Overview

The Triangle Center for Japanese Studies offers a variety of programs and funding opportunities that encourage continued collaboration between Japan Studies faculty and students at Duke, UNC-CH, and NCSU. The center also supports and promotes individual work in the field. Japan-related forums, conferences, lectures and film series that are open to students and faculty of all three universities, and often the general public, provide opportunities for the community to enhance their knowledge of Japan, explore new topics, and meet others who share their interests.

The Center brings Japanese Studies to the Triangle and North Carolina communities through involvement in outreach programs that introduce Japanese culture and history to K-12 schools and provide teachers with resources and curricula that help them incorporate Japanese Studies into their classrooms.

With the goal of becoming an organization that serves the needs of faculty and students throughout the Southeast, our center encourages faculty from other institutions to take advantage of the wealth of Japan-related materials offered by the three universities, especially at Duke’s library. The Center also extends its reach beyond the Triangle by supporting major regional Japan studies conferences.

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Triangle Japan Forum

This monthly seminar provides a venue for Triangle-area faculty and graduate students, and also scholars from institutions throughout the Southeast, to present and discuss their work. Forums are also held to celebrate and discuss recent publications.

Cross-Institutional Study Groups

The Center sponsors Duke, UNC, and NCSU faculty and student-led Japan-related study groups. These study groups must include members from at least two institutions.

Funding for Speakers

Funds are available to help faculty bring Japan Studies speakers to Duke, UNC, or NCSU to give lectures that are open to students and faculty of all three institutions.

Research Travel Grants for Triangle Faculty and Students

Grants for travel and accommodation expenses associated with conducting research in Japan are available to faculty and doctoral students.

Resource Acquisition

To support research projects and ensure that faculty and students continue to have access to the strongest Japan Studies collection in the Southeast, the Center will subsidize Duke Library acquisitions of Japanese and English language volumes and primary source and archival materials.

Travel Grants for Japan Studies Visitors to the Triangle

Faculty from other institutions, particularly those in the Southeast, are invited to apply for funding to cover travel expenses incurred while visiting the Triangle to utilize the Japan Studies materials at Duke’s library and in our universities’ museums.

The TCJS is pleased to offer travel grants to scholars outside the Durham / Raleigh /Chapel Hill / Greensboro area to conduct Japan-related research at Triangle institutions using Japanese materials in the Duke Library, UNC’s Ackland Art Museum or NCSU’s Gregg Museum of Art and Design.

Duke’s East Asian Collection consists of about 140,000 volumes in Chinese, Japanese and Korean. The Japanese collection is focused on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and is especially strong in art history, Buddhism, history, labor, literature, popular culture (film, advertising and manga), women’s studies and the Japanese colonial experience. The collection at the Ackland Art museum was built by Sherman Lee and is notable for Japanese paintings and sculpture. NCSU’s Gregg Museum of Art and Design holds textiles and ceramics while the NCSU libraries have strong collections in design, landscape architecture and textiles.

Grant Amount

$750 to cover travel, hotel and photocopy expenses

Priority Given to Applicants…

  • … who document how their research will benefit from access to Japan-related materials in the Triangle and whose research will take advantage of their strengths.
  • … who are located in the Southeast or at institutions which do not have easy access to comparable resources.

Deadlines

  • Applications are being accepted on a rolling basis. A total of ten awards will be made.
  • Awards must be used before June 30, 2012.
  • Each recipient is required to submit a short summary of the research accomplished with the grant by June 30, 2012.

To Apply

Submit (email applications preferred) a brief description of your research topic, sources in the collection you plan to use, a brief curriculum vitae, an estimated budget, and any questions you may have to:

Dr. Kristina Troost
Head, East Asian Collection
Dept. of International and Area Studies
kktroost@duke.edu
(919) 660-5844

Outreach

The Center supports outreach to the Triangle and Southeast region through involvement in initiatives aimed at increasing the presence of Japan Studies in K-12 schools, two and four year colleges, and on the Duke, UNC, and NCSU campuses. Some examples of these programs include Japanese film screenings, teacher training workshops with interactive presentations on topics such as kamishibai storytelling and tea culture, and musical and theatrical performances at local schools.