Research Area: Modern Japanese History

Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies

Department of Japanese Studies

Wilhelmstraße 90 

72074 Tübingen

Room 206 

E-Mail: tsui-shuen.lauspam prevention@uni-tuebingen.de

Office Hours: Arranged upon e-mail request. 

Profile:

Chris T.S. Lau is a historian of modern Japan and currently serves as a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Japanese Studies at the University of Tübingen. She obtained her Ph.D. in Japanese Studies from The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) in 2024. Her research focuses on cultural history, social history, and colonial empire, with a particular emphasis on modern Japan’s interaction with global history. Her research delves into how Japan engaged with transnational flows of ideas and practices, especially in relation to nation-locality dynamics, the imagination of nationhood, and the intersections of empire and colonialism.

Research Projects:

1. Japanese Alpine Empire

Chris is part of the DFG-funded Emmy Noether Junior Research Group, “The Japanese Alpine Empire: A Transnational Environmental History of Japan’s ‘Alpine’ Landscapes,” led by Jun.-Prof. Dr. Fynn Holm. Her current project investigates how mountains shifted within the Japanese empire from being sites of indigenous significance to arenas for colonial adventure, scientific inquiry, and national pride. It considers mountains not just as physical entities, but as cultural constructs with fluid boundaries and pliable spaces for interpreting their meanings. 

Focusing on Daisetsuzan in Hokkaidō and Yushan in Taiwan, her study explores how Japanese mountaineers and settlers engaged with these landscapes and gradually reshaped them into spaces for adventure, leisure, science, and romanticized sublimity amid the rise of modern mountaineering in Japan. It also surveys the interactions between settlers and indigenous communities. Positioned within a transnational framework, this project investigates how Japan adopted and adapted modern mountaineering, initially rooted in Europe and often associated with colonization, to reimagine its landscapes and articulate its vision of empire. 

2. Imagination of Homeland and Nationhood

Chris is developing a manuscript based on her dissertation, “Imagining Homeland: Landscape, Locality, and Nationhood in Modern Japan, 1881-1945.” This project examines the conceptual evolution of localities into homeland (kyōdo 郷土) in modern Japan within the broader context of global nation-building movements. The central question is why Japan promoted both love for homeland (aikyōshin 愛郷心) and love for nation (aikokushin 愛国心) since the Meiji period. 

Her research reveals how participated in a global discourse on localities as foundational to the knowing and loving the nation and cultivating patriotic spirit. In the process, the notion of “homeland” expanded from specific physical spaces, such as villages or towns, to imagined sentimental realms encompassing one’s birthplace, hometown, the nation as a whole, and even abstract spaces where national essence was believed to reside. It considers mountains as not just physical entities, but cultural constructs with fluid boundaries and pliable space of interpreting their meanings.

Her Ph.D. research was supported by the Japanese Studies Fellowship from the Japan Foundation and the Hong Kong PhD Fellowship from the Research Grants Council (RGC) of Hong Kong. 

3. Modern Development of Nikkō

In a side project, Chris examines how local activists played a pivotal role in transforming Nikkō from a symbol of the Tokugawa regime into a modern leisure destination blending Japanese and Western influences. Following the Meiji Restoration, Nikkō faced the risk of decline, but local advocates responded by reassessing the region’s challenges. They selectively abandoned traditions that hindered development while embracing Western leisure customs to attract foreign diplomats and, later, Japanese travelers.

The research reveals the local efforts in revitalizing and converting Nikkō into a vibrant hub for summer retreats, trout fishing, mountaineering, and winter sports. This study highlights the agency of local figures in navigating the opportunities and challenges of Japan’s modernization, ensuring Nikkō’s reinvention as a dynamic space for leisure and cultural exchange.

Research Interests:

Modern Japanese History

Cultural History

Transnational History

History of Empire

Social History