Spring Award Selections

The Geiss Hsu Foundation (GHF) is pleased to announce six awards made during the spring application cycle in support of projects that advance scholarship and interpretation of the Ming dynasty and adjacent time periods and peoples.

Arizona State University I Sookja Cho, associate professor of Korean and comparative literature, Arizona State University, with Joonyoun Kim, professor of Chinese language and literature, Korea University

An award supporting Translating the China and East Asian World Portrayed in Choson Korean Literature, an interdisciplinary workshop on China and East Asia in premodern Korean literature, which will take place at Arizona State University on December 8, 2023

China Institute in America

An award supporting the exhibition Treasures for Buddha: The Legendary Offerings from Nanjing Dabao’en Temple at the China Institute Gallery from October 24, 2023 to May 16, 2024, which will showcase objects discovered during the excavations of the Dabao’en Temple in Nanjing 

Modern Language Association of America I Rania Huntington, Executive Committee of the Ming-Qing Chinese Languages, Literature and Culture Forum, Modern Language Association of America

An award supporting membership dues, conference travel, lodging, and registration for at least five scholars of Ming or Ming-adjacent fields to attend the Modern Language Association of America Convention in Philadelphia from January 4-7, 2024

Society for Ming Studies I Thomas Kelly, President, Society for Ming Studies

A three-year award supporting the work of the managing editor of the Journal of the Society for Ming Studies, including funding travel to the Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference

UChicago Global and the University of Chicago Center in Beijing  I Judith Zeitlin, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor in Chinese Literature, University of Chicago

An award supporting a recording and workshop performance of the opera Ghost Village, based on Liaozhai’s Strange Tales by Pu Songling

Universidad de Granada I Antonio José Mezcua López, Universidad de Granada, with Xiaolin Duan, North Carolina State University

An award supporting an interdisciplinary workshop in January 2024 at Universidad de Granada, Spain, that will bring together experts on West Lake in order to produce the first broad-based, edited volume showcasing West Lake from multiple lenses

National Humanities Center Announces Geiss Hsu Fellow

Congratulations to Xiaolin Duan, associate professor of Chinese history in the Department of History at the North Carolina State University, who has been appointed to the Geiss Hsu Fellowship at the National Humanities Center for the 2023-2024 academic year. During her fellowship, Duan will work on an individual research project titled Three Cities of the Early Modern Pacific: Connections and Conflicts between the Ming Dynasty and the Spanish Empire and will have the opportunity to share ideas in seminars, lectures, and conferences at the Center. 

The National Humanities Center is the world’s only independent institute dedicated exclusively to advanced study in all areas of the humanities. Through its residential fellowship program, the Center provides scholars with the resources necessary to generate new knowledge and to further understanding of all forms of cultural expression, social interaction, and human thought. Through its education programs, the Center strengthens teaching on the collegiate and pre-collegiate levels. Through public engagement intimately linked to its scholarly and educational programs, the Center promotes understanding of the humanities and advocates for their foundational role in a democratic society.

New Voices in Ming Studies: Nine Research Presentations

All 2023 Association for Asian Studies Conference attendees are invited to the New Voices in Ming Studies: Nine Research Presentations session, to be held during the Society for Ming Studies’ Annual Meeting on Friday, March 17, 2023 at 7:30 p.m. at the Sheraton Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts. Nine graduate students will give ten-minute research presentations that highlight their primary arguments, key sources, and the ways in which their research connects to the Ming. An initiative of the Society for Ming Studies, the session aims to encourage Ming research and engagement at the junior scholar level and to bring to the fore questions, research materials, and methodologies that productively challenge and enlarge the study of Ming China. The Geiss Hsu Foundation funded the students’ travel to the conference through an award to the Society for Ming Studies.

GHF-Funded Book Wins AAS Prize

The Geiss Hsu Foundation is delighted to share that Aurelia Campbell has been awarded the Bei Shan Tang Monograph Prize in Chinese Art History for her monograph What the Emperor Built: Architecture and Empire in the Early Ming. The prize will be awarded at the Association for Asian Studies Conference 2023 Awards Ceremony on Saturday, March 18 at 10:30 a.m. ET at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston. In 2018, GHF awarded a subvention to the University of Washington Press in support of the book’s publication.

Apply Now for Spring Funding!

GHF is now accepting applications through March 1, 2023.

Project awards fund activities that confirm GHF’s mission, such as exhibitions, performances, K-12 outreach, conferences, and more. 

Subvention awards support not-for-profit presses in publishing print and open-access books that align with the Foundation’s mission and goals.

Image: A GHF project award supported the conference “How Is China Governed? From Ming Statecraft to Xi’s New Era,” which took place at the University of British Columbia from September 9-12, 2022.

GHF at the AAS Annual Conference

Project awards from the Geiss Hsu Foundation to the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) and the Society for Ming Studies will fund travel to the AAS Annual Conference, which takes place in Boston, MA from March 16-19, 2023.

  • AAS offered GHF-funded grants for scholars of the Ming dynasty and Ming-adjacent peoples to attend virtually or in person.
  • With support from GHF, graduate students will present their research during the Society for Ming Studies’ Annual Meeting to encourage Ming research and engagement at the junior scholar level.

Image: An award from GHF allowed graduate students to present their work at the Society for Ming Studies’ Annual Meeting at the 2022 AAS Conference. GHF will support another cohort in March 2023.