Christian Tagsold

Research Areas

The current research focus of Christian Tagsold is on the Japanese diaspora in Europe, the protection of modern monuments in Japan, and the idea of the special closeness to nature of the Japanese in culturalist discourses. He also researches and publishes on Japanese gardens and the Olympic Games (Tokyo 1964 and 2020).

Academic Career

PD Dr. Christian Tagsold studied Japanology, Modern and Contemporary History and Sociology at the FAU Erlangen Nuremberg and graduated in 1997 with a Master's degree. He directly completed his doctorate on "The Staging of Cultural Identity in Japan. The example of the Olympic Games Tôkyô 1964".
Between 2004 and 2005 he worked as a research assistant at the Ethnological Institute of the Martin Luther University Halle/Wittenberg. From there he moved to Heinrich Heine University, where he was a research assistant at the Institute for Modern Japan from 2006 to 2013. During this time, he was also a substitute for the Chair of Japanese Language and Culture at the Institute for East Asian Studies IN-EAST at the University of Duisburg-Essen for one semester. From 2013 to 2018 he was temporary W2 professor at the Institute for Modern Japan at HHU where he has been working ever since. He obtained Heisenberg funding in 2019.

• Abbott Lowell Cummings Prize of the Vernacular Architecture Forum, 2019
• Award of the JaDe Prize of the Foundation for the Promotion of Japanese-German Scientific and Cultural Relations (JaDe Foundation), 2012
• Special prize of the 2nd Academic Competition of the National Olympic Committee for Germany, 2001
• 4th prize at the German Study Prize of the Körber Foundation, 1998