Summer research projects funded by Asia Center

This summer, the Asia Center funded nearly 100 undergraduate and graduate student travel grants to Asia. Together with the John K. Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, the Korea Institute, and the Student Employment Office, the center awarded more than $300,000 toward research and travel grants.

This 2000-01 Asia Center Summer Language Grant recipients and their research are as follows:

Milciades Artiga ’04, Korean language study in Seoul, Korea; Julia Chuang ’03, social studies, Chinese language study in Beijing;

Grace Fu ’02, East Asian studies and economics, Chinese language study in Taipei, Taiwan; Timothy Goddard ’03, East Asian studies, Chinese language study in Beijing; Loren Heinold ’03, East Asian studies, Chinese language study in Beijing; and Matthew Pereira, history and economics ’03, Chinese language study in Beijing.

The 2000-01 Asia Center Summer Research Grant recipient is Fatima Raja ’03, folklore and mythology, folktales and history.

The Leila F. Sobin Summer Travel Grant recipients and their research are as follows:

Elaine Kwok ’02, history and literature, comparing Chinese and British views of the destruction of Yuanming Yuan; and Xiao Wu ’02, East Asian studies and history and literature, Qingdao: racist application of law and design of city.

The recipient of the Stephen A. Orlins Fund is Priyanka Malhotra ’03, economics, natural disaster management in India.

The William H. Overholt Summer Travel Grant recipients and their project titles are as follows:

Kiera Butler ’02, linguistics, social dynamics within pidgin speaking communities; Rohit Goel ’02, social studies, the increasing decline in the quality of governance in India; Mekhala Krishnamurthy ’02, social studies, the role of nari adalats (women’s courts) in Aujarat, India; Paven Malhotra ’02, social studies, political actors’ management of diverse constituencies in two Indian states via their development strategies; and Joyce Varughese ’02, Sanskrit and Indian studies, the interaction between folk and cosmopolitan medicine in Kerala.

The William Morgan Palmer Travel Grant recipients and their research are as follows:

Joshua Levin ’02, social studies, China’s most recent anti-drug campaign – specifically, policies directed at “club drugs”; and

Ting Wang ’02, government, the impact of grassroots elections in urban China and the reaction of the policymakers and the political elite.

This year’s National Cash Register Foundation East Asia Scholarship recipients and their research projects are as follows:

Seunghyun Han, history, resurgence of localism in late 18th and early 19th century Jiangnan and reinvention of local identity; Emer O’Dwyer, history and East Asian languages, novelist and social critic Sata Ineko (1904-1998); Karen Thornber, East Asian languages and civilizations, early 20th century Chinese and Korean textual responses to Japanese literature; Jing Tsu, East Asian languages and civilizations, Shanghai and Beijing: nationalism, race, and literature; and Gavin Whitelaw, regional studies – East Asia, organic products and their impact on social networks in Japanese agrarian communities.

This year’s recipients of the Religion in Contemporary Asia Travel Grant are as follows:

Elijah Ary, committee on the study of religion, the unpublished debate manuals of Sera Jhe Monastery; Natasha Heller, East Asian languages and civilizations, international seminar on Dunhuang art and society; and Zongze Hu, anthropology, religion and politics in “Ten Mile Inn.”

This year’s recipient of the Fairbank Center’s John King and Wilma Cannon Fairbank Undergraduate Summer Travel Grant is Kristes Hiestand ’02, East Asian studies, an examination of Chen Yi’s role in the revival of the Hundred Flowers Campaign (1961-1963.

The Republic of China Research Fellowship has been awarded to the following:

Jinbao Qian, history and East Asian languages, peace maneuvers of the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945); Ying Shang, government, curbing corruption in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore; Grace Shen, history of science, history of geology in China during the Republican Period (1911-1949); and Dominic Steavu, regional studies – East Asia, trends in Buddhist Chinese religious practice.

The Korea Institute Summer Travel Grant recipients are as follows:

Byoung Jo Kang, regional studies – East Asia, literature and economy of East Asia; Jennifer Kim ’03, South Korean nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and local farms; Aaron Miller ’02, 1980 Kwangju Uprising and Korean unification; and Karen Thornber, East Asian languages and civilizations, modern Japanese literature and the evolution of the modern novel in China and Korea.

The Reischauer Institute’s Henry Rosovsky Undergraduate Summer Travel Grant recipient is Jennine B. Mazzarelli ’02, comparative religion, an ethnographic study that examined divergent trends in self-identity among contemporary Japanese Buddhist nuns.

This year’s Reischauer Institute Undergraduate Summer Travel Grant recipients and their research are listed below:

Mari Calder ’02, government, immigrants’ demands on the Japanese government from a traditionally marginalized position.

Sameer Doshi ’02, environmental science and public policy, publicly stated reasons for pro-whaling and anti-whaling stances in the international fora.

Maya Horii ’02, social studies, U.S.-Japan Security Treaty and its implications in relationship with China.

Naila McKenzie ’02, East Asian studies, the construction of the African-American soldier in Japanese discourse.

The recipients and their research of the institute’s Summer Research Grants for Graduate Students are as follows:

Marjan Boogert, East Asian languages and civilizations, Daimyo life in Edo; Christian Brunelli, government, the importance of political influence and social ties in the development of the Japanese police; Kenji Ito, history of science, the introduction of quantum mechanics in Japan, 1920-1945; Rieko Kage, government, why volunteer? The micro-level foundations of civil society; Susan Eiko Maruko, history, organized crime in the politics of modern Japan, 1868-1952; Emer O’Dwyer, history and East Asian languages, novelist and left-wing social critic Sata Ineko; Jinbao Qian, history and East Asian languages, peace negotiations during the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945); Hiraku Shimoda, East Asian languages and civilizations, growth of Japanese nationalism in 19th century Aizu; Jing Yuen Tsu, East Asian languages and civilizations, race, eugenics, and literary modernity in China, 1895-1937; Jun Uchida, history, Japanese settlers in colonial Korea, 1910-1937; and Kasumi Yamashita, anthropology, Japanese immigration to Latin America.

Supplementary dissertation grant recipients and their research are as follows:

Cemil Aydin, history and Middle Eastern studies, the discourse of civilization and the politics of Japanese Pan-Asianism (1905-1945); Jamie Berger, history and East Asian languages, Nagasaki’s foreign merchants in the early Tokugawa period; Christian Brunelli, government, policing in democracies: autonomy, embedded-ness and police development in Japan; Kenji Ito, history of science, introduction of quantum mechanics into Japan, 1920-1945; Rieko Kage, government, why volunteer? The micro-level foundations of civil society; Hiromi Maeda, committee on the study of religion, imperial authority and local shrines: Yoshida Shinto and religious practices in agrarian villages during the mid-Tokugawa period; Izumi Nakayama, history and East Asian languages, menstruation leave (seiri kyuka) in 20th century Japan; Jun Uchida, history, Japanese settlers in colonial Korea, 1910-1937; and Laura E. Wong, history and East Asian languages, East and West in the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organizations (UNESCO).

Doctoral students who received the Summer Language Study Grants are listed below:

Evan Dawley, history, Japanese language study (Japan); Rustin Gates, history and East Asian languages, French language study (Harvard Summer School); Steven Hanna, East Asian languages and civilizations, reading of Genji manuscript (Japan); Christine Kim, history and East Asian languages, reading of Meiji-period primary documents (N.Y.); Hoi-Eun Kim, history, Japanese language study (Harvard Summer School); Izumi Nakayama, history and East Asian languages, German language study (Harvard Summer School); Emer O’Dwyer, history and East Asian languages, German language study (Goethe Institute, Berlin); and Karen Thornber, East Asian languages and civilizations, Korean language study (Sogang University).

Dissertation Production Grants were awarded to Christina Davis, government, beyond food fights: how international institutions promote agricultural trade liberalization, and Mark Langager, Graduate School of Education, sojourning with children: the Japanese expatriate educational experience.

The recipients of the Conference Attendance Grant include:

Daniel Aldrich, government, Midwest Political Science Association Conference; Barbara Ambros, East Asian languages and civilizations, Association for Asian Studies (AAS) meeting; Cemil Aydin, history and Middle Eastern Studies, AAS meeting; Jamie Berger, history and East Asian languages, American Historical Association meeting; Matthew Fraleigh, East Asian languages and civilizations, AAS meeting; Kenji Ito, history of science, 11th International Congress of History of Science Meeting; and Mark Langager, Graduate School of Education, Comparative and International Education Society meeting.

This year’s Japan-America Student Conference (JASC) Award recipients are Tina Chen ’01, applied mathematics, and Rasheed Townes ’02, government.

The Student Employment Office awarded Tri Mac Phuong ’02, social studies, Vietnamese youth culture in relationship to globalization, transitional political systems, and notions of modernity, the William Braden Travel Grant.

The Student Employment Office-sponsored Folger Research Fellowships were given to the following students:

Nan Ding ’02, East Asian studies, Chinese youth’s perceptions of self vs. reality through analysis of the content, production, and reception of the TV soap opera “The Vigor of Youth”; Sara Johnstone ’02, psychology and East Asian studies, attitudes toward the elderly and their social impact in China; Jacquelyn Kung ’02, economics, working women: an economic analysis of the labor force participation rate of women in China, post-1949; Christopher Leighton ’02, East Asian studies, capitalism with Chinese characteristics? A study of foreign, domestic, and government-owned firms in Republican China, 1911-1937; Tara McAllister ’02, linguistics, coordinate structures and the syntax of Japanese; Kate McFarlin ’03, East Asian studies, the effect of China’s entrance into the World Trade Organization and the subsequent admission of Western industries, especially Hollywood, on the Chinese film industry; Aaron Miller ’02, history, let’s fulfill reunification: Kwangju and Inter-Korean relations; Christopher Parlato, visual and environmental studies and East Asian studies ’02, religious architecture and sacred space in Tibet and Nepal through drawing, painting, and photography; Uyen-Khanh Quang-Dang ’02, history and science, history of the emergence of psychiatry in Vietnam; and Kaitlin Solimine ’02, East Asian studies, sociological survey of women’s issues in urban China.