Prof. Ang Choulean is not only a leading ethnologist in Cambodia but also a highly acclaimed scholar outside the country. Having studied in France, he returned to Cambodia during the Civil War there, took charge of reopening the Royal University of Fine Arts, and made a significant contribution to the reconstruction of Cambodian culture and to the preservation and restoration of its monuments. He was appointed Director of the Department of Culture and Monuments at the Authority for the Protection and Management of Angkor and the Region of Siem Reap (APSARA), which is responsible for the Angkor Monuments, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1992, and rendered great service to revive Cambodian culture after the destruction which it had suffered.

Prof. Ang was born in Kompong Khleang in 1949. After graduating from the Royal University of Fine Arts in 1974, he studied at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociales (EHEES) in France, and there obtained a doctorate in ethnology. His research approach, based on the ethnological empathy which has been fostered by his native wind, sun, and rain, is to bring each cultural archetype to the surface by following the clues provided in rites and the culture of everyday life, and then recombine them in a new synthesis. His efforts to place Cambodian ethnology into an anthropological context to reveal its origin, genealogy and authenticity deserve high praise.

One of his masterpieces is his dissertation, "Les êtres surnaturels dans la religion populaire khmère" (Supernatural Beings in Khmer Popular Religion)(1986), which was widely acclaimed as a great work that opened up a new horizon in Cambodian ethnology. He sees the religious rituals of folk beliefs as the results of the accumulation, fusion and interweaving of faiths, from animism (spirit worship), through the formerly popular Mahayana Buddhism and Hinduism to the currently widespread Theravada Buddhism. For example, in the "Paddy Mountain" ritual, time, space and fertility are represented in microcosm and blended into one. At first glance, these rituals may seem simply to follow Buddhist beliefs, but in fact, they are often a fusion of animism and Buddhism.

Many young Cambodian academics have participated in the persistent and prolonged field work undertaken by Prof. Ang in pursuit of religious rites, and have received his guidance. While taking up a teaching post at the Royal University of Fine Arts, reopened in 1990, he also became a departmental director of APSARA in its early stage. He was therefore in charge of conserving the historical monuments during the chaotic period after the Civil War, and achieved much protecting monuments on the verge of collapse by appealing to the international community through the UNESCO.

Since 2005, Prof. Ang has moved his focus to an educational campaign conducted in the Khmer language under the slogan of the "Khmer Renaissance". He places the foundation of Khmer tradition and culture in the framework of everyday village life, and encourages awareness of this native culture. He has been invited to many international symposia, and has examined, described and presented the unique but universal raison d’etre of Cambodian ethnology.

Prof. Ang has not only been a successful ethnologist with a notable academic record, but also has contributed to the revival of his native Cambodian culture, has been instrumental in the reopening of the Royal University of Fine Arts, and has played an important role in creating APSARA, putting it in operation and forming its international framework.

For all these achievements, Prof. Ang Choulean is truly worthy of the Grand Prize of the Fukuoka Prize.

• 13:30 - 15:30, Sun., September 18
• ACROS FUKUOKA(with a seating capacity of 500)

Prof. Cho Dong-il is an eminent scholar of Korean literature. One of his major works, the six-volume Hanguk munhak tongsa (A Comprehensive History of Korean Literature) is regarded as a monumental landmark in Korean literary studies. However, his academic interest extends far beyond the national border to the entire zone where Chinese characters are used, and he is also acclaimed internationally as a leading scholar in comparative literature and civilization, with such publications as Dong Asia munhaksa bigyoron (A Comparative Study of East Asian Literary Histories) and Dong Asia munmyeongron (A Theory of East Asian Civilization).

Prof. Cho graduated from one of the most prestigious universities in Korea, Seoul National University, and received a Ph.D. in literature. Since 1968, he has taught as a professor for more than four decades, at Keimyung College, Yeungnam University and Seoul National University, and at the same time, has lectured at a dozen major Korean and overseas (Japanese, Chinese and French) universities. It is said that no scholar in Korean literature, whether established or novice, who has not been influenced by him.

Prof. Cho began his academic work with research on classical Korean oral tradition, and expanded his interests to embrace medieval Chinese literature, Korean classics and modern literature. The results of these researches have been compiled in Hanguk munhak tongsa（A Comprehensive History of Korean Literature）, published in 1982 - 1988. This work has particular significance in the history of Korean literary studies, because he introduces his own idea about historical periodization - based on literary history rather than traditional political divisions - in order to examine the course of Korean literary history dynamically in a new sequence, with a comprehensive approach involving social history and the history of ideas. The significance of the work was recognized by its being chosen as one of 26 Korean representatives in the 100 Books on East Asian Liberal Arts by the East Asian Publishers' Conference (2011).

