Scholarships
SCHOLARSHIPS
The Dr. David Chu Program is proud to provide a number of annual academic scholarships, which are reserved for undergraduate and graduate students pursuing study or research related to the Asia-Pacific region.
Travel Awards
These awards are offered for students conducting research or taking part in exchange or study abroad programs in the Asia-Pacific region. The application deadline is on or around March 15 each year. Visit the Arts & Science International and Research Awards page for more information about eligibility criteria and application procedures.
Leadership Awards
These awards recognize student leadership and academic achievement in pursuing and promoting extra-curricular activities related to the Asia-Pacific region. The application deadline is on or around March 15 each year. Details are posted on the Asian Institute opportunities page in early winter.
Entrance Awards
Incoming students in the Collaborative Master’s Specialization in Contemporary East and Southeast Asian Studies are automatically considered for an entrance award of up to $5,000.
MAN Family Graduate Scholarships in Asian Studies
Reserved for graduate students in the Faculty of Arts & Science who have participated in or attended events sponsored by the Asian Institute whose research focuses on the societies and modern histories of countries affected by the Japanese Empire in Asia. Priority will be given to proposals that significantly engage with the Japanese Empire and/or its legacies. Normally, these awards will be used to help defray project costs associated with the travel and research of the applicant. The application deadline is on or around March 15 each year. Details are posted on the Asian Institute opportunities page in early winter.
Featured Past Recipients
Elizabeth Bryer
Investigating the intersection of photography, psychology, and imperialism through a consideration of the content, context, and circulation of photographs of the Philippine American War, this dissertation analyzes the negotiation of colonial relations going beyond the increasingly well-studied Dean C. Worcester photographs. As a result of technological innovations making cameras cheaper, easier to use, and hand-held by the 1880s, colonial archives are full of images of the Philippines, predominantly without credit to a photographer, as Americans documented and reproduced the trauma of a colonial war for popular consumption. Many photographs of dead Filipino soldiers repeated throughout Philippine and American archives and accounts, summarizing the war in many published works of the time. This travel grant enabled research into Philippine perspectives and representations of the war for my dissertation, providing an invaluable contrast to depictions in American archives. Thanks to the funding provided by the Dr. David Chu Scholarship in Asia Pacific Studies in 2013-14, Elizabeth presented some of this research at the American Studies Association annual meeting in October 2015 and at the annual meeting of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations in June 2016. |
Jeremy DavisonJeremy is a master’s student at the School of Public Policy and Governance and completing the Collaborative Master’s Program in Asia-Pacific Studies at the University of Toronto. He is interested in a wide range of academic disciplines – from statistics and philosophy to political science, sociology, anthropology, and history – and is currently researching Japan’s immigration policy and the Japanese public’s perception of immigrants. In his spare time, he likes to read a wide variety of literature and learn to cook dishes from around the world. Thanks to his David Chu research grant, Jeremy was able to complete four weeks of fieldwork in Japan during the summer of 2015. The data that he collected, which he is currently analyzing with his supervisor, Dr. Ito Peng, hopes to improve our understanding of the attitudes of decision makers in rural Japan towards immigrants and immigration. Research Photos:
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Alice Niu
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Johanna Pokorny
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Aaron Peters
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Jessica Soedirgo
Jessica has been the recipient of three Dr. David Chu Scholarships in Asia-Pacific studies (travel). The first travel award was granted in 2011 for language training in the city of Jogjakarta, where she spent every weekday from 8am-3pm learning Bahasa Indonesia at Realia Language and Culture Centre. The second award generously funded 11 months of research in 2014 in the provinces of North Sumatra, West Java, East Java and in the capital city of Jakarta. The third award funded an additional two months of fieldwork in 2015 to fill existing gaps. In these two rounds of dissertation fieldwork, over 100 in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with a variety of participants, including members of minority groups; mobilizers and participants of anti-minority violence and protests; and politicians from both Islamic and secular parties. As seen, without the support provided by the Chu family, it would have been immensely difficult to carry out research with any breadth or depth. Research Photos:
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Gary WangGary Wang’s dissertation research in Fine Art History examines new concepts of art, the visual aspects of physical culture, and their effects on gender, sexuality and class in early-twentieth-century China. His work analyzes how new images of ‘the body beautiful’ intersected with the neologism meishu (fine art), and how these impacted pre-existing ideals and attitudes toward mei (beauty), especially with regard to constructs of femininity, masculinity and related notions of respectability. In four interconnected case studies, he focuses on two motifs that emerged during this period – the ‘Modern Girl’ and ‘Muscleman’ – as depicted in a range of media. While his research concerns the historical emergence and implications of these two motifs, he had not anticipated the prevalence of their present-day incarnations in the Chinese cities he visited for research after being awarded a Dr. David Chu Travel Grant in 2014-15.. The ‘old Shanghai’ Modern Girl image was printed on packaging for products from cosmetics to food products, a muscular male model appeared in a series of tongue-in-cheek advertisements for fresh-meat products, and the April 2016 editions of That’s Shanghai, That’s Beijing and That’s PRD (Pearl River Delta) featured a cover story on the body-building scene in China today. Research Photos:
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