012 - 2015 Member of Interdisciplinary Working Group “TECHCultures:Cross-cultural inquiry into understandings of science and technology” (Berlin- Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities); Cooperator in “Transpazifika” (Images of the Pacific Region, 1900 - 1945 in Scholarship, Media, Literature and Society), funded by the Einstein Foundation, 2015 - 2020 at Friedrich Schlegel Graduate School, FU Berlin and the University of Tokyo.