News

Workshop: The World of Ming Workers
July 20-25, 2026 University of Warwick, UK 

Sponsors: The University of Warwick, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, the Tindall Trust, the James P. Geiss & Margaret Y. Hsu Foundation 

The James P. Geiss and Margaret Y. Hsu Foundation has awarded the Association for Asian Studies $20,000 to fund participation for Ming Studies scholars at the AAS 2026 Annual Conference in Vancouver, Canada.

The James P. Geiss and Margaret Y. Hsu Foundation is a 501(c)(3) private, not-for-profit foundation which encourages and sponsors scholarly research and interpretation of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) in China. The Geiss Hsu Foundation supports studies of the predecessors and successors of the Ming, as well as contemporaries in geographic areas with which the Ming interacted.

The Geiss Hsu Annual Conference Travel Grant will award up to $2,000 each in travel support to scholars specializing in studies of Ming China, as well as scholars who engage in research related to the Ming. Applicants do not need to be a part of an organized session to receive the grant, nor do they need to be current AAS members.

Scholars of diverse rank and affiliation may apply for the grant, but preference will be given to contingent or part-time faculty, students, and independent scholars. The grant will cover expenses such as conference registration, airfare, and hotel. Recipients must be traveling to Vancouver from a distance of 100 miles or more to qualify.

Applicants should prepare the following information prior to filling in the online application form:

• Their AAS account number, even if they do not hold current membership. Applicants can register for a free account, or look up their account number, at the AAS online portal.
• The applicant’s plan for AAS conference participation (350 words maximum). This should include details of session presentation (if applicable), including title and focus, and a proposed plan for networking and engagement in conference activities.
• Explanation of the applicant’s current research and its connection to Ming Studies.
• A short statement of need (350 words maximum).
• CV (2-page maximum, in PDF format)

Please submit all materials by December 18, 2025 via the online application form to receive consideration. Awards will be announced in January 2026. Those who receive a travel grant award must submit a report after the AAS Annual Conference detailing their activities and how the travel grant enabled their participation in the conference. This report will be due within 30 days of conference conclusion.

The Board of Directors of the James P. Geiss & Margaret Y. Hsu Foundation is delighted to announce six awards supporting projects that advance the field of Ming studies:

CONFERENCES

The Great Entanglement:  Reframing East Eurasian Histories in the Longue Durée  | Shoufu Yin, University of British Columbia, and Mara Yue Du, Cornell University | March 11–12 , 2026

This interdisciplinary conference on the intertwined histories of Inner and East Asia will place a particular focus on the entanglements between the Ming and its Mongol and Manchu neighbors. Scholars from around the world will gather at the University of British Columbia to present on four thematic panels and at a concluding forum about the future of the field. Resulting papers will be published in a special magazine issue and in an edited volume.

Technologies of Scholarship, Ming and Beyond | Southeast U.S. Scholars and Friends of Late Imperial China (SEUSS-FLIC) | January 2026 

This daylong event focusing on scholarship and teaching of the Ming will be held in conjunction with the Southeast Conference of the Association of Asian Studies (SEC-AAS) Annual Meeting at Georgia Tech. Twenty scholars will meet in person at daytime sessions, while a smaller group based in Asia will join a virtual evening panel. It aims to help scholars forge new connections and broaden awareness of Chinese culture and Ming studies throughout the Southeastern United States.

OPEN ACCESS PUBLISHING

More UWP / GHF Open Access Books: Two Story Collections | University of Washington Press | March 2026

Since 2021, GHF has supported an open access collection of books published by the University of Washington Press on the Ming dynasty and adjacent periods and territories. This award will allow the Press to add two of their most significant and most often used books in Ming studies to the collection, bringing these resources to a larger audience, facilitating their use in courses, and fostering new avenues for scholarly research.

TRAVEL SUPPORT

Geiss Hsu Annual Conference Travel Grant | Association for Asian Studies, Inc. (AAS) | March 2026

The AAS Annual Conference draws 3,000 participants who network with scholars from all over the world and participate in interdisciplinary dialogues. GHF will fund travel to the March 2026 conference in Vancouver, B.C. for up to twelve scholars specializing in Ming and Ming-adjacent research. The grant is open to graduate students, contingent and part-time faculty, tenure-track faculty, and independent scholars, regardless of membership or participation in a session. 

