Chair for Japanese Language and Literature

The chair for Language and Literature deals with the Japanese language and literature from a linguistic and philological perspective. In teaching, it offers a Bachelor's and a Master's degree course in Japanese Studies with a focus on linguistics as well as a Master of Education degree course in Japanese, which prepares students for a teaching career. The Bachelor's and Master's degree courses focus on systematic and historical approaches to the Japanese language. The chair also provides Japanese language teaching for the degree courses in Japanese Studies and East Asian Economy and Politics, among others. In research, the focus is on the history of language and writing as well as the history of the study of Japanese in Europe and East Asia.

Prof. Dr. Bruno Lewin held the chair from the founding of Ruhr University Bochum until 1989. When Prof. Dr. Jens Rickmeyer took office in October 1991, the chair was given an even stronger linguistic focus. After Prof. Dr. Jens Rickmeyer retired in August 2008, Prof. Dr. Alexander Vovin, at the time Professor of East Asian Languages and Literatures at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, held the chair for two semesters, followed by Prof. Dr. Tomasz Majtczak from the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. Prof. Dr. Sven Osterkamp has held the chair since October 2011.