Recipients of the National Library of Australia Asia Study Grants undertake research relating to Asia through intensive use of our rich and varied Asian language and Asia-related collections.
2025 Asia Study Grant Recipients
Supported by the Harold S. Williams Trust
Dr Wing-Fai Wong (University of Queensland)
A Mystery of Celestials: Uncovering the Secrets of Chinese Chronomancy and Rituals in Temple-Opening Ceremonies in Australia
Ms Rima Febriani (Monash University)
The Desire to Know: The Formation of Sexual Knowledge in Postcolonial Indonesia
Ms Hwee Ping Teo (RMIT University)
The Singapore Chinese Massacre of 1942 in History and Memory
Mr Justin Lau (Australian National University)
Garbage Enterprises: Tracing Circular Economies in Cambodia
Mr Michael Haryo Bagus Raditya (University of Melbourne)
Dangdut Agency in the Era of Internet Disruption: Indonesian Music for the People and the World
2024 Asia Study Grant Recipients
Supported by the Harold S. Williams Trust
Dr Anita Dewi (Charles Sturt University)
Libraries, librarianship, and librarians in Indonesia: the past and present
Ms Rafiqa Qurrata Ayun (University of Melbourne)
Revisiting the origin of Indonesia's blasphemy law; how illiberal politics shapes the discriminative law
Supported by Opalgate Foundation
Associate Professor Olivia Khoo (Monash University)
Genealogies of Asian Australian Leadership
Associate Professor Shih-Wen Chen (Deakin University)
Science, Children, and the Environment in Chinese Children's Literature, 1875-1945
Miss Suprawee Asanasak (University of Melbourne)
Translation and Transmission of Thai Legal Tradition
2023 Asia Study Grant Recipients
Supported by the Harold S. Williams Trust
Dr Yao-Tai Li (University of New South Wales)
The changing rhetoric of racial discrimination against Chinese migrants in Australia after 1973
Read blog post: Exploring the experiences of Chinese migrants in Australia
A/Prof Joanna Elfving-Hwang (The University of Western Australia)
Cosmetic Matters: The Body and Beauty Work in Korea
Miss Ruonan Chen (Australian National University)
Making Hospitals in Tibet
Mr Yahia Zhengtang Ma (The University of Melbourne)
Chinese Gay Men in Australia: Difference and Sameness, Border and Bordering
Read blog post: Q&A with Yahia Ma
Dr Andres Rodriguez (The University of Sydney)
Moving War: Connectivity and Regionalism in China’s Burma Road, 1937-45.
Supported by Kent Anderson
Ms Ausma Bernotaite (Griffith University)
The digital infrastructure of the Ministry of Public Security of the People’s Republic of China
2022 Asia Study Grant Recipients
Supported by the Harold S. Williams Trust
Dr Annisa R. Beta (University of Melbourne)
A Genealogy of Modern Indonesian Girls
Read blog post: Q&A with Annisa Beta
Mr Tyler Gleason (University of Melbourne)
The cultural construction of HIV and AIDS in China’s provincial and local newspapers in the 1980s
Dr Mei-fen Kuo (Macquarie University)
Documenting Chinese Australian community in the context of Cold War
Mr Jayson Jimenez (University of Tasmania)
Archipelagic Migration and Climate Change: Revisiting the Beyer Archive
Ms Younghye Whitney (Australian National University and University of Western Australia)
Transnational Intellectual Networks and Social Movements in South Korea 1970s - 1980s
Supported by Kent Anderson
Dr Warren Sun (Monash University)
The Honest Bloke Who Turned China Around-- A chronicle of Chairman Hua Guofeng’s Political Career (1971-1981)
2021 Asia Study Grants recipients
Supported by the Harold S. Williams Trust
Professor Adrian Vickers (University of Sydney)
Indonesian, Malaysian and Netherlands Indies Sources on Australia, 1930–1970
Dr Benjamin Hegarty (University of Melbourne)
Twenty-five years of HIV/AIDS in Indonesia: epidemiological histories and community memories
Mr Yang Zhao (University of Queensland)
Changes of masculinities and national narrative of Uyghur men in China’s state-run media, 1949 – 2019
Dr Tets Kimura (Flinders University)
Discovering social, political and cultural backgrounds behind Japanese war art made by civilians (Japanese diaspora) and POWs (Japanese nationals) in Australian internment camps during the Second World War
Dr Kathryn Kelly (Queensland University of Technology)
A Special Relationship: Connections between Japanese and Australian artists and artistic movements in modern and contemporary Japan and Australia
Supported by Kent Anderson
Professor Yi-Chong Xu (Griffith University)
The State Council -- the core executive government in China
Supported by Manor Gate Group
Dr Craig Smith (University of Melbourne)
Chinese Perspectives on the China-Australia Relationship: Critical Documents from 1850 to 1972
2020 Asia Study Grant recipients
Supported by the Harold S. Williams Trust
Dr Megan Rose (University of NSW)
Turning anger into smiles: an exploration of relationship between Kawaii culture and feminist activism
Mr Ahmad Rizky Mardhatillah Umar (University of Sydney)
The idea of Asia in world politics
Ms Faye Chan (University of Melbourne)
Citizenship vs alienage and the intersectionality of law, race and gender: the legal status of Chinese Indonesian women, 1850-2014
Dr Minerva Inwald (University of Sydney)
