Fynn Holm

Fynn Holm is a junior professor for Japanese studies at the University of Tübingen. His research focuses on the environmental and social history of Japan from the 17th to the 20th century. He studied history, law, and Japanese studies at the universities of Basel, Meiji (Tokyo), and Zurich. In 2019, he defended his dissertation on historical Japanese anti-whaling movements at the University of Zurich. His award-winning first book, “The Gods of the Sea: Whales and Coastal Communities in Northeast Japan, c. 1600-2019,” was published by Cambridge University Press in 2023. Holm worked as a research assistant at the Chair of Social Science Japanese Studies at the University of Zurich from 2015 to 2020. From 2017 to 2018, he was a visiting scholar at Tōhoku University in Sendai. In 2021-2022 he was an associate scientist at Harvard University funded by an Early Postdoc Mobility Fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation. Before being appointed to the University of Tübingen, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Economic, Social and Environmental History at the University of Bern between September 2022 and March 2023. Since September 2024, Holm has been head (PI) of the Emmy Noether Junior Research Group "The Japanese Alpine Colonial Empire: A Transnational Environmental History of Japan's 'Alpine' Landscapes".

Research Interests:

Environmental and Social History
Digital History
Early modern and modern history of Japan
Human-Animal History
Alpine Landscapes
Human-Whale Relationships