Daiwa Scholars in Japanese Studies 2020
Three Daiwa Scholars in Japanese Studies have been selected in the programme’s sixth year.
Announcing the new Daiwa Scholars in Japanese Studies, Jason James, Director General of The Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, said:
A subset of the Foundation’s Trustees met on 21st February to interview candidates for the Daiwa Scholarships in Japanese Studies (DSJS), which support postgraduate students in this field. One of the key criteria for DSJS is that they are expected to have reached a high standard in Japanese language, so part of the interview takes place in Japanese – a nerve-wracking experience for at least some of the candidates!
As always the candidates were looking at widely different topics relating to Japan, and the Foundation ended up selecting three scholars with very different interests – video games/literature, international relations, and political protest. We look forward to supporting them and to hearing about the eventual conclusions of their research.”
You can see their profiles below and also via this link below:
Daiwa Scholars in Japanese Studies 2020 at time of applyingAbout the scholars
Melissa Jane Lewis
Melissa Jane completed a BA in Oriental Studies (Japanese) at the University of Oxford, Hertford College in 2020. As part of her degree, she studied at Kobe University. Her research focuses on Japanese videogames, and analysis of them in their cultural contexts. Her undergraduate dissertation centred on the representation of Japanese youth issues in the videogame Persona 5. She spent two terms as Publicity Officer for Oxford University Japan Society, and as part of the role organised termly film seasons showcasing Japanese films from a variety of genres. She began an MPhil in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge in October 2020, proposing to study Nintendo’s “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild” and situate its themes alongside those of post-3.11 trauma literature. She completed the MPhil in 2021. After graduating she worked as Digital Sales Manager / Production Assistant at PQube, before taking a new role in 2022 as Head of Production at Firestoke Games.
Tom Sutton
Tom completed a BA in Japanese Studies at Durham University in 2020. As part of his degree, he studied at the University of Tokyo. Tom has a strong interest in the topic of ideology and the history of thought in Japan, particularly in relation to the field of politics, such as the history of Marxism in Japan. He has a wider interest in the politics of protest and marginal politics in Japan, and Japan’s international relations. He is also interested in psychoanalysis and post-structuralism and how these can be applied to the study of Japan from an external point of view. He finished his MPhil in Japanese Studies at the University of Oxford, supported by the Foundation, in summer 2022. His dissertation was on anti-US military base protests in Okinawa.
Alex Syriopoulos
Alex completed a BA in Oriental Studies (Japanese) at the University of Oxford in 2018. As part of his degree, he studied at Kobe University. From the age of 11 he began learning Japanese at school and visited Japan for the first time aged 16. Up until the start of his Scholarship he worked as Marketing and Communications Officer at the Japan National Tourism Organization in London. In September 2020, he began an MA at Waseda University in Tokyo, focusing on Japan’s long-term strategic goals in the Indo-Pacific region and the means through which it aims to achieve them in the context of China’s Belt and Road Initiative and India’s Look East policy. He completed his MA in September 2022.