Updates from the Japanese Studies Team

May 15, 2020

What we’ve been up to this month:

Mini Grants
Following our callout in April, we received input from several scholars flagging new priority areas for Japanese Studies due to changes wrought by COVID-19. We are now working on reconfiguring our mini grant program in line with this feedback. For now, we’d like to thank the individuals who generously took the time to share their thoughts with us, and we’ll be in touch again as soon as we have some concrete developments to report. We’re working on it!

Major Grants and Fellowships
Applicants for the 2020-21 Major Grant Round have been notified of the results of their applications. Due to COVID-19, The Japan Foundation acknowledges that some awardees may choose not to proceed with their projects during the grant period. For now, the numbers of successful applicants in the categories managed by Japanese Studies (Fellowships, Conference Grants and Japanese Studies Projects) have been published on our website. Details of awardees and projects will follow at a later date for projects that go ahead during the grant period.

New Voices in Japanese Studies
We’ve been working with current Guest Editor Alexander Brown to prepare NVJS 12 for publication, and release is currently on track for early July. A big thank you to all contributors, supervisors and reviewers involved in this year’s volume so far. The call for papers for the following volume is scheduled to open in August.

National Library of Australia (NLA) Asian Collection
We’ve heard from our colleagues at the Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA) that the NLA plans to proceed with cutting its Asian collection. The final deadline for responses to this plan is next Friday, and the ASAA is compiling a submission. Find out more here.

Thoughts? Let us know!
Stay safe and take care,

The J-Studies team.