Past Awards

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.

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.

An award from GHF will allow the Society for Ming Studies to expand the responsibilities of the editor of the Ming Studies journal, who is an elected and semi-permanent member of the Society for Ming Studies’ executive committee. The editor will creatively develop the journal’s digital presence, explore new publishing opportunities for the Ming Studies Monograph Series, work to cement the relationship between the academic society and the journal, and strengthen their positions as leading international venues for scholarship on all aspects of Ming China.

Place has emerged as a major focus and concept in recent scholarship on Chinese art, architecture, and material culture, and has been redefining approaches to landscape and its representation, to cities and the built environment, and to objects and their materiality. This conference connects scholars from Canada, the US, and the UK whose work foregrounds place as a critical term across different media and time periods, with a focus on the Ming-Qing period. It will result in greater awareness of how related questions are examined by colleagues and graduate students working from adjacent fields, and articulate how current research centered on “place” is changing the field of Chinese art, visual, and material culture. A selection of conference papers will be published in a thematic issue of a peer-reviewed journal.

On the eve of the sixteenth-century economic transformation and the age of exploration that was to propel China into the modern world, the scholar-official Lu Rong (1436-94) recorded his observations of contemporary society in Miscellaneous Records from the Bean Garden. Within its genre, Bean Garden is unusual in its author’s willingness to express admiration, frustration, and outrage toward his subjects. Mark Halperin has selected about a quarter of the pieces from the original work, arranging them in topical categories that provide a richly textured first-hand observation of late imperial China designed for course use with undergraduates.

The Southeast US Scholars and Friends of Late Imperial China (SEUSS-FLIC) held an in-person conference at Vanderbilt University in conjunction with a slate of virtual panels organized by the University of Tennessee Knoxville. Panels explored the ways in which China’s late imperial period created the foundation for China’s identity today, and addressed issues in Chinese history, literature, and culture in the context of global connections and comparisons. The conference aimed to forge connections between scholars from institutions within driving distance of Nashville, Tennessee, who may encounter barriers to attending other regional and national conferences.