James P. Geiss & Margaret Y. Hsu Foundation

06/19/2026

The UCLA Library's GHF-supported series "Training the Trainers: Materiality of Ming Books and Manuscripts" runs through July 27! Register for their weekly lectures here: https://www.library.ucla.edu/.../the-textual.../

06/12/2026

Mark your calendars to find out more about opportunities for scholars at the National Humanities Center -- including the Geiss Hsu Fellowship!

AAS Members are invited to register now for this Digital Dialogues information session on July 29—join us online to learn about fellowships at the National Humanities Center, including special opportunities for scholars!

https://bit.ly/AAS-NHC

06/05/2026

Check out this new GHF-supported title, published this week!

"'Qingming shanghe' ('Up the River during Qingming'), dubbed China’s 'Mona Lisa'...is so revered that to this day there exist more than one hundred handscroll paintings with this title, including the original and later versions produced during the late Ming (ca. 1550s-1644) through the High Qing (ca. 1680s-1795). "Up the River of Time" is the first study in any language to treat the entire cultural constellation of 'Qingming shanghe' as a painting tradition."

Link: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674302617 🎨

05/29/2026

💻 Did you know? Since 2004, GHF has supported digital projects that make Ming dynasty topics accessible to scholars and students around the world!

From an early-2000s interactive CD 💽 (now online) to more recent crowdsourced dictionaries, a host of digital resources are available here to support your research on the Ming: https://geissfoundation.us/past-awards/?award_type=digital .

Visit the post for more.

05/23/2026

We're thrilled to announce our spring awards supporting five projects and five subventions. Congratulations to China Institute of America, the Corning Museum of Glass, CHINOPERL, University of Washington Press, Washington University in St. Louis, Columbia University Press, University of British Columbia Press, and University of Hawaii Press!

Read about their projects and publications here: https://geissfoundation.us/2026/05/15/spring-2026-awards/

05/22/2026

Don't forget! The final May lecture in the UCLA Library's GHF-supported series "Training the Trainers: Materiality of Ming Books and Manuscripts" is on Memorial Day from 4-5:30 pm PDT. Register here: https://www.library.ucla.edu/visit/events-exhibitions/the-textual-construction-of-genealogies-in-the-ming-dynasty-05-25-26/

Too busy picnicking to attend? Mark your calendars for their weekly lectures, held through July 27!

05/22/2026

Mark your calendars! The application portal for the National Humanities Center's 2027–28 Fellowship competition--which includes one Geiss Hsu Fellowship for a scholar of the Ming--opens July 1.

In the meantime, you can read about the 2025–2026 NHC-GHF Fellow Ruiying Gao's research project here: https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/humanities-natural-world/

Stay tuned for more details and the official application link this summer!

Complex relationships between humans and the natural world are revealed in depictions of fauna and flora.

05/15/2026

This GHF-supported title is newly released in print and is freely available as an open access ebook as a part of the UW Press / Geiss Hsu Foundation Open Access Book Collection!

"In this most inclusive selection of Xu Xiake’s travel diaries to date, newly translated entries are supplemented by extensive annotations, an excellent introduction, and highly useful appendixes. This authoritative edition will surely provide much pleasure as Xu guides the reader through some of China’s most famous landscapes during the late Ming period."

— Richard E. Strassberg, author of Inscribed Landscapes: Travel Writing from Imperial China

Link to the print book: https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295753706/wading-barefoot-through-a-mountain-stream/

Link to UW Press / GHF Open Access Book Collection: https://uw.manifoldapp.org/projects/project-collection/uwp-ghf-oa?page=2

05/08/2026

How did the emergence of the international silver market impact trade between the Ming Dynasty and other parts of the world? Find out in this episode of the "Becoming Historians" podcast, in which University of North Carolina Pembroke Professor James Hudson interviews Xiaolin Duan of NC State, who was on campus to give a GHF-supported talk: https://uncphistorydepartmentpodcasts.podbean.com/e/episode-5-ming-china-and-global-trade/ .

How did the emergence of the international silver market impact trade between the Ming Dynasty and other parts of the world? Dr. Hudson discusses this and other questions with his guest of the week.

05/03/2026

Don't forget! The first GHF-funded lecture in the UCLA Library's "Materialities of Ming Books and Manuscripts" series is May 4! Register at: https://www.library.ucla.edu/visit/events-exhibitions/training-the-trainers-materiality-of-ming-books-and-manuscripts