News

GHF is now accepting applications through September 1, 2022.

GHF funding supported these new and forthcoming titles:

• Approaches to Teaching The Plum in the Golden Vase (The Golden Lotus), edited by Andrew Schonebaum (Modern Language Association of America)
• The Culture of Language in Ming China: Sound, Script, and the Redefinition of Boundaries of Knowledge by Nathan Vedal (Columbia University Press)
• The Fragrant Companions by Li Yu, translated by Stephen Roddy and Ying Wang (Columbia University Press)
• Localizing Learning: The Literati Enterprise in Wuzhou, 1100–1600by Peter K. Bol (Harvard Asia Center Publications Program)
• A Ming Confucian’s World: Selections from Miscellaneous Records from the Bean Garden by Lu Rong, translated and introduced by Mark Halperin (University of Washington Press)
• The Promise and Peril of Things: Literature and Material Culture in Late Imperial China by Wai-Yee Li (Columbia University Press)
• The Substance of Fiction: Literary Objects in China, 1550–1775 by Sophie Vlopp (Columbia University Press)
• The Tibetan Nun Mingyur Peldrön: A Woman of Power and Privilege by Alison Melnick Dyer (University of Washington Press)

We are pleased to welcome Pauline Yu, President Emeritus, American Council on Learned Societies, to the Geiss Hsu Foundation Board. Dr. Yu will begin her three-year term in September.

Mid-career, senior, and emerging scholars from all areas of the humanities with a strong record of peer-reviewed work are encouraged to apply. In partnership with the James P. Geiss and Margaret Y. Hsu Foundation, the Center welcomes fellowship applications from scholars engaged in the study of early modern China and its world, during and adjacent to the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). 

Scholars from all parts of the globe are eligible; stipends and travel expenses are provided. Fellowship applicants must have a PhD or equivalent scholarly credentials. Fellowships are supported by the Center’s own endowment, private foundation grants, contributions from alumni and friends, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Located in the vibrant Research Triangle region of North Carolina, the Center affords access to the rich cultural and intellectual communities supported by the area’s research institutes, universities, and dynamic arts scene. Fellows enjoy private studies, in-house dining, and superb library services that deliver all research materials.

Applications are due by 11:59 p.m. ET, October 6, 2022. For more information and to apply, please visit this link. 

The National Humanities Center does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sex, gender identity, religion, national or ethnic origin, handicap, sexual orientation, or age. We are dedicated to fair treatment, diversity, and inclusion.

The National Humanities Center is one of the world’s leading centers for advanced study and the only independent institution of its kind dedicated exclusively to the humanities. For over four decades, the Center has encouraged excellence in scholarship and teaching while constantly affirming the vital importance of the humanities in American life.

Two GHF-funded books were recently recognized for excellence:

Plum Shadows and Plank Bridge: Two memoirs about Courtesans (Columbia University Press, 2020), edited and translated by Wai-yee Li, won the Association for Asian Studies’ Patrick D. Hanan Book Prize for Translation, given biennially to an outstanding English translation of a significant work in any genre originally written in Chinese or an Inner Asian Language, from any time period. 

What the Emperor Built: Architecture and Empire in the Early Ming (University of Washington Press, 2020) by Aurelia Campbell was named honorable mention for the Society for Architectural Historians’ 2022 Alice Davis Hitchcock Book Award for the most distinguished work of scholarship in the history of architecture published by a North American scholar.

Congratulations to Professors Li and Campbell!

Residential Fellowships at the National Humanities Center

The Geiss Hsu Foundation is pleased to announce a three-year partnership with the National Humanities Center to provide residential fellowship support to a scholar of early modern China and its world, beginning with the 2023–24 academic year and concluding in 2025–26. Applications open July 1.

For more information about the partnership and the application process, visit this link.

The Board of Directors of the Geiss Hsu Foundation is delighted to announce awards made during the spring application cycle. These awards support publications, exhibitions, and conferences that advance scholarship and interpretation of the Ming dynasty and adjacent time periods and peoples.

Project Awards

Exhibition

China Institute in America: Flower on a River: The Art of Chinese Flower and Bird Painting, 1368-1911 – Masterworks from Tianjin Museum and Changzhou Museum 

Conferences

University of British Columbia, Centre for Chinese Research: How is China Governed? From Ming Statecraft to Xi’s New Era 

University of British Columbia, Department of Art History, Visual Art & Theory: Site – Image – Object: Rethinking Place in Chinese Visual and Material Culture

Other

Society for Ming Studies: Promoting the Journal of the Society for Ming Studies

Subvention Awards

Open-Access Publishing

Cornell East Asia Series, an imprint of Cornell University Press: Bandits in Print: The Water Margin and the Transformations of Vernacular Fiction by Scott Gregory 

University of Washington Press: Chinese Autobiographical Writing: An Anthology of Personal Accounts, translated by Patricia Buckley Ebrey, Cong Ellen Zhang, and Ping Yao