Past Awards

The Woven Image: The Making of Mongol Art in the Yuan Empire paints a drastically different picture of the visual and material worlds of the Mongols in their imperial court. It focuses on fabric images to demonstrate that in the eastern half of their world empire known as the Yuan (1271-1368), the Mongol rulers created a completely new system of the arts. This new system subverted the traditional hierarchies of visual and material arts that had thrived in the various dynasties that previously ruled East Asia. 

Xu Xiake stands as China’s most distinguished traveler and travel writer, whose extensive journeys through Ming-dynasty China offer a unique window into the era’s geography, history, and cultural traditions. This new, fully annotated English translation includes maps and illustrations, allowing readers to follow Xu’s routes. It will be indispensable for scholars of Chinese history, geography, and travel writing and will bring Xu Xiake’s extraordinary journeys to a broader audience. The award from GHF will supported both print and open-access editions.

This conference, held at Arizona State University from April 4 – 5, 2025, investigated 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 aimed 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. 

In collaboration with the Princeton University Library, Rare Book School offered a new course on Books in Ming China as part of the School’s 2024 course roster. Intended for scholars already familiar with Ming studies, this course introduced participants to the collection of some 2,000 Ming books held at the Princeton libraries. Students conducted research in Princeton’s Gest Collection of East Asian Materials and generated ideas for research projects in Ming Studies. 

In exploring games and practices of play across social and historical contexts, this volume examines representations of gender, class, materiality, and imaginations of the nation in Chinese and Sinophone contexts, while addressing ways in which games inhabit, represent, disrupt, or transform cultural and social practices. Both analog and computer games are represented in analyses that draw connections between the traditional and the modern and between local or regional and higher-order economic, cultural, and political structures. Among the topics explored are rock carvings of board games, weiqi cultures, scholars’ and courtesans’ games, gambling, games based on literature, video-game politics, and appropriation of Chinese culture in video games.

Funding supported membership dues, conference travel, lodging, and registration for at least five scholars of Ming or Ming-adjacent fields to attend the Modern Language Association of American Conference in Philadelphia from January 4-7, 2024. Preference was given to graduate students, contingent faculty, independent scholars, faculty at poorly resourced institutions, and international scholars.

To support emerging scholars, the Society for Ming Studies hosted a roundtable on new books by international Ming scholars at the Society’s meeting-in-conjunction at the Association for Asian Studies Conference in Seattle. Funding from GHF allowed three junior scholars who are based at institutions outside of North America and have recently released books with non-US publishers to travel to the conference to participate in the roundtable.

A three-year award will support the work of the managing editor of the Journal of the Society for Ming Studies and fund his travel to the Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference.