Dr Lianming Wang

organizational unit

Akademie-Kolleg

Address
Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz - Max-Planck-Institut
Via Giuseppe Giusti 44,
50212 Firenze

Curriculum Vitae

 

Regular and Temporary Academic Appointments

2021-2022  Global Humanities Visiting Professor of East Asian Art and Architecture, University of Cambridge, Department of Art History (October – September, 1 year)

2021-2022  Visiting Professor, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut (September – February, 6 months)

2014-2021  Assistant Professor, Heidelberg University, Institute of East Asian Art History 

2009-2011  Lecturer, University of Würzburg, Department of South and East Asian Cultural Studies

 

Education 

2009-2014  Ph.D. (summa cum laude), Heidelberg University, East Asian Art History

2004-2009  Magister Artium (final grade: 1.8), University of Würzburg, European Art History, Art Education, Classical Archaeology, Italian Philology

Winter 2006  Term abroad, Università degli Studi di Padova, Department of Art History

2001-2002    Donghua University, Shanghai, undergraduate terms in Art Design

 

Honors and Academic Prizes

2021 Academy Prize, Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities – for the monograph Jesuitenerbe in Peking: Sakralbauten und transkulturelle Räume, 1600–1800 (Heidelberg: Winter, 2020); shortlisted for 2021 ICAS Book Prize – German Language Edition

2018 Klaus Georg and Sigrid Hengstberger Prize for Outstanding Young Scholar, Heidelberg University

 

Fellowships and Research Grants

Balzan-FRIAS Junior Fellowship in Global Environmental History, Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies, University of Freiburg (March – September 2022)

Funding for International Scientific Events, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) – for conducting the International Hengstberger Symposium “Before the Silk Road: Eurasian Interactions in the First Millennium BCE,” Internationales Wissenschaftsforum Heidelberg, Heidelberg University (October 28–29, 2019)

Partial funding for international conference, the Geschwister-Supp Stiftung – for conducting the International Hengstberger Symposium “Before the Silk Road: Eurasian Interactions in the First Millennium BCE,” Internationales Wissenschaftsforum Heidelberg (IWH), Heidelberg University (October 28–29, 2019)

Travel stipend, Getty-Heidelberg Dissertation Workshop and European-U.K. Research, the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles – for travel to Lombardy, Italy (August 1–15, 2019)

Art Histories-Fellow, Program “Art Histories and Aesthetic Practices,” Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (in cooperation with FU Berlin, Prof. Dr. Karin Gludovatz, 2018-19)

Publication Grant, Karl Jaspers Centre for Advanced Transcultural Studies (2018) – for publishing Jesuitenerbe in Peking: Sakralbauten und transkulturelle Räume in Peking 1600–1800, Heidelberg: Winter, 2020.

Travel Grant, German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) – for attending the Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, New Orleans (March 22–24, 2018)

DAAD Visiting Fellowship, Department of Oriental and African Studies, Saint Petersburg State University, Russia (September 1–21, 2017)

Research Grant, Eugen Arnold Foundation, awarded by the Institute of European Art History, Heidelberg University (2016)

Travel Grant, German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) – for attending the AAS-in-Asia “Asia in Motion: Ideas, Institutions, and Identity,” Academia Sinica, Taipei (June 22–24, 2015)

Project Grant “Knowledge, Organization and Cosmopolitanism: Giuseppe Castiglione and the Sino-European Visual Culture at Manchu Court, 1690–1770,” Excellence Initiative II “Mobility in International Research Collaborations,” Heidelberg University (April–December, 2015)

Heinz Götze Scholarship for Chinese Art History – for attending the AAS-Annual Conference, Philadelphia (March 27–30, 2014) •    Heinz Götze Scholarship for Chinese Art History – for conducting the field research in Beijing and Hangzhou, China (July 1–18, 2013)

Travel Grant, Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History, University of San Francisco (March 2-29, 2013)

Travel grant, International Balzan Prize Foundation (2013) – for attending the Third International Graduate Symposium on History of Art, Peking University

