Susan Pharr is to receive the Japan Foundation Award for 2016, which recognizes individuals who through their artistic contribution or scholarship, along with their work in promoting intellectual and cultural exchanges, contribute to building ties between Japan and the rest of the world.
Previous awardees include Senator William Fulbright, originator of the Fulbright Program; Boston Symphony Orchestra conductor Seiji Ozawa; and writer Haruki Murakami. Scholars who have received the award include John Whitney Hall, Yale; Ronald Dore, Imperial College; Arthur Stockwin, Oxford; and Gerald Curtis, Columbia. Four Harvard faculty previously have been recipients: Serge Elisseeff (1973), founder of Japanese studies at Harvard; Edwin O. Reischauer(1975), University Professor and U.S. Ambassador to Japan; Ezra Vogel, Sociology (1996); and Akira Iriye, History (2013).
The award will be presented by Japan’s Foreign Minister in a ceremony in Tokyo in October.