Past Awards

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.

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 sixth annual SEUSS-FLIC conference, themed “China on the Move,” will take place at UNC-Charlotte from February 28 – March 1, 2025. It will bring together scholars who study historical exchanges and changes brought by the migration of people, goods, and ideas during the Ming dynasty and beyond. Yuhang Li, associate professor of Chinese art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of the award-winning GHF-funded book Becoming Guanyin: Artistic Devotion of Buddhist Women in Late Imperial China, will give the keynote address.

Professor Craig Clunas pioneered the application of social history to the study of the Ming dynasty and Chinese art history. His innovative methodology has positioned the study of the Ming dynasty as one of the most dynamic and engaging areas in both art history and sinology. In recognition of his outstanding scholarship, groundbreaking contributions to the field, and his extensive curatorial and academic career, a group of twenty-three scholars are collaborating to present an equal number of papers at Lincoln College, University of Oxford, in fall 2025.

This conference, held at Arizona State University from April 4 – 5, 2025, investigates the role of the Ming Empire (1368-1644) as a cultural and geopolitical imaginary that actively contributed to the formation of a textual world during the early modern era (16th-19th centuries). It aims to understand the Ming as a multilayered and co-constructed civilization, along with its participatory role in global early modernity, without casting the empire as a prelude to capitalism, colonization, and globalization. 

An award from GHF supported the SEUSS-FLIC Annual Conference at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Organized around the theme of “Family, Friendship, and Community,” panel sessions focused on the benefits of familial and community networks and the tensions that sometimes arose between these relationships and obligations to family, society and the state. Mark Halperin, Professor of Chinese at the University of California, Davis, gave a keynote address titled, “The Late Autumn of a Patriarch.”

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.

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.