Two-Years Full Ph.D. scholarship, Geschwister-Supp Stiftung (2010-12)

Travel Grant, Excellence Initiative of Graduate Academy, Heidelberg University – for conducting field study in Macao, Hangzhou and Beijing (September–October, 2010)

Publication Grant, Heimatmuseum Eibelstadt e.V., Eibelstadt, Würzburg (2010)

HGGS Fellowship, Heidelberg Graduate School for Humanities and Social Sciences, Heidelberg University (2009-12)

Master Studies Graduation Stipend, Bavarian State Ministry of Sciences, Research and the Arts (2008-09)

Bilateral Scholarship, Università degli Studi di Padova, Italy (2006-07)

 

Research Projects and Third-Party Grants

Principle Investigator, Research fund for the Project “Transgressive Animals, Territorial Locality and the Qing Global Histories” (Ref. AZ 47/V/20), Gerda Henkel Stiftung, € 19,559 (2021-24; ongoing)

Co-applicant/participating scholar, “Objects of Wonder in Place: Collecting and Displaying Chinese Porcelain in European and Persian Cabinets in the Early Modern Period,” Excellence Initiative II, Heidelberg University, €28,000 (2017-18; completed)

Co-applicant/participating scholar, “Shifting Paradigms in Art-Historical Training: Connecting Heidelberg University with China’s Leading Museums, Excellence Initiative II, Heidelberg University, €24,000 (2016-17; completed)

Principal investigator, “Knowledge, Organization and Cosmopolitanism: Giuseppe Castiglione and the Sino-European Visual Culture at Manchu Court, 1690–1770,” Excellence Initiative II, Heidelberg University, April – December, €9,000 (2015; completed)

 

Panels, Workshops, and Symposia Organized

Invited observer, Workshop “Visual Materials in Local Gazetteers,” Dept. II. Artifacts, Actions, Knowledge, Max Planck Institute for the History of Sciences, Berlin (December 10-18, 2020)

Research Travel Coordinator, Getty-Heidelberg Dissertation Workshop and European-U.K. Research, Phase II, funded by the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (July 22–August 6, 2021)

Chair, Panel 14 “Transregionale Wissensorte,” Wissensorte in China. XXX. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Vereinigung für Chinastudien e.V., Centre for Asian and Transcultural Studies, Heidelberg University (November 15–17, 2019)

Chief organizer, International Hengstberger Symposium “Before the Silk Road: Eurasian Interactions in the First Millennium BC,” Internationales Wissenschaftsforum Heidelberg (IWH), funded by the Klaus-Georg and Sigrid Hengstberger Award, the Geschwister Supp Stiftung, and the DFG (October 28–29, 2019)

Research Travel Coordinator, Getty-Heidelberg Dissertation Workshop and European-U.K. Research, Phase I, funded by the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (July 21–August 10, 2019)

Co-organizer, 8. Forum East Asian Art History, Heidelberg University (October 4–5, 2019)

Co-organizer, International Workshop “Reframing Chinese Objects: Collecting and Displaying in Europe and the Islamic World, ca. 1400–1800,” Karl-Jasper Centre for Advanced Transcultural Studies, Heidelberg University (December 7–8, 2018)

Co-organizer/ chair, 6. Forum East Asian Art History, FU Berlin (June 16–17, 2017)

Chief organizer, Panel “Between Art and Knowledge: New Perspectives on Qing Scientific Drawings,” 25th International Congress of History of Science and Technology, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (July 23–29, 2017)

Participating scholar, “Four Rivers Fountain and the Explosion of the Water Iconography,” research seminar “Water Forms: History, Gestalt and Semantics of an Element,” Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut (October 9–16, 2016)

Chief organizer, “The Jesuit Legacies: Images, Visuality, and Cosmopolitanism in Qing China” – International Workshop in Celebration of the 300th Anniversary of Giuseppe Castiglione’s (1688–1766) Arrival in Beijing, Karl Jasper Centre for Transcultural Studies, Heidelberg (December 13, 2015)

