Megumi Hasegawa, M. A.

Institute for Comparative Urban History

Curriculum vitae:

Megumi Hasegawa works currently as research fellow in the cluster of excellence, at the WWU Münster. She graduated as BA in European History and Pedagogy at the Sacred Heart University, in Tokyo, in 1998, and completed her MA in 2000 at the Sophia University, in Tokyo, on the collegial Canons of the St. Mariengraden in Cologne. From 2000 to 2004 she worked as Programme Assistant at Japan Center for International Exchange in Tokyo. She holds her second MA degree in Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies from the University of Tokyo with the thesis on the medieval processions in Strasbourg, in 2005. From March 2007 to June 2008 she conducted her research as visiting scholar supervised by Professor Peter Johanek at the Institute of Comparative Urban History, in Münster. From January until March 2008 she held the scholarship from the Center of German and European Studies at University of Tokyo, and the Sakura Scholarship in February 2008 from the Sacred Heart University, in Tokyo.

PhD project:

Religious Processions and Conflicting Municipal Interests. Comparative Analysis of Late Medieval Cities in the Holy Roman Empire and in Japan.

In pre-modern times, processions − being public rituals − were situated where the religious and the political domain intersected. These processions had originally been exclusive church ceremonials and evolved into central urban rituals over the Middle Ages. Accordingly, the Ph.D. project does not emphasise on the religious matters; rather, an event-historical and social-historical interpretation is to be developed and the procession, its equipment and participants are to be considered within the context of the respective town’s history. From this perspective, case studies from the Holy Roman Empire and from Japan will be analysed comparatively, because active interventions in the ritual can be observed for both on the basis of the political and economic support on the part of the citizenry.
Japan is one of the few Asian countries whose history features “Middle Ages” that correspond to a large extent to the European development. In particular, the characteristics of the social form of the “town” and of the townspeople’s awareness of their local identity reveal parallels which provoke such a comparison as regards content and which make it possible methodically.
The comparative analysis is to be carried out with particular consideration on the following five aspects. The meaning transported with this ritual and the media employed in the process are to be considered first. Furthermore, the group of people involved − distinguishing between actors and sponsors – is to be analysed using social-historical methods. The sacralisation of space by means of processions, pointed out by recent European research, can also be detected in Japan. The question of the topographical dimensions of the processions suggests itself here. Based on this, the following questions are to be answered: To what extent do (external) political motivation conditions play a role in the celebration and the equipment of processions? On which conditions and for which purposes could these religious rituals be politically exploited? How significant were they among the political actions that were available to the towns for the implementation of their politics?
It is the aim of the project to illuminate the conditions and circumstances under which these religious rituals became elements of political stagings. In the process, in order to understand the actions performed, the actors and their motivations as well as the topographical positioning of the processions and their political context will be brought to the foreground.

Function within the Cluster/Membership in Projects and Groups:

• Member of Project B4: Blessings for the Mighty: The Legitimacy and Legitimizing of Political Rulership in Late Medieval and Modern City Processions
• Member of the study group Mixing Religions - Religions Multiple Identities

Research interests:

• Church History in the Middle Ages
• Urban History
• Japanese Urban History in the Middle Ages

Publications:

• 15, 16 Seiki Ni Okeru Die Shudosaishikisha Kaiin no Zaisanjouto ni Tsuite - Köln no Shudosaishikishakai St. Mariengraden wo reini" (The Donation for the collegial canons of St. Mariengraden in Cologne, in the 15^th century), in Rekishi to Reisei (History and Spirituality), edited by Shinichiro Sugizaki, Tokyo 2000, 223-243.
• Corpus Christi Procession of Strasbourg in the Middle Ages, in Choiki Bunkakagaku Kiyo (Interdisciplinary cultural studies), edited by Unviersity of Tokyo, Tokyo 2006, 73-84.
• 15 seiki Strasbourg no kigan gyoretsu -Bourgogne sensou wo chushin ni- (Processions in Strasbourg during the 15^th century, in Hikaku Toshishi Kenkyu (The Comparative Urban History Review) 26 (2007), Heft 1, 21-34.

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