The Mid-Atlantic Region/Association for Asian Studies (MARAAS) awards prizes for the best papers on East, Southeast, and South Asia presented by a graduate student at the annual conference. All winners will receive a one-year membership to the Association for Asian Studies. The best of these papers will be selected as winner of the Marlene Mayo Graduate Paper Prize that also awards $500.00 to the winner. The Mayo Prize winner is also eligible for participation in a panel at the annual AAS conference and will receive financial assistance for travel and accommodations to the national conference. Papers are nominated primarily by audience members at the conference.
Award nominees will be contacted after the conference and will be asked to submit supporting evidence in the form of a written paper or a slide deck.
For best consideration, papers should be approximately 12–13 pages, double-spaced; slide decks should be limited to 10–15 slides. Criteria include quality and depth of scholarship, originality, contribution to the student’s field or area of academic study, and clarity of presentation. Nominees should be enrolled in institutions in the mid-Atlantic region (Metropolitan New York, Metropolitan Washington, D.C, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia). A panel of scholars will read and rate each nominated submission. Announcement of the MARAAS award will be made by May; selection for participation at the national AAS conference will be made by October.
PAST WINNERS OF THE MARAAS PAPER PRIZE
2024
Thu Nguyen, McGill University
Paper Title: The God and the Prophet: Making Kim IL Sung and Ho Chi Minh Sacred
YuHao Chen, University of Pittsburgh
Marlene Mayo Graduate Paper Prize
Paper Title: Durée of Pain: Learning the Mandarin Syllabary in LMS Hospitals, 1917−1927
2023
No winners
2022
Patrick Carland-Echavarria, UPenn
Marlene Mayo Graduate Paper Prize
Paper Title: Finding the Rainbow World: Queer Translation and Utopian Imaginaries in Postwar Japan
2021
Pritika Sharma, Boston University
Marlene Mayo Graduate Paper Prize
Paper title: Marriage, Romance, and Destiny: Locating Individuals’ Desire and Autonomy within Familial Social Structures in India
Aiden James Kosciesza, Temple University
Paper title: Teacher, Trickster, Troll: Great Teacher Onizuka’s Populist Pedagogy and Japan’s Lost Decade
2019
Keiko Nishimura, (Communications, Modern Japan), University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Jason Beckman, (East Asian Languages and Cultures, Modern Japan), Stanford University
Doopashika Welikala, (Public Health, Modern Sri Lanka), UMBC/Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Marlene Mayo Graduate Student Paper Prize
2017
Kaoru Hayashi (Japanese Literature, Premodern Japan), Princeton University
2016
Mark Bookman (East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Modern Japan), University of Pennsylvania
2012
Madeleine Wilcox (East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Modern China), University of Pennsylvania
2011
William Bridges IV (Literature, Modern Japan) Princeton University
2010
Megan Hamm (Anthropology, India), University of Pittsburgh
2009
Emily Price (History, Modern Japan), University of Maryland
2008
Nandor Forgach (Asian Studies, Japan), Seton Hall University