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.