New AAUW Grant Awarded to Dr. Jessica Starling

The American Association of University Women (AAUW) has awarded Dr. Jessica Starling, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, an American Short-Term Research Publication Grant. This program provides support to pre-tenure scholars to prepare research manuscripts for publication; preference is given to those whose work supports the vision of AAUW: to break through educational and economic barriers so that all women have a fair chance. During 2017-18, Dr. Starling will use the $6,000 award to complete an article on Buddhist propagation for women in modern Japan. The article, provisionally titled “Audience, Authorship and Agency: Religious Educational Materials for Modern Buddhist Women’s Associations, 1890-1933,” concerns religious literature for women produced by True Pure Land Buddhist (Jōdo Shinshū) institutions in modern Japan. The article will be an analysis of religious texts – sermons, educational tracts, and essays in sectarian journals – aimed at well-educated Buddhist women. Dr. Starling’s work will place these documents in their social historical context by asking the question, “Why did women consume these derogatory messages with such zeal well into the twentieth century?” 

Dr. Starling has been an active grant seeker: it is worth noting that this AAUW award is her fourth competitive external grant in two years.  This AAUW award follows a short-term Japanese studies research fellowship from the Japan Foundation (2016), an American Philosophical Society Franklin Research grant (2016), and an NEH Enduring Questions curricular development grant (2015).  More about her scholarship is available here.