Olympic and Paralympic Games last on average 34 days – the preparations of the host city, however, take years. The Games have a significant impact on cityscape, politics, society, economy and public discourse of its host location.

While the Tōkyō Olympic and Paralympic Games 2020/1 had originally been labelled "Recovery Games" to symbolize reconstruction and development since the 11 March 2011 triple disaster of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown in Eastern Japan, they have now been called to symbolize the "Recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic", or more recently to at least provide "hope to the world".

To shed light on "Tōkyō 2021", the Japanese-German Center Berlin (JDZB) in cooperation with the German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ) in Tōkyō hosts a virtual panel discussion, preceded by short input statements, to discuss social, political, economic and historical aspects of the Games.
Discussants are Sonja GANSEFORTH, Barbara HOLTHUS, Axel KLEIN, Wolfram MANZENREITER, and Torsten WEBER, all authors in the recent publication Japan Through the Lens of the Tokyo Olympics (Routledge 2020, open access) edited by Barbara HOLTHUS, Isaac GAGNÉ, Wolfram MANZENREITER and Franz WALDENBERGER. The event will be moderated by Alastair GALE, Japan Editor at The Wall Street Journal.

The virtual event will be held in English. For more details, please refer to the program on the JDZB Website.

For your participation via Zoom please use this online registration website and register until Monday, 14 June 2021!