Erich Pauer, born in Vienna in 1943, specializes in Japanese economic history and the history of technology. He has taught at the Universities of Bonn and Marburg (Germany) and has published widely on these subjects. He is currently affiliated with the CEEJA (Centre Européen d’Études Japonaises d’Alsace) in Colmar, France.Mathias Regine :

Regine MATHIAS is Professor Emerita of Japanese History, at the Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany. She has studied Japanese History and History at the Ruhr-University Bochum and Kyu- shuUniversity and obtained her PhD from the University of Vienna with a thesis on the development of wage labor in Japanese coal mines. After her retirement from the Ruhr-University, she is currently working at the Centre Européen d’Études Japonaises d’Alsace (CEEJA). Her main field of research is Japanese social and economic history, with a focus on Japanese mining and labor history. She has published on labor in Japanese coal-mines, Japanese mining scrolls and their value as historical sources as well as on German-Japanese relations and gendered working patterns in prewar Japan.