Past Awards

GHF entered into a five-year partnership with the National Humanities Center to support residential fellowships for emerging, mid-career, or senior scholars studying China and its world, during and adjacent to the Ming dynasty. Fellows are assigned private studies with 24-hour access to the Center’s facilities, enjoy meals prepared by the Center’s dining staff, and receive the support of the Center’s dedicated librarians. They may also take part in scholarly colloquia, reading groups, and social activities with other leading scholars from around the world.

This two-year fellowship at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver for a recent PhD recipient in Ming studies will allow the fellow to focus on research with a robust community of Ming and Ming-adjacent scholars, an excellent library collection, and strong connections to East Asia. The fellowship will begin on September 1, 2025, and the fellow will give at least one research talk, present at the Ming & More text-reading group, and organize a one-time workshop, small conference, or talk series at UBC on a topic related to Ming studies.

The National Humanities Center received an award from GHF to support a scholar working on a topic involving Early Modern China in each of three academic years. Xiaolin Duan, associate professor of Chinese history in the Department of History at the North Carolina State University, was appointed to the Geiss Hsu Fellowship at the National Humanities Center for the 2023-2024 academic year.

GHF issued a project award to the National Humanities Center (NHC) in support of a Geiss Hsu Foundation Fellowship for Johan Elverskog for the 2021–2022 academic year. The award allowed the selected scholar to intensively pursue a book-length project at the Center in the company of a stimulating intellectual community while receiving the exemplary research support for which the NHC is known. During the fellowship year, Dr. Elverskog, Dedman Family Distinguished Professor, Professor of Religious Studies at Southern Methodist University, worked on a project examining the history of Uighur Buddhism from 800 to 1800 CE.