Undergraduate Funding

The University of Chicago Center for East Asian Studies (CEAS) sponsors an annual prize of $250 awarded for the best University of Chicago B.A. thesis dealing with topics related to East Asia (China, Japan and/or Korea).  Starting in 2009, one prize has usually been awarded to a paper in the area of humanities and one in the area of social sciences.  The selection committee also considers the specific content, regional focus, and methodologies of annual submissions.  Preference will be provided to papers utilizing original source materials in an East Asian language.

Deadline:  Friday, May 16, 2025 at 3:00 pm

APPLY ONLINE. Applications submitted by email or hardcopy are not accepted.

This application requires one letter of recommendation, also due by the deadline.  Upon submitting the online application, the faculty member you specify will receive an email with directions to submit a letter of recommendation.  This email is intended as a courtesy reminder; you should be in contact with your professor regarding a letter of recommendation prior to your submission.

For more information, please email Hyeonjin Schubert at hschubert@uchicago.edu

About Asada Eiji

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. Read more about Asada Eiji by clicking here.

Previous Prize Winners

2024
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"

2023
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

2022
Ella Bradford, Anthropology
Sharing Vulnerabilities: Being and Becoming in the Wake of Japan's HPV Vaccination Campaign Cessation

2021
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

2020
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

2019
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

2018
Gabrielle Dulys, East Asian Languages & Civilizations (EALC)
How to Speak Like an Otaku: Otaku Identity through the Lens of Self-Referentiality, Commodity, and Art

Elizabeth Smith, Laws, Letters, and Society
"We invited Shinzo Abe, but he was unable to attend." The First Conference of Museums Addressing the "Comfort Women" Issue

2017
Aliyah Bixby-Driesen, East Asian Languages & Civilizations (EALC)
What's New about New Baihua? Language Change and Indirect Contact in Modern Chinese Literature

Michelle Shang, History
"I Almost Forgot I Was A Girl": Maoist Gender Politics and the Memory of Gender in the Chinese Cultural Revolution, 1966-1976

2016
Dake Kang, History
Not So Revolutionary: Soviet Insprirations and Military Justifications for the Planning and Construction of Beijing's First Subway Line, 1950-1969

Shauna Moore, East Asian Languages & Civilizations (EALC)
Sore Na!: Youth Politeness Strategies on Japanese Video Blogs

2015
Zhou Fang, History
Navy and Nation: The Fuzhou Arsenal and China's Early Modernization

Keyao Pan, East Asian Languages & Civilizations (EALC)
Dissecting the East Asia Reparation Movement: A Case Study of the Unit 731 Germ Warfare Reparation Class Suit

2014
Alexander Hoare, History; East Asian Languages & Civilizations (EALC)
The Secret History of Manga and History Textbooks

Jeffrey Niedermaier, East Asian Languages & Civilizations (EALC)
I Shall Tell Both Home and Name: The Imperial Voice and the Yamato Political Imaginary in the Man'yōshū

2013
Sandra Park, History
Remembering the ‘Jerusalem of the East’: Recalling the Christian Heritage of North Korean in Light of the Recent Phenomenon of Christianization among Refugees from the DPRK”

2012
Keith Jamieson, History
Peculiar Circumstances: Hong Kong in Britain’s Empire, 1945-52

Feiyang Sun, East Asian Languages & Civilizations (EALC)
Dreams within Dreams: Fiction Commentary and the ‘Later Dream of the Red Chamber’

2011
Yini Shi, East Asian Languages & Civilizations (EALC)
Stories of the Stone: The Multiple Voices of ‘Honglou meng’

Arieh Smith, East Asian Languages & Civilizations (EALC)
Democrats or Dictators: The CCP in Western Eyes

2010
Hannah Airriess, East Asian Languages & Civilizations (EALC)
Suffering as Resistance: Subjectivity, Genre and the Female Body in Masumura Yasuzo’s ‘A Wife Confesses’

Rickisha C. Berrien, International Studies
Anti-African Prejudice in Modern China: Beyond the Racial Construct of Discrimination

2009*
Camila Dodik, East Asian Languages & Civilizations (EALC)
Eros and Resistance: Politicized Portrayals of Sexual Deviance in Two Postwar Japanese Works

Qi Zhu, International Studies
Happy Body, Healthy Spirit: Conceptions of the Body and Wellness in Contemporary Shanghai

2008
Lauren Kocher, East Asian Languages & Civilizations (EALC)
Japanese Feminisms and the ‘Gender-Free’ Controversy

2007
Christopher Chhim, International Studies
New Beijing, New Olympics, New Wenming: A Study of the History, Theory, and Practice of Civilizing Campaigns Up to the 2008 Olympic Games

