The Japanese Alpine Empire: A Transnational Environmental History of Japan’s “Alpine” Landscapes

Applicant Professor Dr. Fynn Holm
Subject Area Asian Studies
Modern and Contemporary History
Term since 2024
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 539688406
 

Project Description

This Emmy Noether project proposal is a global environmental history of the Japanese Alps and the following colonization of East Asian mountain regions (here called the “Japanese Alpine Empire”). The aim of the project is to understand the role “alpine” knowledge played in changing and transforming fragile mountain ecosystems in East Asia and what consequences these had for the mountain communities. In this way, the project takes both a comparative intellectual history approach, by highlighting the similarities and differences with (colonial) European mountain conceptions, and a longue durée environmental history approach, by following the development of East Asian mountains over the course of the second half of the Little Ice Age (1550-1850), the Age of Imperialism (1850-1950) and the Anthropocene (1950-present).
DFG Programme Emmy Noether Independent Junior Research Groups
International Connection Japan, Switzerland, USA
Cooperation Partners Professor Caleb Carter, Ph.D.; Professor David Fedman, Ph.D.; Shiori Hashimoto, Ph.D.; Professor Dr. Claude Hauser; Professorin Mariko Iijima, Ph.D.; Professor Dr. Christian Rohr