Student Awards
The Asada Eiji BA Thesis Prize
The Center for East Asian Studies sponsors an annual prize of $250.00 awarded for the best University of Chicago BA theses dealing with a topic related to East Asia. Starting in 2009, one prize is awarded in the area of Humanities and one is awarded for Social Sciences. This prize is named in honor of Asada Eiji, the recipient of the first Ph.D. degree awarded by the University of Chicago in 1893. Professor Asada went on to enjoy an illustrious career at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.
Recent Asada Eiji Prize Winners
2023-24
Aaron Yike Huang, East Asian Languages and Civilizations; Music
"The Making of Courtly Opera: Vernacular Music Reforms in the Qianlong Court, 1736-1746"
Chenjie Song, Sociology and Political Science
“Talking Politics: China's Zero-COVID Era And The Middle-Class Political Consciousness"
2022-23
Bonnie Kexin Hao, Art History
Mirroring the Nude Vogue: Pictorial Representations of the Woman-with-Mirror Motif in the First Chinese National Fine Arts Exhibition of 1929
Estrella Hernandez, Law, Letters, and Society; Global Studies
“Downfall of the 700 Emperors”: The 1990 Wild Lily Student Movement and Taiwan’s Democratization
2021-22
Ella Bradford, Anthropology
Sharing Vulnerabilities: Being and Becoming in the Wake of Japan's HPV Vaccination Campaign Cessation
2020-21
C. Aiko Johnston, East Asian Languages & Civilizations
Memorial Rites for Credit Cards: The Framing of Kuyō by Shrines and Temples in Japan
Camrick Solorio, Anthropology
Circulation that Confuses: Tokyo Electronic Music from MOGRA to YouTube
2019-20
Mark Chen, History
Translating a Paradigm: Empiricism in Nineteenth-Century Japanese Chemistry
Yufan Chen, East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Fundamentals: Issues and Texts
Spectacular Surfaces: Lure, Transaction, and the Limits of Self-Representation
2018-19
Alexander Hall (Global Studies): Kogai: The Disconnect Between Japanese Ontology and Environmental Policy
Peilun Hao (History): The Scramble for Rice in Wartime Shanghai, 1937-1945
2017-18
Gabrielle Dulys: How to Speak Like an Otaku: Otaku Identity through the Lens of Self-Referentiality, Commodity, and Art
Elizabeth Smith: 'We invited Shinzo Abe, but he was unable to attend.' The First Conference of Museums Addressing the 'Comfort Women' Issue
2016-2017
Aliyah Bixby-Driesen: What’s New about New Baihua? Language Change and Indirect Contact in Chinese Vernacular Literature, 1790-1924
Michelle Shang: “I Almost Forgot I Was A Girl”: Maoist Gender Politics and the Memory of Gender in the Chinese Cultural Revolution, 1966-1976
2015-2016
Shauna Moore: Sore na!: Youth Politeness Strategies on Japanese Video Blogs
Dake Kang: Not So Revolutionary: Soviet Inspirations and Military Justifications for the Planning and Construction of Beijing’s First Subway Line, 1950 - 1969
2014-2015
Zhou Fang: Navy and Nation: the Fuzhou Arsenal and China's Early Modernization
Keyao Pan: Dissecting the East Asia Reparation Movement: A Case Study of the Unit 731 Germ Warfare Reparation Class Suit
2013-2014
Alexander Hoare, "The Secret History of Manga and History Textbooks”
Jeffrey Niedermaier, "I Shall Tell Both Home and Name: The Imperial Voice and the Yamato Political Imaginary in the Man'yōshū"
2011-2012
Feiyang Sun, "Dreams within Dreams: Fiction Commentary and the Later Dream of the Red Chamber"
2010-2011
Yini Shi, "Stories of the Stone: The Multiple Voices of Honglou meng"
Arieh Smith, "Democrats or Dictators: The CCP in Western Eyes"
Chinese Bridge Speech Contest
2016
Matthew Foldi, a political science major studying Chinese with EALC Language Lecturer Meng Li, placed 3rd in the Second Year Chinese group. Gyeom Kim, an Economics major and Math minor, studying Chinese with EALC Language Lecturer Shan Xiang, won 2nd place in the First Year Chinese group.
Foreign Language Acquisition Grants (FLAG)
FLAGs provide summer support from the College for continuing language study or research. More information and applications for Summer International Travel Grants can be found at https://sitg.uchicago.edu/.
More information can be found at the following:
Number of FLAGs awarded for East Asia Studies
- 2009: 16 out of 25 awards
- 2008: 29 out of 40 awards
- 2007: 20 out of 29 awards
- 2006: 31 out of 44 awards