Christian W. Spang

Ph.D. research in Japan
After concluding his Master degree, Mr. Spang registered as a Ph.D. candidate at Freiburg University and went to Japan with a DAAD-/Monbushō-scholarship to study as a research student at Tokyo University for two years (1998-2000). After that, he transferred to the Institute for Asian Cultural Studies at International Christian University (ICU), in Mitaka (Tokyo). While being at ICU until 2006, he concurrently spent ten months as a Ph.D.-fellow at the German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ, 2001-02). In autumn 2008, he handed in his doctoral thesis at Freiburg University, which earned him a “summa cum laude” Ph.D. in March 2009. The thesis was awarded the university's History Award, the so-called “Gerhard-Ritter-Preis" in the autumn of the same year.

Monographs:
(1) Karl Haushofer und Japan. Die Rezeption seiner geopolitischen Theorien in der deutschen und japanischen Politik (Munich: Iudicium) 2013.
(2) Karl Haushofer und die OAG. Deutsch-japanische Netzwerke in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts (Munich: Iudicium) 2018.

Co-edited Volumes:
(3) Transnational Encounters between Germany and Japan: Perceptions of Partnership in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, in cooperation with Joanne M. Cho & Lee M. Roberts (London – New York: Palgrave Macmillan) 2016.
(4) Japanese-German Relations, 1895-1945. War, Diplomacy and Public Opinion, in cooperation with Rolf-Harald Wippich (London, New York: Routledge) 2006.
(5) Heinz Altschul: As I recall these memories…, in cooperation with Nicola Herwig and Thomas Pekar (Munich: Iudicium) 2014.

Forthcoming:
(6) Christian W. Spang, Rolf-Harald Wippich, Sven Saaler, Die OAG. Die Geschichte der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Natur- und Völkerkunde Ostasiens, 1873-1979, Munich: Iudicium.
(7) Christian W. Spang, Ernst Haiger (eds.), Albrecht Haushofer „Weltfahrt 1937“. Tagebuch und Dokumente seiner Japan-Mission, Munich: Iudicium.

Research Topics
The main focus of Dr. Spang's research lies on 19th and 20th century German-Japanese relations and geopolitical thinking. As a result of this, he authored the above-mentioned monographs dealing with Karl Haushofer. Dr. Spang's two co-edited volumes are closely related to German-Japanese contacts from the Meiji era to 1945. Beyond his major research area, he has published about 1970s terrorism in Germany (and Japan) as well as about the G8 summits. Furthermore, his publication list includes a co-authored paper on Samuel Huntington's “clash of civilizations” thesis. Various articles on dictionaries and online translation show his continued interest in linguistic questions as well.

Ongoing projects
- Currently, he is working on Josef von Reiß, who was the successor of Karl Haushofer as a Bavarian military observer to Japan.
- In the future, an edition of the travel diary of Karl Haushofer’s wife is planned, which will be providing much insight into Karl and Martha Haushofer’s sojourn in late Meiji Japan (1909/10).

Conferences
Dr. Spang has so far presented his findings in China (IVG, 2015), Estonia (EAJS, 2011), Germany (Japanologentag, 1999 & 2018), Japan (ASCJ, OAG etc.), Singapore (Asia-Europe Encounters 2012), Greece (International Congress of Military History, 2001), the UK (2019) and the United States (AAS, GSA etc). Most frequently, he presented at the annual Asian Studies Conference Japan (ASCJ: 2001, 2008, 2011, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019) and the GSA conventions (2009, 2010, 2012, 2013, 1014, 2015, 2017, 2018 & 2019 [planned]). He also spoke on various occasions at the German East Asiatic Society (OAG), Tokyo. On a lecture trip to the USA in early October 2018, he deliverd talks at New York City University, William Paterson University (New Jersey) and Purdue University Fort Wayne (Indiana).

Recent Articles
•「カール・ハウスホーファーとドイツの地政学（Karl Haushofer and German Geopolitics）」、『空間・社会・地理思想』、高木彰彦訳、第22号（2019年3月）、99 - 113頁。
• „Japanisch-Wörterbücher und Übersetzungsseiten online – ein Praxistest“, in: OAG Notizen, 10/2017, S. 36-69.
•「20世紀の前半に於けるドイツ東洋文化研究協会（OAG）と東アジア」、Sven Saaler氏との共著 （ヤコビ・茉莉子訳）、工藤章、田嶋信雄編、『日本と東アジア』、東京：東京大学出版社、2017年2月、699₋731頁。
•「ドイツ地政学と戦時下の日本の大東亜共栄圏構想（German Geopolitik and Japan’s “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”）」、『Euro-NARASIA Q』、第6号（2016年12月）、39 - 49頁。
• “Recollections of a Jewish-German Businessman in Early Shōwa Japan”, in: Outside the Box: A Multi-Lingual Forum (OTB Forum), Vol. VII, No. 1 (2015), pp. 14-30.

Teaching experience
Dr. Spang has been teaching at various Japanese elite universities since 2001, including Hōsei, ICU, Keiō, Sophia, Tokyo, and Waseda University. Since 2012, he holds a tenured position at Daitō Bunka University, where he is currently teaching undergraduate classes as well as acting as academic advisor in the MA/PhD course of the Graduate School of English.
From 2009 to 2017, he has been in charge of the following Graduate School classes at Tsukuba University: Historical Studies of International Relations; The Origins of Geopolitical Thinking; European Politics: The Cold War in Retrospect. At Sophia University’s Faculty of Liberal Arts, he taught the following classes (2011-13): The European Powers and East Asia; Seminar in Comparative History: German-Japanese Relations; History of Modern Europe: Ideology and Foreign Policy; History of Modern Europe: From Imperialism to the End of the Cold War. In 2013, he also took care of the History of Contemporary Japan course at ICU.

Visiting Professor
From April 2018 to March 2019 Dr. Spang spent one year as visiting professor at the Japanese Department of Friedrich-Alexander Universtiy Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany.