|
|
|
   
   
|
HARVARD GAZETTE ARCHIVES Essay Prizes Awarded In Japanese Studies
The Noma-Reischauer Essay Prizes in Japanese Studies for the best graduate and undergraduate essays on a Japan-related topic were awarded last month at the fifth annual Edwin O. Reischauer/Kodansha Ltd. Commemorative Symposium. The Reischauer Institute of Japanese studies hosted the event. Susan Eiko Maruko, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History, received the graduate prize for her essay, "Remaking History: The Pacific War in Japanese Historical Memory." Amy Stanley, a June 1999 graduate of the Department of East Asian Studies and currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, received the undergraduate prize for her essay, "Adultery and Punishment in Tokugawa Japan." Maruko and Stanley spoke briefly about their research and expressed their thanks to Kodansha Ltd. and Shinji Kondo, senior vice president and executive managing director of the International Division, Kodansha Ltd., in Tokyo, who spoke at the symposium.The symposium featured John W. Dower of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who discussed his new book, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (W.W. Norton/New Press, 1999). Despite great advances in academic research, said Dower, the image of Japan remains the subject of a remarkable "collusive orientalism" in which people on both sides of the Pacific continue to reinforce old cliches. Inaccurate perceptions of Japanese "groupism" are reinforced by exaggerated images of Western "democracy" and "individualism," Dower explained, countering with his description of the heterogeneous Japanese world of "multiple cultures" revealed in the immediate postwar period. Noting that complex understandings of Japan seem to remain trapped in academia, Dower celebrated both Edwin O. Reischauer and the Kodansha publishing company as channels through which richer understandings have been brought before a larger audience.The Noma-Reischauer Prizes were established in 1995 by Kodansha Ltd.For information on deadlines for submission and requirements for the prizes, call the Reischauer Institute at (617) 495-3220.
Copyright 1999 President and Fellows of Harvard College |