October 20, 2003

BIRMINGHAM, AL — University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Associate Professor John Van Sant, Ph.D., has been named the winner of the 2003 Frederick W. Conner Prize in the History of Ideas. He will receive the award during a ceremony at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, November 5, in the Mervyn H. Sterne Library, Henley Room, 917 13th Street South.

The Conner Prize is presented annually to a UAB faculty member for an outstanding essay on the history of ideas. The prize, which carries a $250 award, is named for Frederick Conner, Ph.D., former dean of the School of Arts and Humanities.

Van Sant, who specializes in East Asian and Japanese history, is the author of the winning essay “Sakuma Shozan’s Hegelian Proposal for 19th Century Japan.” In his essay, Van Sant discusses the samurai scholar Sakuma Shozan’s philosophy of combining Neo-Confucian ethics with the knowledge of Western-based science and technology as a means of strengthening Japan in a world increasingly dominated by Western industrialization and imperialism.

Van Sant earned his doctorate from the University of Oregon. He taught history at Auburn University and at the University of Southern Mississippi before joining the UAB Department of History in 2000. He became an associate professor this fall. His book Pacific Pioneers: Japanese Journeys to America and Hawaii: 1850-1880, published by the University of Illinois Press in 2000, was well received by scholars in the fields of Japanese history and Asian American history.

Van Sant also has published articles and book reviews in major journals and presented papers at conferences, including the Association for Asian Studies, the International Convention of Asia Scholars and the American Historical Association.

Van Sant is a native of Placerville, California.