Awards

Guggenheim Fellow - 1982

Fulbright Award - 1982

Japan

About Jurgis S.A. Elisonas

Jurgis S.A. Elisonas (also known as George Elison) joined the IU Bloomington faculty in the Department of History and East Asian Languages and Cultures in 1975. He received an A.B. in history and German literature from the University of Michigan in 1957, and a Ph.D. in history and Far Eastern languages from Harvard University in 1969. After more than 25 years of teaching at IU, he retired as a professor emeritus of East Asian languages and cultures and of history at the end of May 2001.

Elisonas's specializations are premodern Japanese history, the culture of late medieval and early modern Japan, and Japanese international relations in the Middle Ages and the Tokugawa era. His best-known work, "Deus Destroyed: The Image of Christianity in Early Modern Japan" (Cambridge, Mass., 1973), was published under his psuedonym, George Elison. Elisonas has also contributed articles and chapters to "The Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan," "Sources of Japanese Tradition," and the "Cambridge History of Japan."

During his academic career, Elisonas has been a visiting professor at Harvard University, the University of Hawaii, Kyoto University, Leiden University, and Rikkyo University. He was also appointed the Boskey Visiting Professor of History at Williams College in Williamstown, MA, for the 2001-2002 academic year.

Elisonas is a frequent participant in scholarly symposia in Europe, and his most recent research has been published in Portugal and the Netherlands. He has been awarded fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1982), the Japan Foundation, from Leiden University (Isaac Alfred Ailion Fellowship), the National Endowment for the Humanities (1970-1971, 1982), the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, and was awarded a Fulbright grant (1982-1983).