Past Awards

This companion volume to The Book of Swindles: Selections from a Late Ming Collection presents sensational stories of scams that range from the ingenious to the absurd to the lurid, many featuring sorcery, sex, and extreme violence. Together, the two volumes represent the first complete translation into any language of a landmark Chinese anthology, making an essential contribution to the global literature of trickery and fraud. An introduction explores the geography of grift, the role of sex and family relations, and the portrayal of Buddhist clergy and others claiming supernatural powers. Opening a window onto the colorful world of crime and deception in late imperial China, this book testifies to the enduring popularity of stories about scoundrels and their schemes.

University of Washington Press will add three titles to the collection of UW Press / Geiss Hsu Foundation Open Access Books: Jiang Yonglin’s translation of The Great Ming Code / Da Ming lü, first published in 2005; the annotated translation of Further Adventures on the Journey to the West, prepared by Qiancheng Li and Robert Hegel and published in 2020; and the 2021 annotated edition of The Lady of Linshui Pacifies Demons, translated by Kristin Ingrid Fryklund, with an introduction and notes by Mark Edward Lewis and Brigitte Baptandier.

By examining the ways that food and drink shaped, and were shaped by, a wide range of cultural practices in imperial China, the workshop will highlight the Ming dynasty’s pivotal place in their development. This in-person workshop will also provide a venue for participants to hone their papers prior to submitting them for publication in a special issue of the open-access, peer-reviewed Journal of Chinese History, which will be guest-edited by the workshop’s organizers.

The award funds an interdisciplinary workshop in January 2024 at Universidad de Granada, Spain, that will bring together experts on West Lake in order to produce the first broad-based, edited volume showcasing West Lake from multiple lenses.

This workshop reconsiders the significance of critical writings about theater and musical performance in early modern China (1500 – 1800). How did artists, intellectuals, and critics reflect on experiences of watching or listening to live performance? How did the act of writing about theatrical spectatorship become an artform in and of itself? What might these texts offer for theater and performance studies across the world today? 

GHF funds supported a recording and workshop performance of the opera Ghost Village, based on Liaozhai’s Strange Tales by Pu Songling. Composer Chen Yao (Central Conservatory of Music), conductor Chen Lin (Tianjin Julliard School), and répétiteur Wei-En Hsu (Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts) took part.

This cross‐cultural, interdisciplinary inter‐Asia workshop will provide an opportunity to share new information and perspectives on primary sources and cutting‐edge research on China and the World in Chosŏn Literature. Bringing together global scholars in literature, history, cultural and religious studies, the workshop aims to promote an interdisciplinary and transnational dialogue that will advance understanding of this complex subject.

This workshop reconsiders the significance of critical writings about acting, singing, and theatrical performance in China (c.1200–1850). How did artists, intellectuals, and critics reflect on experiences of watching or listening to live performance? How did the act of writing about spectatorship become an artform in and of itself? What might these texts offer for theater and performance studies across the world today? The central question these texts address —namely, “what is the function of Chinese theater?”—has ramifications for students of Chinese history, literature, and thought more broadly.