Nicole Marion Mueller

Nicole Marion Mueller is a Senior Research Fellow at the German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ) in Tokyo, where she has been affiliated since October 2023. She works within the research cluster "Digital Transformation – Discourses, Strategies and Processes," focusing on interdisciplinary approaches to Japanese cultural and technological studies.

Dr. Mueller holds a double master's degree in Japanese Language and Intercultural Japanese Studies from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg and Keio University (2016). She earned her PhD in 2023 from Martin Luther University with a dissertation on digital corpus analysis of Japanese Thomas Mann translations, funded by DAAD, Haniel Foundation, JSPS, and TIFO.

Her research examines the cultural contextualization of future narratives and the instrumentalization of science fiction literature by Japanese technology corporations, particularly through Extended Reality (XR) frameworks. She employs Science and Technology Studies (STS) concepts and innovative digital humanities methodologies combining quantitative, qualitative, and multimodal corpus analyses.

Dr. Mueller's publications demonstrate strong thematic coherence across literary sociology, translation studies, and digital humanities. Her 2024 works analyze Japanese-German literary reception patterns, retranslation dynamics, and emergent technology narratives through both traditional and computational approaches.

Research Funding:
Received support from:

• DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service)
• Haniel Foundation
• JSPS (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science)
• TIFO (Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research)

She leads DIJ projects including:

• Japan's Future Imaginaries of Extended Reality
• Text, Image, Context and MMR: Observations regarding digitally augmented Cultural Sociology
• Thomas Mann's reception in Japan between cultural heteronomy and emancipatory impulses