Ming Studies Conference Travel Grant | Society for Ming Studies | March 2026

GHF will support travel for eight to ten PhD students participating in “Ming Studies in Five” at the Society for Ming Studies’ Annual Meeting, which takes place during the AAS Annual Conference in Vancouver, B.C. Students will present a five-minute talk on their current research and engage with audience members during a poster and social session to gain public-facing presentation experience and increase their professional visibility.

WORKSHOPS

Workshops on Materiality of Ming Books & Manuscripts for Librarians | The Richard C. Rudolph East Asian Library and Library Special Collections, part of the Distinctive Collections Division at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Library | November 2025 – October 2026

An award from the Geiss Hsu Foundation will support a series of online and in-person workshops on the materialities of Ming books and manuscripts for fourteen East Asian studies librarians specializing in Chinese studies in North America. Participants will acquire knowledge and skills to move beyond traditional “one-shot” bibliographic instruction toward a new model of teaching that integrates material analysis into undergraduate and graduate curricula.

The Board of Directors of the James P. Geiss & Margaret Y. Hsu Foundation is delighted to announce nine awards made during the spring application cycle:

SUBVENTIONS

Observing the Unseen: Curiosity and Common Knowledge in Early Modern China by Andrew Schonebaum I University of Washington Press, forthcoming December 2025

Observing the Unseen explores perspectives in early-modern China around such questions as, how did people understand invisible or puzzling aspects of their natural world? How were things investigated and envisioned when they lacked visual context, either because they were everywhere (water, wind, life) or nowhere (dragons, the future)? Schonebaum pursues these topics by examining “practical” literature; local and court histories, gazetteers, and newspapers; and “entertainment” literature. The result is an enlightening sweep through early-modern imaginings and beliefs.

Up the River of Time: The Chinese Painting Tradition of Qingming Shanghe by Cheng-hua Wang I Harvard University Asia Center, Publications Program, forthcoming December 2025

This book is the first study in any language that treats the entire cultural constellation of the more than 100 surviving handscroll paintings with the title Qingming shanghe (Up the River during Qingming), which span six hundred years, from the early twelfth to the mid-eighteenth centuries. The book not only examines the production contexts of different versions in the Song, Ming, and Qing dynasties, but also explores the cultural imaginings that the name Qingming shanghe could evoke. Furthermore, it takes a deeper dive into the artistic, political, and sociocultural realms that these paintings helped shape.

PROJECTS

Book Prizes for Ming Studies I Thomas Kelly and Guojun Wang, Society for Ming Studies

An award from the Geiss Hsu Foundation will allow the Society for Ming Studies to continue awarding book prizes in Ming Studies to increase the visibility of pathbreaking work on Ming China within the broader field of Asian Studies and related disciplines. A committee of senior Ming scholars will review nominated publications, and prizes will be awarded at the Society for Ming Studies’ annual meeting-in-conjunction, held at the Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference.

International Conference: Poetics and Politics of the Human Body in Premodern China I Guojun Wang, McGill University, and Paola Zamperini, Northwestern University

In recent decades, there has been a marked increase in scholarly focus on the human body across various disciplines. In Chinese studies, scholars have examined the human body in contexts including medical, political, military, religious, and legal frameworks. While studies of Chinese literature have traditionally approached themes of death, ghosts, spirits, and resurrected skeletons, recent scholarship has directly investigated the “literary body” in fiction and poetry.  Building on this momentum, this two-day conference at McGill University will explore embodied themes within the context of premodern Chinese literature and culture.

The Journal of the Society for Ming Studies Editorship I Thomas Kelly and Guojun Wang, Society for Ming Studies

An award from the Geiss Hsu Foundation will support efforts to maintain, expand and promote the impact of the Journal of the Society for Ming Studies (Ming Studies) by funding a stiped for the editor of the Journal, who acts as both the academic editor and managing editor. This support will enable the editor to creatively develop the Journal’s digital presence through website design and to explore new publishing opportunities for the currently inactive Ming Studies monograph series as Ming Studies enters its fifth decade.