2006
Pendry Haines, International Studies
Korean Ancestors and National Identity

Marianne Tarcov, East Asian Languages & Civilizations (EALC)
Beautiful Shadows of Ugly Things: Translations of Kuroda Saburo

2005
Adam Bronson, East Asian Languages & Civilizations (EALC)
Japanese Folklore Studies and History: Pre-War and Post-War Inflections

Alexander Hsu, Religious Studies
The Means to Meaning: Viewing ‘The Journey to the West’ as Upaya

Juliane Jones, East Asian Languages & Civilizations (EALC)
Chinoiserie in Puccini’s ‘Turandot’

2004
Andrew Elliott-Chandler, East Asian Languages & Civilizations (EALC)
Beyond Classroom Doors: Individuality in the Japanese Middle School

Matthieu Felt, East Asian Languages & Civilizations (EALC)
Primacy of Text in the Discourse on Japanese Animation in America

Kinh N. Ngo, Political Science
Out of Their Element: The Indochinese Refugee Crisis and Japan

Sonia Rupcic, International Studies
Toward a Comprehensive Theory of Civil Society: The Organic Movement as an Example of Japanese Civil Society

* In 2009 it was decided to standardize the award by offering a $250 prize to a paper in each of the divisions of Humanities and Social Sciences.

The Jiuji Kasai (Class of 1913) Japan Summer Research Travel Grant provides $3,500 to support an undergraduate student conducting summer research in Japan.  In most cases this award supports research leading to a B.A. paper.  However, another academic research project may also be considered.  Preference will be given to students with advanced Japanese language ability.  The award is provided by the Committee on Japanese Studies at the Center for East Asian Studies.  One award will be given out each academic year.  Allowable expenses include travel, accommodations, meals, and museum/archive entrance fees.

Eligibility

Eligible students must be currently registered at the University of Chicago for Spring Quarter of AY 2023-2024 and must plan on registering for Fall Quarter of AY 2024-2025.  Applicants must have completed or tested out of Japanese 20403 (Advanced Modern Japanese 3) by the project start date.

Research grants are primarily for third-year students in the College, but exceptional second-year students and fourth-year students who plan to spend part or all of a fifth year in the College are also eligible to apply.

Awardees are expected to submit a 2-page, double-spaced report by September 1st detailing what they accomplished using the grant.

To apply, Click here.  You will need to provide a statement of purpose/research plan, transcript, and a budget, as well as email contacts for letters of recommendation from your language instructor and your B.A. advisor.  Upon submitting the online application, the faculty members you specify will receive an email with directions to submit a letter of recommendation.  This email is intended as a courtesy reminder; you should be in contact with your professors regarding a letter of recommendation prior to your submission.

Deadline:  Friday, April 4, 2025 by 3:00 pm

About Jiuji Kasai

The award honors Jiuji “George” Kasai, member of the University of Chicago Class of 1913, lifelong friend of the university, and tireless advocate for U.S.-Japan friendship.  It was created to commemorate the 100th anniversary of his winning the Julius Rosenwald Prize for Excellence in Oratory for his speech on “The Mastery of the Pacific,” delivered at Mandel Hall on June 3, 1913.

The Japanese Foreign Language Acquisition Grant (FLAG) offers undergraduate awards of $5,000 to defray the costs of advanced Japanese language study in Japan during the summer.  Grants can be used at any accredited summer intensive Japanese language study program in Japan.  Study programs must be at least eight weeks in duration of intensive language study (at least 15 hours/week).

Two awards each academic year are provided by the Committee on Japanese Studies at the Center for East Asian Studies.

Eligibility and Deadline

Eligible undergraduate students are those registered at the University of Chicago for the spring quarter before the summer they go abroad and who will be registered the following fall quarter.  Applicants must have completed or tested out of Japanese 203 by the program start date.

Deadline:  Monday, February 3, 2025 at 11:59 pm CT

Students MUST APPLY for a Japan FLAG grant through the University of Chicago Study Abroad Office.

The Supplement for Japanese-Language Study at KCJS offers $1,500 to help defray the international travel costs for an undergraduate student attending the Kyoto Consortium for Japanese Studies academic-year program.  The award is provided by the Committee on Japanese Studies at the Center for East Asian Studies.

Eligibility

Eligible students are those registered at the University of Chicago for the quarter before they go abroad and who will be registered (and taking classes) the quarter that follows the completion of their program in Japan.  In exceptional circumstances, applications from graduating students will be considered.  Preference will be given to applicants attending KCJS for the full academic year, but students enrolling for only Fall or Spring semester are also eligible.  Applicants have to have completed or tested out of Japanese 103 (or the equivalent) by the program start date.

To apply, Click here.

You will need to provide a PDF statement of purpose, a PDF of your letter of acceptance from KCJS, and a current transcript.  

Deadline:  Friday, April 4, 2025 by 3:00 pm