Chair/discussant, Panel III “Global Entanglements of East-Asian Export Artifacts,” International conference “Histories of Japanese Art and their Global Contexts: New Directions,” Heidelberg University (October 22–24, 2015)

Chair/discussant, Panel, “Artistic Senses: Experiencing Space and Representation,” 4. Forum East Asian Art History, Universität Zürich (May 29–30, 2015)

Invited participant, Object Study Workshop, National Taiwan University (August 24–29, 2015)

Co-organizer, Panel “Art, Technology, and Knowledge: Transmission and Transformation of Ming Qing Chinese Printing,” 14th International Conference on the History of Science in East Asia (14th ICHSEA), Paris (July 6–10, 2015)

Chief organizer, Panel “Giuseppe Castiglione and Qing Visual Narrative Revisited, 1730–1770,” Annual Conference of Association for Asian Studies (AAS), Philadelphia (March 27–30, 2014)

Chief organizer/chair, Panel “Image, Artifacts and Visual Object: New Perspectives on Jesuit Artistic Legacy in China, 1600–1800,” The 32nd German Oriental Studies Conference, Universität Münster (September 23–27, 2013)

Co-organizer, Interdisciplinary Workshop “Die vierte Macht im Staat: Das Selbstverständnis der Medien in Deutschland, Russland und China,” Universität Würzburg (April 12, 2010)

Chief organizer, 4th Sino-German Workshop “Wissenstransfer Gestern und Heute” – In Memory of the 400th Anniversary of Matteo Ricci’s (1558–1610) Death, Universität Würzburg (July 9, 2010)

 

 

Selected publications and lectures

Publications (Selection)

Jesuitenerbe in Peking: Sakralbauten und transkulturelle Räume, 1600–1800 [Jesuit Legacy in Beijing: Sacred Buildings and Transcultural Spaces, 1600–1800] (Heidelberg Transcultural Studies 5), Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2020. ISBN-10: 3825369374. 68 Euro; Awards: 2021 Academy Prize, Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities; shortlisted for ICAS Book Prize 2021 – German Language Edition; reviewed by: Niklas Leverenz, in: The Burlington Magazine 162 (2020), 820-21. Hang Lin, in: Ostasiatische Zeitschrift 40 (2020), 58-60. R. Po-chia Hsia, “Art and Architecture in the Jesuit China Mission: Recent Trends in Cultural Transnational Studies,” in: Journal of Jesuit Studies 8 (2021), 490-500. David Mungello, in: Monumenta Serica 69 (2021), no. 1, 288-92. Jacques Scheuer, in: Nouvelle Revue Théologique 143-1 (2021). Rita Unfer-Lukoschik, in: Das achtzehnte Jahrhundert 45/2 (2021), 302-05.

Die Kreuzkapelle zu Eibelstadt: Eine kunsthistorische Untersuchung zu Architektur und Ausstattung (Heimatbogen 17, with a Postscript by Franz Schicklberger), Eibelstadt: Heimatverein, 2010; reviewed by: Winfried Romberg, in: Würzburger Diözesangeschichtsblätter 74 (2012), 308-09.

Co-editor (with Iris Hekeler), Mitteilungsblatt Kunstgeschichte Ostasiens im deutschen Sprachraum, Volume 41., 2013.

“The Last Gift from Beijing: Jesuit Botanists and the European Quest for Chinese Plants,” in: Sulla Via del Catai 22 (2020) – Paolo Maurizio (ed.), Special issue “Flora e giardini: influssi e suggestion nei secoli tra Cina e Occidente,” 126-155. [peer-reviewed]

“Sacred Images and Space of the Jesuit Churches in Beijing,” in: K.K. Yeo (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Bible in China, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020, 807–825.

“A World Dotted with Kingfisher Blue: Feather Tributes and the Qing Court,” in: Alice Bianchi, Lyce Jankowski, Social Lives of Chinese Objects (European Studies in Asian Art and Archaeology 2), Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2021, 129-146 [peer-reviewed; in press].

