List of faculty members

Harald Michael Kümmerle Associate Professor

Research Contents

I study the production, circulation, and institutionalization of knowledge from historical and contemporary perspectives. Building on my research on the institutionalization of mathematics in modern Japan, my work examines how digital technologies and media shape knowledge, industry, and society. In particular, I analyze the interplay between data, industrial structures, and socio-economic conditions through international comparison.

Attractive Factors of My Research

What draws me to my research is tracing how knowledge and rationality—often taken for granted—have been shaped by historical and social conditions. Even abstract subjects like mathematics, science, and digital technology only function through institutions, media, and practices.
Moving between historical analysis and empirical investigation of contemporary digital technologies and policies, my research reframes the information society from a different angle—a perspective that can inform how we think about the future.

Achievements

Books:

• Kümmerle, H. 2022. Die Institutionalisierung der Mathematik als Wissenschaft im Japan der Meiji- und Taishō-Zeit (1868-1926) [The Institutionalization of Mathematics as a Science in Meiji- and Taisho-era Japan (1868-1926)]. Acta Historica Leopoldina. Halle (Saale): Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina.
• Kümmerle, H. & Waldenberger, F. (eds.). 2020. The Digital Transformation: Implications for the Social Sciences and the Humanities. DIJ Miscellanea 21. Tokyo: Deutsches Institut für Japanstudien.

Papers:

• Kümmerle, H. & Thumfart, J. 2025. “From Data Universalism to Data Particularism.” Global Studies Quarterly 5(3): ksaf089.
• Kümmerle, H. 2024. “Tannaka Tadao’s 1938 paper on the duality of noncommutative topological groups.” In: Duality in 19th and 20th Century Mathematical Thinking. Birkhäuser, 355–434.
• Kümmerle, H. & Waldenberger, F. 2024. “Japan’s ‘consensual’ variety of digital capitalism.” Asia Pacific Business Review 30(3): 596–612.
• Kümmerle, H. 2023. “More Than a Certification Scheme: Information Banks in Japan.” In: Adopting and Adapting Innovation in Japan’s Digital Transformation. Singapore: Springer, 193–211.
• Kümmerle, H. 2022. “Japanese data strategies, global surveillance capitalism, and the ‘LINE problem’.” Matter: Journal of New Materialist Research 3(1): 134–159.
• Kümmerle, H. 2021. 「博士論文『明治・大正時代の日本における数学の科学としての制度化』」(Doctoral thesis on the ”Institutionalization of mathematics as a science in Meiji- and Taishō-era Japan”: Results and proposition of new problems)『数理解析研究所講究録別冊』(RIMS Kôkyûroku Bessatsu) B85: 143–153.
• Kümmerle, H. 2018. “Hayashi Tsuruichi and the success of the Tôhoku Mathematical Journal.” In: Mathematics of Takebe Katahiro and History of Mathematics in East Asia. Tokyo: Mathematical Society of Japan, 347–358.