Past Awards

Graduate students and early-career scholars will attend an in-person, workshop-style conference to foster discussion about border-crossing over the longue durée history of late imperial China. Scholars across academic ranks in Asia and North America will circulate their papers in advance for in-depth discussion, and research will be shared as an open-source publication. The conference will be held in two parts, with meetings in New York and Teipei.

Bandits in Print reexamines Ming vernacular literature and print culture through the influential Ming novelShuihu zhuan (The Water Margin). Moving away from ultimately unanswerable questions about authorship and urtext, Scott Gregory focuses on the editor-publishers who decided the shape the novel would take as they crafted their print editions. By placing each edition firmly within its own socio-historical context, Bandits in Print shows that in the Ming dynasty, a novel like The Water Margin was not so much as a single literary work but a complex family of print editions, each with its own meaning.

Chinese Autobiographical Writing contains full translations of works by fifty individuals that illuminate the history and conventions of writing about oneself in the Chinese tradition. From poetry, letters, and diaries to statements in legal proceedings, these engaging and readable works provide vivid details of life as it was lived from the pre-imperial period to the nineteenth century. With an introduction and list of additional readings for each selection, this volume is ideal for undergraduate courses on Chinese history, literature, religion, and women and family.

This exhibition will feature 100 of the most important masterworks in the genre of flower and bird painting spanning 500 years of the Ming and Qing dynasties. It will examine how coded imagery in these stunning depictions of flora and fauna was used to transmit meanings—central to Chinese art and culture—that link the natural world and the human experience. A fully-illustrated bilingual exhibition catalogue, an international scholarly symposium on the art and culture of the Ming and Qing dynasties, and public and education programs will explore associated themes. GHF funds support the New York presentation of the exhibition.

The Association for Asian Studies will offer grants of up to $2,000 for scholars of the Ming dynasty and Ming-adjacent peoples to attend, either virtually or in person, the Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference in Boston. Preference will be given to contingent and part-time faculty, students, and independent scholars.

This interdisciplinary, workshop-style conference aims to develop a deeper understanding of, and foster discussion and debate about, Ming history, global experience with empire in the early modern period, and the role of historical precedents in Chinese governance today. Papers will be presented on four panels, each built around the pre-circulation of papers and designated commentators. The conference will bring together scholars from around the world, and the best papers will be published as an edited volume or one or more special issues of recognized scholarly journals. GHF funds support travel, per diem, and accommodation for graduate student and early-career academics, and cover the costs of the keynote session.

Master Medium analyzes the contents, format, and circulation of books in the late Ming and early Qing and explores how they functioned to connect readers to one another and to the material world. Kile uses the analytic of media to consider writing and materiality together, thereby elucidating issues as varied as spatial ideology, performance practices, gender roles, and the genre of short vernacular fiction. Kile argues that Li Yu’s idiosyncratic magnum opus, Xianqing ouji (Leisure Notes) was a unique literary form that he forged by combining his expertise in a variety of fields with his interest in generic and stylistic experimentation. Although Leisure Notes has often used by historians as a core source on many topics, no one has considered this pivotal text as a composite whole.

Nine graduate students will give ten-minute presentations on their research at the Society for Ming Studies’ Annual Meeting, highlighting their primary arguments, key sources, and the ways in which their research connects to the Ming. The initiative aims to encourage Ming research and engagement at the junior scholar level, and bring to the fore questions, research materials, and methodologies that productively challenge and enlarge the study of Ming China.