Andreas Niehaus is full professor at the Department of Languages and Cultures at Ghent University (Belgium), collaborative professor at Kanazawa University, adjunct professor at the University of Eastern Finland. Currently he is acting as president of the European Association for Japanese Studies (EAJS). He did his PhD on the founder of Kodokan judo, Kano Jigoro, at Cologne University and stayed as visiting researcher at Keio University in Tokyo. His research focuses on Japanese body cultures, sports and Olympic Games in Japan. Most recent publications include: 1. Niehaus, A. 2021. Kano Jigoro: The ‘Father of the Olympic Movement in Japan.’ Journal of Olympic History, 29:2, 6–17; 2. Niehaus, A. and Yabu K. (eds.) 2021. Challenging Olympic Narratives: Japan, the Olympic Games and Tokyo 2020/21. Würzburg: Ergon; 3. Niehaus, A. (2020), de la Fuente, E. G. From Olympic sport to UNESCO intangible cultural heritage : Okinawa karate between local, national, and international identities in contemporary Japan. In G. H. Keum & Ch. H. Park (Eds.), Traditional martial arts as intangible heritage (pp. 40–51). ICHCAP / ICM.
Keynote Speakers
Dr. phil. Martin Joh. Meyer is a martial arts scientist and school teacher at the University of Vechta. He is a founding member of the dvs-Commission Martial Arts and Combat Sports, served as its spokesperson from 2014-2016 and organised two of its annual conferences (2015, 2019). In 2017, he accepted a six-month research fellowship from the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science at the University of Kanazawa. He is the initiator of the first German journal for martial arts science 'JOMAR' and publishes the series of edited volumes "Kampfkunst, Kampfsport & Gesellschaft" with Prof. Dr. Heiko Bittmann (University of Kanazawa). His research focuses on basic research into martial arts (especially definition, metaphor), its didacticisation in schools, sports sociology and sports policy approaches, as well as the representation and implementation of martial arts in the media and the general public.
Natalia Grybos pursues her main interests in peace education and martial arts both scientifically and practically. She is part of the "Sport for Development" expert pool of the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) and works as a junior advisor in the global programme "Sport for Development" at the Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). Together with Prof. Dr. Peter Kuhn, she recently wrote an article on "Karatedō - the path of the empty hand. A path to peace?" for volume 2 of Kampfkunst, Kampfsport und Gesellschaft (ed. Martin Joh. Meyer & Heiko Bittmann). Natalia Grybos has been practising Shotokan Karate for 19 years; she is a holder of the 2nd Dan with the DJKB and a former German (2011) and Vice-German (2017) Champion in the Kata Team category.