UR Religious Studies Professor Awarded $7,500 to Develop Event Series, New Course on Islam in Asia

Mimi Hanaoka, associate professor of religious studies in Islam, has been awarded her second Transregional Research Junior Scholar Fellowship by the Social Science Research Council.

The $7,500 fellowship, along with matching funds from UR’s Department of Religious Studies, will support a series of activities for scholars conducting InterAsian research, including a book workshop, a roundtable discussion, and a workshop to develop an undergraduate course on transregional InterAsian content. 

“This event series will launch an important and on-going scholarly conversation at the University of Richmond amongst scholars within and beyond our university whose projects are grounded in Transregional InterAsian perspectives on East Asia, West Asia, and South Asia and Islam,” said Hanaoka.

Hanaoka, who has taught at UR since 2011, was awarded her first Transregional Research Junior Scholar Fellowship in 2015. She was also recently awarded a Mednick Fellowship by the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges for her book project, Views of the Asian Other: Educational Reform and Models of Modernity for Japan and Muslim Reformers. 

Through its InterAsia Program, the Social Science Research Council aims to challenge the implications and limitations of the current Asia construct by promoting frameworks and concepts for a new generation of scholarship that reconceptualizes Asia as a dynamic and interconnected formation spanning Central Asia, East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Russia.

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The Social Science Research Council, an independent, international nonprofit, mobilizes necessary knowledge for the public good by supporting scholars worldwide, generating new research across disciplines, and linking researchers with policymakers and citizens.