Manuscript Review Workshop for Relieving the People: Epidemic Management and Confucian Statecraft in Post-Imjin War Korea, 1592-1720 I  Baihui Duan, Lancaster University

Relieving the People examines the environmental, medical, and political aftermath of the Imjin War (1592-1598), which was waged between Japan, Korea, and China. Central to the book is the concept of “relieving the people”, derived from Confucian texts on benevolence and medical manuals. The book details how this principle shaped official and local responses to outbreaks, particularly efforts to aid potential virus carriers such as soldiers, displaced people, the sick poor, and prisoners. Senior scholars in the fields of early modern Chinese medicine, Korean medicine, and environmental history will participate in the manuscript review workshop.

Ming History English Translation Project I Yiming Ha, Pomona College and Hong Kong University

The Ming History English Translation Project (MHETP) is a collaborative project that makes available translations from Chinese to English of portions of the 明史 Mingshi, or the Official History of the Ming Dynasty. Compiled from materials collected over the course of the Ming period (1368-1644) and thereafter, it contains valuable information on Ming government, society, and prominent individuals and is one of the most important sources for the study of Ming history. GHF funding will support website hosting and other technology fees.

Planning Meeting on the Historical Ecology of Villages in Wuyuan County I Ian Miller, St. John’s University; Xin Yu, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; Ye Hua, Hong Kong University; Yiyang Jiang, University of Michigan

A group of established and emerging scholars specializing in environmental history, genealogy, geomantic knowledge, and the spatial arrangement of folk religions will meet to plan the next stage of an intensive fieldwork project on fengshui landscapes in Wuyuan County. Research goals include developing a more nuanced understanding of China’s historical ecology, especially of how it changed in the Ming and early Qing; developing new methodologies for historical ecology; and providing historical baselines and models for contemporary efforts to stabilize the climate and protect local and regional ecologies. 

UTMOST: Uncovering Traces of Ming Occupations through Sociological Theory I Anne Gerritsen, University of Warwick; Sarah Schneewind, UC San Diego; and Ying Zhang, Leiden University

This multi-year project aims to broaden knowledge of Ming society by examining non-gentry workers. The research will explore the potential of using Chicago-school occupational sociology to study work in the Ming through the analysis of a wide variety of primary sources. Organizers will make studies available to researchers and teachers; introduce the framework to historians both inside and outside the Ming field; test and refine the framework for Ming and for the past more broadly; and offer contributions to sociologists of knowledge and others who wish to go beyond Euro-centrism. The project includes a workshop, conference, and publication.

The Society for Ming Studies’ Geiss Hsu Book Prize Selection Committee announced that it has awarded this year’s prize to to Keith McMahon for his book Saying All that Can be Said: The Art of Describing Sex in Jin Ping Mei.

The committee shared the following statement:

In his magisterial Saying All that Can be Said: The Art of Describing Sex in Jin Ping Mei, senior scholar Keith McMahon brings fresh perspectives to one of Chinese literature’s most read and researched novels. First, drawing on his wide-ranging knowledge of literary and medical works related to sex spanning multiple genres from both earlier and later time periods, McMahon offers a sharper historical contextualization of Jinpingmei than is common and does much to show what is distinctive to the novel. Second, building on decades of research, McMahon insightfully analyzes specific language choices throughout the novel, arguing persuasively that the author of Jinpingmei reveled in linguistic exuberance, both playing with words and expressions, and purposely pushing them in innovative and frequently disruptive directions. Third, and perhaps most crucially, McMahon demonstrates thatJinpingmei’s description of sex varies markedly according to the women’s familial/social status; that is, the novel does not depict sexual activities in a monolithic fashion. Past scholarship has shown that the novel as a whole may be considered an extended and often rambunctiously excoriating commentary on distinction and difference in the late Ming period, ranging from clothing, housing, and furnishings to official rank, social standing, and moral probity. In Saying All that Can be Said, McMahon masterfully demonstrates that the same narrative and linguistic flourishes mark Jinpingmei’s treatment of the most intimate elements of life in Ming China. 

The prize will be awarded at the Society for Ming Studies’ Annual Meeting, which takes place at the Association for Asian Studies’ Conference in Columbus, Ohio, on March 14 from 7 – 9 p.m. in the Morrow Room of the Hyatt Regency Columbus.

GHF is pleased to announce that Three Impeachments: Guo Xiu and the Kangxi Court by R. Kent Guy has just been published by the University of Washington Press. The press received a publication subvention from the Foundation in 2023 to support the publication of both the print and open-access versions of the book.