UMD Libraries announces 2025 winners of the 20th Century Japan Research and Katherine Anne Porter Research Awards

UMD Libraries’ Special Collections and University Archives are pleased to announce 2025 recipients two research awards aimed at supporting research in Hornbake Library - the 20th Century Japan Research Awards and Katherine Anne Porter Research Award.

The 20th Century Japan Research Awards, first offered in 1999, is co-sponsored by the Nathan and Jeanette Miller Center for Historical Studies and the University of Maryland Libraries. Each year these partners accept applications for grants to support research in the Gordon W. Prange Collection and East Asia Studies resources on topics related to the period of the Allied Occupation of Japan and its aftermath, 1945-1960.

The 2025 recipients for the 20th Century Japan Research Awards:

• Mariko Azuma, Ph.D. Candidate at Duke University, for the topic, “Leisure’s Luxurious Logic: The Visual Culture of Western-Style Hotels in 19th-20th Century Japan.”
• Yuki Hoshino, Ph.D. Candidate at Stanford University, for the topic, “Global Imperial City: Multi-ethnic Osaka, 1920-1952.”
• Mire Koikari, Professor at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, for the topic, “Cultivating Masculinity: Gender, Imperial Naval Academy, and Japan’s Transpacific Seascape.”

This was the inaugural year for the Katherine Anne Porter Research Award, which supports research utilizing the Katherine Anne Porter papers and related holdings in the Literature and Rare Books collection in Hornbake Library. These collections bolster literary research on the life and work of American author Katherine Anne Porter and her literary circle. They also encompass broader topics including literary Modernism, twentieth century history and culture, women's literature, and more.

The 2025 recipients of the Katherine Anne Porter Research Award:

• Man Liang, PhD. candidate at the University of Maryland, for the project "Leveraging AI for Literary Analysis".
• Declan Apuzzo Langton, PhD candidate at the University of Maryland, for the project "Life & Legacy of a Manuscript: Katherine Anne Porter’s Unfinished Biography of Cotton Mather".

Together, these awards highlight the importance of encouraging and supporting research in Special Collections and the UMD Libraries from scholars and students. We hope these awards will continue to attract new ideas and research across diverse topics to our collections.