Thank you  applicants for showing interest in the inaugural CEPEX Japan Studies Award. We received a lot of projects and were impressed by the variety and quality of the research papers. We finally narrowed the submissions down to three finalists. The two runners up for this year are Catherine Nguyen and Dirk Macorol. Catherine wrote about lolita fashion and Dirk discussed Japanese influence on modern furniture. Congratulations on being selected as finalists and on writing engaging and informative papers.

As good as the research papers were, we could only pick one winner. We took into account the clarity and quality of the research paper as well as the answers to the questions on the CEPEX submission form. After much deliberation, we are happy to announce that this year’s winner and recipient of the 2010 CEPEX Japan Studies Award is Kaloyan Kostov. His project, Manga as the Modern Day Ukiyo-e looked at the influence of manga on U.S.-Japan relations and the growth of a global community around Japanese comic books.

Kaloyan will participate in a two-week internship in Washington, DC followed by a brief trip to Japan to further his study of Japanese language, culture, and U.S.-Japan relations and to look more deeply into his original research project with the benefit of actual in-country experience.

Given the interest in this inaugural CEPEX Award, we are happy to announce that we will be holding this contest again next year. Please consider applying again next spring.

Congratulations again to Kayolan and thank you for all your submissions.

Have a safe and productive summer,

Justin Manger, CEPEX Co-chairman & COO

Christy Busch, CEPEX Assistant Director, Washington, D.C. Office