Although the first sign of his mastery of comparative literary history was apparent in Hanguk munhak tongsa (A Comprehensive History of Korean Literature), its full development was presented in Dong Asia munhaksa bigyoron (A Comparative Study of East Asian Literary Histories) (1993). In this book, he compares the literary histories of Korea, Japan, China and Vietnam - countries belonging to the cultural zone defined by Confucianism and Chinese characters - and tries to identify individual national particularities and universal principles. It was translated into Japanese in 2010, and has attracted many Japanese readers.

Since he was young, Prof. Cho has also had a special interest in the East Asian civilization that shares Chinese script, Confucianism and Buddhism as a common heritage for the countries in the region. This subject became his principal interest after he retired from full-time teaching, and the fruit of the work is his Dong Asia munmyeongron (A Theory of East Asian Civilization) (2010). Here he encourages development of "East Asian studies" and an "academic community of East Asian studies".

Prof. Cho’s outstanding achievement is not only in the area of Korean literature but also in comparative literature and civilization in East Asia, and he is still actively pursuing these subjects. For this distinguished contribution, Prof. Cho is very worthy of the Academic Prize of the Fukuoka Prize.

• 17:00 - 19:00, Sat., September 17
• ACROS FUKUOKA(with a seating capacity of 500)

As an architectural historian and conservator, Prof. Niels Gutschow has made a remarkable contribution to the conservation, restoration and revival of historical buildings. In particular, he has developed conservation programmes for ancient and religious buildings in Nepal, India and Pakistan, involving not only conventional stylistic criteria but also detailed analysis and understanding of their religious rites, original construction methods and designs. On the basis of this he has established an interdisciplinary conservation theory and system. From there he has expanded his scope to include neglected religious sacred sites and buildings which are on the verge of collapse, thus greatly stimulating progress in conservation theories and techniques, and so influencing conservation practice across Asian and in Japan.

Prof. Gutschow was born in Hamburg in 1941. He spent time in Japan during 1962-63 as an apprentice carpenter, learning conservation techniques in situ at Inuyama Castle and Fudo-do in Koya-san Kongobuji, and so establishing the foundation on which he later built his expertise. In 1970, he graduated from the Architecture Department, Darmstadt University of Technology. He became a member of the first bilateral German-Nepalese conservation project team in 1971, and pioneered the preservation of urban beauty and the development of museum cities. In 1973, he received a Ph.D. in architecture from Darmstadt University of Technology: his research was on Japanese castle towns. He has been involved from the outset in the project to conserve ancient cities in the Kathmandu Valley, and has also continued the comparative study of architecture and cities.

His work in Nepal became a driving force for first German and then other Western specialists to begin empirical on-site examinations of Nepalese historical urban monuments, which encouraged them to communicate more widely with Asian colleagues, and led to research into, and the conservation of, these unique Asian timber-and-brick buildings. The Hindu/Buddhist monuments of three cities of Kathmandu Valley on which Prof. Gutschow had worked on - Bhaktapur, Kathmandu and Patan - were collectively designated as the first Asian UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979.

He has developed a conservation methodology through profound insight and knowledge gained from his own lifelong experience, and this methodology has evolved to cover an extensive interdisciplinary scope, focusing not only on architectural history but also reaching to the adjacent fields of religious studies and anthropology. His achievement is embodied in an important book, Benares (2006) in which he discusses, from architectural and anthropological points of view, the interaction between religious rituals and urban space in the sacred city of Indian Hinduism and Buddhism, Varanasi (Benares). Currently he is a professor of the Cluster of Excellence "Asia and Europe in a Global Context" at Heidelberg University, and pursues in an interdisciplinary framework, both theoretical investigations and case studies of interaction between architecture and urbanism.

Starting from learning Japanese carpentry skill firsthand, Prof. Niels Gutschow has developed a deep insight into historical architecture and urbanism in South Asia, and has raised the academic research pursuits of preserving and restoring buildings and cities to the higher level of philosophical activity. He has successfully led the way towards discovering a comprehensive value of architectural heritage. For such a remarkable contribution, he is worthy of the Arts and Culture Prize of the Fukuoka Prize.

• 13:30 - 15:30, Sat., September 17
• ACROS FUKUOKA(with a seating capacity of 500)