New Research Grants Most of our staff members have received generous research grants from important governmental and non-governmental funding bodies including the Hong Kong Research Grants Council, the Australian Research Council, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Fulbright Program. Please see below a list of current and recent grants held by our staff. Dr. Peter Cunich Peter Cunich is currently director of the University of Hong Kong Centenary History Project. This project is funded by a $1.25 million grant from the Vice-Chancellor's Office and aims at producing the first comprehensive and critical history of HKU, ranging from the University's inception in the early twentieth century until its centenary in 2011. The project has involved the collation of widely scattered documentary sources from Hong Kong, Britain and the USA, the interviewing of former staff and students, and a close involvement in the establishment and development of the University Archives since 2006. Light of the Orient: A History of the University of Hong Kong will be published by HKU Press in 2011. Dr. Priscilla Roberts I am currently finishing two projects. One of these is a biography of the New York banker Frank Altschul (1887-1981), a leading figure in the Council on Foreign Relations and other prominent from the 1940s to the 1970s. This received a grant of US$75,000 from the Overbrook Foundation. Anglo-American think tanks and China policy after World War II The second is a study of Anglo-American think tanks and China policy after World War II. This concentrates firstly on the role of Chatham House and the Council on Foreign Relations in seeking to alleviate tensions in Anglo-American relations caused by China-related issues; and secondly, on the part the Council on Foreign Relations played in setting the stage for the reopening of relations between the United States and China during the 1970s. This was awarded a grant of $1,043,950, from the Hong Kong Research Grants Council in 2007. Anglo-American-dominions Think Tanks from the 1920s to the 1940s As something of a prequel to this second project, I am beginning work on a book-length study of the complex of overlapping Anglo-American-dominions think tanks from the 1920s to the 1940s. This group included Chatham House, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Institute of Pacific Relations, and the New Zealand, Australian, and Canadian Institutes of International Affairs. It focuses on two issues in particular: the part that these various organizations played in setting Pacific policy between the wars and during World War II; and the impact of this complex network upon relationships among the dominions, Britain, and the United States, especially in terms of drawing the dominions into American-based relationships, and of encouraging a sense of national consciousness in the three dominions. This project has already attracted a seed grant of $60,000 from the University's Committee on Research and Conference Grants; a T. Hamilton Glendinning research grant of C$600 from the University of Manitoba; and a Harold White Fellowship of A$10,200 from the National Library of Australia. Dr. Charles Schencking This research project aims to transform our understanding of one of the most destructive, deadly, and costly natural disasters of the 20th century: The Great Kant? Earthquake and Conflagration of 1923. This catastrophe resulted in the destruction of 45% of Tokyo's built environment and over 90% of Yokohama's urban landscape. In less than a week, this disaster destroyed an estimated 6.5 billion yen in assets (a figure four times larger than Japan's 1923 national budget), rendered over 2 million people homeless, and killed nearly 120,000 individuals. In the words of moral philosopher Shimamoto Ainosuke, the 1923 calamity ˇ§overturned Japan's culture from its very foundation.ˇ¨ Surprisingly, this earthquake is one of the least examined mega-natural disasters to have struck a major metropolis in the modern era. In fact, no comprehensive, analytical based monograph exists in English on this catastrophe. My project will examine the 1923 disaster not only as an event of unprecedented destruction but will also use the catastrophe and the subsequent relief, recovery, and reconstruction efforts that followed as a multifaceted interdisciplinary lens on interwar Japanese state and society. Specifically, this project will explore how numerous commentators and bureaucratic elites interpreted and constructed the 1923 disaster as an act of divine warning and punishment to admonish Japan's subjects for leading what many elites believed were immoral, self-centered, and extravagant lifestyles. My project will also examine how and why many bureaucrats and organizations attempted to use the reconstruction process: first, to reshape the built environment of Tokyo to enable better state-directed social management initiatives; and second, to further a complex project of national spiritual reconstruction of Japan's subjects on an ideological, physical, and political level. The findings from my archival-based research project will be published as a research monograph that is under contract with Cambridge University Press. My approach and methodology will draw upon and reinforce numerous theoretical advances made in many academic disciplines that have recently begun to investigate disasters not only as events of extraordinary upheaval and dislocation, but also as cultural constructions and revealers that compel introspection, inspire opportunism, and trigger intense contestation. In doing so, my findings will not only advance our understanding of modern Japanese history, but will also add important historical, Asia-related contexts to the fields of environmental history, urban history, and disaster studies that explore how natural disasters and subsequent reconstruction projects are used for larger political, social, and ideological ends.  |
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