Press Release
April 23, 2008
Contact: Dr. Anchi Hoh, adia@loc.gov, (202) 707-5673

2008 Florence Tan Moeson Fellows Appointed
Scholars to Conduct Research in the Library’s Collections

The Asian Division of the Library of Congress is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2008 Florence Tan Moeson Fellowship. Under this program, nine scholars will have the opportunity to conduct research using the Library’s Asian collections. Comprising nearly 2.8 million items, the collections are among the most significant outside of Asia.

Established in 2005, the fellowship is made possible by a generous donation from Florence Tan Moeson, a former Library employee who retired with more than 40 years of Library service. The purpose of the fellowship is to give individuals the opportunity to pursue research on East, Southeast or South Asia using the Library’s collections.
This year’s awardees include librarians, graduate students, independent scholars, and university professors whose research focuses on history, literature, linguistics, anthropology and film. Each research project will result in a brief report and an informal presentation at the Library.

Under the terms of the donation, up to 15 Moeson fellowships will be awarded annually for 10 years. Each carries a stipend of $300 to $2,500 to support a minimum of five days of research at the Library of Congress. A list of 2008 fellows and their proposal titles are provided below.

The deadline for applications for the 2009 awards is Sept. 30, 2008.

For more information, visit the Library’s Asian Reading Room Web site at www.loc.gov/rr/asian/ or the Library’s jobs and fellowships Web site at www.loc.gov/hr/employment/.

2008 Florence Tan Moeson Fellows

David Buchta, University of Pennsylvania, “Portraying an Upanishadic Female Sage at the Cusp of Colonialism: Baladeva Vidyabhushana on Gargi Vacaknavi”

Lily Chang, University of Oxford, “Fear, Morality and the Breakdown of Morale in the Second Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1945”

Jacqueline Fewkes, Florida Atlantic University, “A Place of Their Own: Women’s Mosques in Asian Muslim Communities”

Joshua Gedacht, University of Wisconsin – Madison, “Walking on Water: Christianity, Islam, and Comparative Colonial State Building Projects in the Sulawesi Border Seas”

Walter Hakala, University of Pennsylvania, “Diction and Dictionaries: Indo-Persian Lexicography and its Application to Early Urdu Poetry”

Hannah Kim, University of Delaware, “Missionary Work to Korea primarily from the early 1900s”

Gerald Maa, University of Maryland, “The Poetry of Haizi”

Aaron Moore, Ohio University, “Technological Visions of Japanese Modernity and Empire”

Elizabeth Oyler, University of Illinois, “The Performance Text: the Library of Congress' Heike mabushi and Early-Modem Recitation of Tales of the Heike”