Fellowship Supports Professor's Book Project on Iran-Japan Relations

Mimi Hanaoka, University of Richmond associate professor of religious studies in Islam, has been 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. 

This award will support research trips to the National Archives in Washington, D.C. and College Park, Maryland as she investigates the ways in which Muslim reformists in Iran and South Asia interacted with Japan during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 

“These sources will allow me to flesh out a kaleidoscopic picture of Iran-Japan relations in the era before the two empire-nations established formal diplomatic relations in 1929,” said Hanaoka.

Hanaoka, who has taught at UR since 2011, was awarded the Transregional Research Junior Scholar Fellowship in InterAsian Contexts and Connections from the Social Science Research Council in 2015. She is the author of Authority and Identity in Medieval Islamic Historiography: Persian Histories from the Peripheries and numerous articles.

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The Mednick Memorial Fund is vested in the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges to encourage professional development of VFIC college teachers and improve their academic competence through fellowships for research and advanced study.