Nelly Naumann (Katakana ナウマン, ネリー; 20 December 1922 – 29 September 2000) was a German scholar ofJapanese studies with a specialisation in Japanese mythology and folklore andShinto.
Naumann was born Thusnelda Joch inLörrach, where she was educated at theHebel Gymnasium, completing herAbitur in 1941. She studied Japanese and Chinese studies, ethnology and philosophy at theUniversity of Vienna.[1][2] World War II delayed the completion of her dissertation, "Das Pferd in Sage und Brauchtum Japans" (The Horse in Japan's Mythology and Traditions) until 1946, when she became the first woman to receive a doctorate in Japanese studies from that university.
After completing her doctorate, Naumann married a Chinese fellow student and moved toShanghai until 1954. She then returned to Germany after her divorce[3] and worked for theBavarian State Library inMunich.[1][2] From 1966 to 1977 she taught at the universities inBochum,Münster andFreiburg. In 1970 she completed herHabilitation with a dissertation entitled "Das Umwandeln des Himmelspfeilers" (The Circumambulation of the Pillar of Heaven);[4] she was Professor of Japanese Studies at Freiburg from 1973 until her retirement in 1985.[3] She continued to publish; her comprehensive worksDie einheimische Religion Japans (1988–94) andDie Mythen des alten Japan (1996) were both published after she retired. AFestschrift in her honour appeared in 1993.[5]
She died in Freiburg in 2000.
Naumann's approach was that of theVienna School of Art History, in which cross-cultural comparisons are used to deepen insight into a particular culture, in contrast to the then prevailing Japanese school of interpretation which considered Japanese heritage in isolation.[6]Miyata Noboru wrote in 1989 on the importance of her broad viewpoint to Japanese studies, and a committee of Japanese folklorists has been formed to publish her works in Japanese.[7] She was also unusual in her ability to understand both Japanese and Chinese works, and in the breadth of her view of ancient Japanese religion and myth, which she saw as encompassing some 2,000 years. She drew on iconographic as well as textual evidence.[3][8][9] She did not do fieldwork, but nonetheless was one of the most important non-Japanese contributors to her field.[3]
Naumann's primary focus was the ancient, pre-Buddhist myths and religion of Japan, but she also published an anthology of classical Japanese literature in translation,Die Zauberschale (1973, with Wolfram Naumann) and in her last years was working on Japaneseshamanism with the linguistRoy A. Miller.[9][10]
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