Research Visit Steven Ivings presented his latest research on Displacement, Detention and the British Commonwealth Occupation Forces in Japan
From January 19th to February 2nd, 2026, the Heidelberg Centre for Transcultural Studies (HCTS) hosted Steven Ivings to present his latest research on ‘Displacement and Detention in History and Historical Memory: Germany and Japan in Comparative and Transcultural Perspective’. Steven Ivings currently is Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Economics at the HCTS' Japanese partner, Kyoto University. As a former member of Heidelberg University’s Cluster of Excellence ‘Asia and Europe in a Global Context’, Professor Ivings has been working as Assistant Professor in Cultural Economic History from 2014 to 2017.
Since 2025 Prof. Steven Ivings (as principal investigator (PI)) and Dr. Takuma Melber (Co-PI) are conducting the HeKKSaGOn-project titled ‘Displacement and Detention in History and Historical Memory: Germany and Japan in Comparative and Transcultural Perspective’. The project is examining the history of memory and memorial culture as well as remembrance activities both in Germany and Japan, addressing topics – among others – such as the history of POW (Prisoners of War)-internment and wartime captivity during both world wars or the history of repatriation (in Japanese Hikiage 引き上げ). The aforementioned research project aims for an edited volume, so Ivings’ stay at the HCTS ended with an intense writing workshop (organized by Ivings and Melber) with contributors to the targeted edited volume from Heidelberg University – one Postdoc, two doctoral candidates and one graduate student from the MATS.
Moreover, the guest professorship of Steven Ivings comprised fieldtrips to world war-related museums and memorial sites as well as archival work at the University of Zurich (Switzerland) and in Northern Germany. During his stay, Ivings has also been involved in teaching at the HCTS: Ivings has been a guest of two sessions of Dr. Melber’s class ‘The Asia-Pacific War in History and Historical Memory’: The first session with Professor Ivings grounded on two articles written by Ivings and has been conducted in the format of a ‘meet the author’- session. Students from the Master’s in Transcultural Studies and the History Department got the chance to discuss intensely the case of the remembrance of repatriation and postcolonial remembrance at Maizuru, a harbor city located in Kyōto prefecture. Ivings gave insights into his – from time to time challenging – research activities at and on Maizuru. In a second session, Steven Ivings talked about his most current research about the British Commonwealth Occupation Forces (BCOF) in Japan -a topic to be considered as a ‘niche’ widely overlooked in scholarship on postwar Japan. On top of that, did Steven Ivings conduct a session of Professor Fuess’ MATS-seminar about the Meiji Restauration.
In his guest lecture titled ‘Ezo Start Up: Western Businesses in Treaty Port Hakodate from Tokugawa to Meiji’, Ivings presented the development of Hakodate located in Hokkaidō, the most Northern main island of Japan, from a fishing village to a treaty port flourishing in the late 19th century. Core of this talk was the case study of the Western Pacific Company Limited (WPC) and its mercantile activity as Western enterprise in treaty port Hakodate.
The research visit was funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).