The Socialist Art Front: Revolutionary Practice and the Fine Arts in the People’s Republic of China, 1962–1979
Dr Arjun Subrahmanyan (Murdoch University)
Democracy fulfilled and betrayed: culture and politics in Thailand, 1945-1958
Supported by the Wong Family
Mr Jiyuan Yin (University of Melbourne)
Scandal: sex, race and power in Treaty Port China 1890-1920
Supported by Professor Kent Anderson
Mr Jonathan Peter (University of Melbourne)
The Indonesian student movement as a historic entity
Supported by private funders
Dr Pan Wang (University of NSW)
Love in China – 1950s to the present
A/Prof Chi Kong Lai (University of Queensland)
Australian Chinese business practices and strategies, 1900-2000
Supported by generous donors to the National Library of Australia
Dr Tin Kei Wong (University of Adelaide)
Preaching womanhood: American Protestant missionary Laura M. White and her Chinese translations of English fiction
Supported by Manors Gate Group
Dr Yu Tao (University of Western Australia)
The history of Australia in Chinese language publications (1979-2019)
2019 Asia Study Grant recipients
Supported by the Harold S. Williams Trust
Ms Thi Huyen Linh Nguyen (University of Wollongong)
Mediascapes and national imaginaries: LGBT characters in media in Vietnam
Mr Ravando Lie (University of Melbourne)
Re-Examining the Voices of Progressive Chinese-Indonesian Nationalists: The History of Sin Po, 1910-1965
Mr Bernard Keo (Monash University)
Cosmopolitan Lives: The Peranakan Chinese in SoutheastAsia, 1918-1937
Ms Kwannie Krairit (University of Wollongong)
Reading and Re-creating: The Adaptation of Shōnen Manga in Thailand
Mr Atsushi Yamagata (University of Wollongong)
Japanese responses to refugees
Supported by Alice Wong
Dr Yichi Zhang (University of Technology Sydney)
Intertwining modernities: shaping the urbanism of China mercantile
Supported by Professor Kent Anderson
Associate Professor Melissa Crouch (University of New South Wales)
Legal Legacies of Authoritarian Regimes: The Role of Courts in Myanmar
Supported by private funders
Dr Steven Farram (Charles Darwin University)
Social and political dimensions of Indonesian and Timor-Leste popular music, 1960s-1980s
Associate Professor Thomas Barker (Independent scholar, QLD)
Debating National Cinema in Indonesia: 1950 to 1965
Mr Toshiki Asakura-Ward (University of Adelaide)
A Biography of the Yokohama Foreign General Cemetery: Memorialisation of 'Foreigners' since the Meiji Era
Supported by generous donors to the National Library of Australia
Ms Shan Windscript (University of Melbourne)
Discourse of Diary-Writing and Ideals of Socialist Selfhood in Maoist China, c1950s-1976
Supported by Global Business College of Australia
Dr Sanzhuan Guo (Flinders University)
Dual nationality, overseas China and international relations: past, present and future
Professor Louise Edwards (University of New South Wales)
Peace and pacifism in China
Dr Lintao Qi (Monash University)
Literature in the service of cultural diplomacy: patronage and the circulation of China literature
Supported by Manors Gate Group
Mrs Rebecca Hausler (University of Queensland)
Japan's literary ghosts: The haunting of theatrical productions depicting wartime internment
Honorary Grant Recipients
Dr Shengyu Fan (Australian National University)
The Story of the Stone’s Journey to the West
2018 Asia Study Grant recipients
Supported by the Harold S. Williams Trust
Professor John Crossley (Monash University)
The Earliest History of the Spanish Philippines
Dr Joost Coté (Monash University)
Colonial knowledge: Constructing a ‘science’ of the East Indies, 1850-1910
Dr Emma Dalton (RMIT University)
Gender and the Japan Self-Defense Forces
Ms Debbie Chan (University of Western Australia)
The “Zero” Masculinity of the Modern Boy: Contesting the Meaning of Modern Boy: Contesting the Meaning of Modern Masculinity in Interwar Japan
Mr Oscar Jr Sequiña (University of Melbourne)
Trainable Tongues: Pedagogical and Performative Sites of Speech in the Philippines
Supported by Alice Wong
Mr Kent Wan (University of Queensland)
The Rise of Hong Kong Identity Political Conflicts in the Colony, 1949-1989
Supported by Professor Kent Anderson
Dr Vannessa Hearman (Charles Darwin University)
From Dili to Darwin: The 1995 voyage of the Tasi Diak asylum seeker boat and its aftermath
Supported by private funders
Dr Alistair Welsh (Deakin University)
Australia’s Forgotten Coco Islanders: Historical Migrations, Cultural Identity and Citizenship
Dr Hironori Onuki (University of Wollongong)
The Politics of Temporary Worker Programs in Contemporary Japan
Supported by Global Business College of Australia
Dr Yingchi Chu (Murdoch University)
Chinese Cartoons as Visual Discourse
Ms Xiaoqing Kong (University of Queensland)
Dwelling in Shenzhen: Development of Living Environment from 1979 to 2018
Mr Shensi Yi (University of Sydney)
Young Revolutionaries in the Cosmopolitan Metropolis: Shanghai’s Local Communists, 1920 – 1935
Honorary Grant Recipients
Dr Olivier Krischer (Australian National University)
Picturing China for the World – Stanley O. Gregory, Kelly & Walsh publishers and photographic books in 1920s-30s China
Dr Rina Kikuchi (Shiga University)
Japanese Women’s Poetry before and during the Asia-Pacific War of World War II
