Klaus Antoni (* 19 January 1953 in Tubingen, Germany is a Japanologist and Cultural anthropologist.
Klaus Antoni is a Japanologist with special interests in the fields of cultural studies and history of religious ideas in pre modern and modern Japan. In 1981 he completed his doctorate at the university of Freiburg (Germany) with a dissertation on problems concerning comparative Japanese mythology. In the same year he moved to the University of Munich, where in 1985 the habilitation (postdoctoral thesis and teaching qualification) for the field of Japanese studies took place. As habilitation thesis he presented a work on Miwa belief in ancient Japan. After professorships at the universities of Hamburg (1987) and Trier (1993) he took over the chair for Japanese Cultural Studies at the Institute for Japanese Studies of Eberhard Karls University Tubingen in 1998. From 2000 to 2004 Antoni served as Dean of the Faculty for Cultural Sciences, since 2010 as Dean for Research of the Faculty for Humanities. In 2005 Antoni stayed as Invited Visiting Scholar at the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard University.
Antoni stays continuously in Japan, for the first time already in 1969/70 as an exchange High School student, later on for studies and research purposes, e.g. in 1992/93 as a visiting professor at the City University of Osaka. In 1991 he received the first international research award of the Tamaki-Foundation at the University of Vienna.
Antoni's main points of research lie in the area of spiritual and religious history of Japan. He particularly inquires into questions of political mythology and the relationship between religion (Shinto) and ideology in pre modern and modern Japan. Furthermore, he is interested in theories concerning Japanese culture (e.g. cultural stereotypes on Japan) as well as in the historical and present relations between Japan and Asia.
Der Weise Hase von Inaba: Vom Mythos zum Marchen. Analyse eines japanischen „Mythos der ewigen Wiederkehr” vor dem Hintergrund altchinesischen und zirkumpazifischen Denkens, (Munchener Ostasiatische Studien, Band 28), Munchen: Steiner 1982, ISBN 3-515-03778-0.
Miwa - Der Heilige Trank. Zur Geschichte und religiosen Bedeutung des alkoholischen Getrankes (sake) in Japan, (Munchener Ostasiatische Studien, Band 45), Stuttgart: Steiner 1988, ISBN 3-515-04837-5.
Shinto und die Konzeption des japanischen Nationalwesens (kokutai). Der religiose Traditionalismus in Neuzeit und Moderne Japans, (Handbuch der Orientalistik, Band V/ 8), Leiden: Brill 1998, ISBN 90-04-10316-3.
Kojiki – Aufzeichnung alter Begebenheiten. Aus dem Altjapanischen und Chinesischen ubersetzt und herausgegeben von Klaus Antoni, Berlin: Verlag der Weltreligionen im Insel-Suhrkamp-Verlag 2012, ISBN 978-3-458-70036-4.
Religion and National Identity in the Japanese Context. Klaus Antoni, Hiroshi Kubota, Johann Nawrocki, Michael Wachutka (eds.). (BUNKA, Tuebingen intercultural and linguistic studies on Japan, vol. 5), Munster, Hamburg, London: LIT 2002, (distributed in North America by Transaction Publishers) ISBN 3-8258-6043-4.
„Momotaro (The Peach Boy) and the Spirit of Japan: Concerning the Function of a Fairy Tale in Japanese Nationalism of the Early Showa Age”. In: Asian Folklore Studies, vol. 50, 1991: 155-188.
„Yasukuni-Jinja and Folk Religion”. In: Religion and Society in Modern Japan. Selected Readings .Ed. by Mark R. Mullins et al. (Nanzan Studies in Asian Religions , vol. 5). Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1993: 121-134.
„The ‚Separation of Gods and Buddhas’ at Omiwa Jinja in Meiji Japan”. In: Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, Spring 1995, 22/1-2: 139-159.
„Karagokoro: Opposing the ‚Chinese spirit’: On the nativistic roots of Japanese fascism“. In: Japan in the Fascist Era. Ed. by E. Bruce Reynolds. New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2004: 49–72.
„Izumo as the 'Other Japan': Construction vs. Reality.“ In: Japanese Religions, vol. 30, Nos. 1 & 2, July 2005: 1-20.
„The Divine Country: On State and Religion in Modern Japan“. In: Hans Dieter Olschleger (ed.): Theories and Methods in Japanese Studies: Current State and Future Developments. Papers in Honor of Josef Kreiner. Bonn: V&R unipress – Bonn University Press 2008: 101–121.
„Does Shinto History Begin at Kuroda? On the Historical Continuities of Political Shinto“. In: Roy Starrs ed.: Red Sun, White Lotus. Politics and Religion in Japan. London: Palgrave 2011: 84-103
„Creating a Sacred Narrative - Kojiki Studies and Shinto Nationalism“. In: Japanese Religions, publ. NCC Center for the Study of Japanese Religions. Vol. 36, No. 1 & 2, Spring & Fall 2011: 3-30.
„On Politics and the Comparative Study of Japanese Mythology“. In: Sources of Mythology. Ancient and Contemporary Myths. Klaus Antoni, David Weis (eds.) (Proceedings of the Seventh Annual International Conference on Comparative Mythology, (15 – 17 May 2013, Tubingen). Wien, Zurich: LIT 2014: 265-277.
„On the Religious Meaning of a Japanese Myth: The White Hare of Inaba“. In: Comparative Mythology, vol. 1, issue 1, May 2015: 61-72. (http://compmyth.org/journal/index.php/cm/issue/view/1/showToc)
Homepage Klaus Antoni with article download as pdf [1]
