James B. Palais Book Prize

The James B. Palais Book Prize has been awarded annually since 2010 by the Association for Asian Studies. Pioneer Korean studies scholar James Palais is commemorated in the name of this prize.
The Palais Prize acknowledges an outstanding English language book published on Korea; and the prize honors the author of the book.

AAS prize

AAS is a scholarly, non-political, non-profit professional association which includes all persons interested in Asia. The association was founded in 1941 as publisher of the Far Eastern Quarterly. The organization has gone through a series of reorganizations since those early days; but its continuing mission is to foster the exchange of information among scholars and to increase understanding about East Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.
The Northeast Asia Council of the AAS oversees the James Palais Book Prize.

Select list of honorees

2010 — Sem Vermeersch, The Power of the Buddhas: the Politics of Buddhism during the Koryo Dynasty, 918–1392
2011 — Hwasook Nam, Building Ships, Building a Nation: Korea's Democratic Unionism under Park Chung Hee
2012 — Eleana J. Kim, Adopted Territory: Transnational Korean Adoptees and the Politics of Belonging
2013 — Suk-Young Kim, Illusive Utopia: Theater, Film and Everyday Performance in North Korea
2014 — Theodore Hughes, Literature and Film in Cold War South Korea: Freedom’s Frontier
2015 — Suzy Kim, Everyday Life in the North Korean Revolution: 1945-1950
2016 — Steven Chung, Split Screen Korea: Shin Sang-ok and Postwar Cinema
2016 Honorable Mention — Janet Poole, When the Future Disappears: The Modernist Imagination in Late Colonial Korea
2017 — Jisoo Kim, The Emotions of Justice: Gender, Status, and Legal Performance in Chosŏn Korea
2017 Honorable Mention — Hyun Ok Park, The Capitalist Unconscious: From Korean Unification to Transnational Korea
2018 — Youngju Ryu, Writers of the Winter Republic: Literature and Resistance in Park Chung Hee’s Korea
2018 Honorable Mention — Jaeeun Kim, Contested Embrace: Transborder Membership Politics in Twentieth-Century Korea
2019 — Eunjung Kim - Curative Violence: Rehabilitating Disability, Gender, and Sexuality in Modern Korea
2020 — Yoon Sun Yang, From Domestic Women to Sensitive Young Men: Translating the Individual in Early Colonial Korea
2020 Honorable Mention - Hwansoo Ilmee Kim, The Korean Buddhist Empire: A Transnational History, 1910-1945
2021 — Monica Kim, The Interrogation Rooms of the Korea War: The Untold History
2021 — Heonik Kwon, After the Korean War: An Intimate History
2022 Honorable Mention — Hwisang Cho, The Power of the Brush: Epistolary Practices in Chosŏn Korea
2024 — Eleana J. Kim, Making Peace with Nature: Ecological Encounters along the Korean DMZ
2024 Honorable Mention: Maya K. H. Stiller, ''Carving Status at Kŭmgangsan: Elite Graffiti in Premodern Korea''