Dr. Christian Chappelow is a Post-Doc Researcher and Habilitation Candidate at the Japanese Studies Department of Goethe University Frankfurt. His research in general focusses on the complex interplay of contemporary literature, contemporary history, memory and politics. In 2025, he organized the largest German Speaking Japanology Conference in Frankfurt, the 19. Deutschsprachiger Japanologentag, with the memory-related motto of „Archiving of Knowledge and Science“ (Archivierung von Wissen bzw. Wissenschaft).
In his PhD research (EB Verlag 2022), he highlighted Japanese poetry as playing a crucial (democratic) role in remembering nuclear catastrophes in a highly contested and politicized public sphere. His post-doc and habilitation research showcase a recent generational shift in literary memory culture in Japan, with special focus given to memories of war, occupation, post-war framings and Anglo-American hegemony.
Besides his main research focus, Christian aims to bring intercultural and transcultural principles of academic thought in line with a younger generation of students in Frankfurt and beyond: In 2022, he initiated a study group on Japanese Video Games at Goethe University and is cooperating in interdisciplinary projects on visual memory between Japanese popular culture and German youth culture (Manga) –
Christian was happy to become a Frankfurt Fellow at FMSP in early 2026.
Email: chappelow@em.uni-frankfurt.de
Selected publications (monographs)
(2027/2028): “America” in Post-Occupation Japanese Literature (working title; in preparation).
(2027): Retroperspektiven und Archive. Referenzpunkte japanologischer Literaturforschung [Retrospectives and archives. Reference points in Japanese literary research]. Berlin: EB-Verlag (in preparation; co-edited with Lisette Gebhardt).
(2025): Texts of the Heisei Era: Readings of Contemporary Japanese Literature (= Perspectives on Regional and National Literatures, 1). Berlin: DeGruyter (co-edited with Lisette Gebhardt). Link:https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783112212929/html?lang=de
(2025): Formationsprozesse japanischer Literatur. Selbstreflexionen, Metafiktion und die Relevenz des Mediums[Formational processes in Japanese literature: Self-reflections, metafiction, and the relevance of the medium]. Berlin: EB-Verlag (co-edited with Lisette Gebhardt).Link: https://www.ebv-berlin.de/Band-10-Formationsprozesse-japanischer-Literatur
(2022): Wakamatsu Jôtarô – Gedichte im Zeichen der Atomkatastrophe [Wakamatsu Jôtarô – Poems in the Shadow of the Nuclear Disaster]. Berlin: EB-Verlag. Link: https://www.ebv-berlin.de/Band-14-Wakamatsu-Jotaro
Selected publications (articles)
(2027): “Visual memories of National Socialism in Japanese Manga” (working title, in preparation; Handbook of children’s and young adult literature on National Socialism; Ed. Petra Josting et al.)
(2026): “War Memory Writings Against Re-Militarization in Japan: Oda Makotos late work”. In: Retroperspektiven und Archive. Referenzpunkte japanologischer Literaturforschung [Retrospectives and archives. Reference points in Japanese literary research]. Berlin: EB-Verlag (working title, in preparation).
(2025): “War memory and the Emperor: Late Work poetry by Wakamatsu Jôtarô (1935–2021)”: In: Texts of the Heisei Era: Readings of Contemporary Japanese Literature, pp. 1–24.
(2024): „Ôe, Japan und die Atombombe: Fünfzig Jahre Hiroshima nôto“ [Ôe, Japan and the Atomic Bomb: Fifty Years of Hiroshima nôto]. In: Lisette Gebhardt (ed.): Ôe lesen. Berlin: EB-Verlag, pp. 165–184.