Students awarded for Japanese studies

The Noma-Reischauer Prize in Japanese Studies traces a distinguished history to 1995, the year the award was established by Kodansha, Ltd. Publishers in honor of Professor Edwin O. Reischauer. Each year the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies grants Noma-Reischauer prizes to the best essays authored by Harvard students on Japan-related topics. The 2013-14 awards were presented to Jakobina Arch, a fifth-year GSAS Ph.D. candidate in East Asian Languages and Civilizations, for an excerpt from her dissertation titled, “Whale Graves and Whale Spirits: The Place of Whales in Early Modern Japanese Religion,” and to Sarah Ngo ‘13 for her undergraduate thesis titled, “Fans Afloat: A Study of the Types of Attributes of Japanese Fan Screens.”

The prizes were conferred during a joint ceremony on Friday, December 6,together with the annual Tazuko Ajiro Monane Prize for accomplishments in the study of the Japanese language. Underwritten by the Tazuko Ajiro Monane Memorial Fund and granted by the Japanese Language Program in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, the prize recognizes outstanding Japanese language learners who have completed at least two years of study at Harvard. This year’s recipient, Jenni Ting ’15, graciously thanked her instructors and family members present at the event, first in Japanese before translating her speech in English.