“How Water Became Landscape: Fountains and Hydraulic Devices in Early Modern China,” in: Uwe Fleckner, Yih-Fen Hua, Shai-Shu Tzeng (eds.), Memorial Landscape. World Images East and West (Mnemosyne 6. Schriften des Internationalen Warburg-Kollegs), Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020, 193–215. [peer-reviewed]

“From Beijing to La Flèche: The Transcultural Moment of Jesuit Garden Spaces,” in: Anna Grasskamp, Monica Juneja (eds.), EurAsian Matters: China, Europe and the Transcultural Objects (Transcultural Research: Heidelberg Studies on Asia and Europe in a Global Context), Stuttgart: Springer, 2018, 101–124.

“Europerie und Macht. Akteure und Publika der transkulturellen Bilderbauten aus der Regierungszeit des Kaisers Qianlong,” in: Matthias Weiß, Eva-Maria Troelenberg, Joachim Brand (eds.), Wechselblicke. Zwischen China und Europa 1669–1907, Berlin: Michael Imhof, 2017, 56–77.

“Stadt, Öffentlichkeit und der jesuitische Urbanismus: Das Beispiel der Südkirche in Peking,” in: Roland Altenburg, Esther Bentmann (eds.), Raum und Grenze in den China-Studien, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2015, 189–211.

“Church, a Sacred Event and the Visual Perspective of an ʻEtic Observerʼ: An Eighteenth-Century Western-Style Chinese Painting held in the Bibliothèque nationale de France,” in: Rui O. Lopes (ed.), Face to Face: The Transcendence of the Arts in China and Beyond 1 (Historical Perspective), Lisbon: University of Lisbon, 2014, 182–213. 

Review of “Richard E. Strassberg, Stephen H. Whitemann, Thirty-Six Views: The Kangxi Emperor’s Mountain Estate in Poetry and Prints. Poems by the Kangxi Emperor with Illustrations by Shen Yu and Matteo Ripa, Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 2016,” in: Orientations, November/December issue, 2017, 126–129.

“Vorwort,” in: Jochen Wiede, Fernöstliche Gartenkultur: Geheimnisvolle Gärten Chinas und Japans, Wiesbaden: Matrix, 2018, S. 8–10.

Review of “Ching-Ling Wang, Praying for Myriad Virtues: On Ding Guanpeng’s ‘The Buddha Preaching’ in the Berlin Collection, Dortmund: Kettler, 2017,” in: The Burlington Magazine 160, October 2018, 871–872.

Review of “Hartmut Walravens (ed.), George Robert Loehr jr. (1892-1974) und die Forschung über die Pekinger Jesuitenkünstler. Quellen und Materialien in deutscher Sprache, Norderstedt: BoD, 2019,ˮ in: Arts Asiatiques 75 (2020), 194–195. [in English]

Review of “Li-Chun Lee, Körper bilden: Körperdarstellungen in der europäischen und chinesischen Medizin (Image, Bd. 159), Bielefeld: transcript, 2019,ˮ in: Bochumer Jahrbuch zur Ostasienforschung 43, 2020. [in English; in press]

Review of “John Finlay, Henri Bertin and the Representation of China in Eighteenth-Century France (New York and Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge), 2020,ˮ in: Orientations 52.3 (May/June 2021), 102-104.

Review of “Petra ten-Doesschate Chu, Jennifer Milam (eds.), Beyond Chinoiserie. Artistic Exchange between China and the West during the Late Qing Dynasty (1796–1911) (East and West, Volume 4), Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2019,” in: Journal of Asian History 55.2 (2021). [in press]

Review of “Dorothee Schaab-Hanke, Konfuzius in Oranienbaum Chinoise Darstellungen zum Leben des Meisters und ihr kulturhistorischer Hintergrund, Grossburg: Ostasien Verlag, 2020,“ in: Journal of Asian History 55.1 (2021), 169-73. [in English]

Review of “Anthony E. Clark, China Gothic. The Bishop of Beijing and His Cathedral. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2020”, in: East Asian Journal of Science, Technology, and Medicine 53-54 (2021). [in press]

“Jesuit Legacy in Beijing: Sacred Buildings and Transcultural Spaces,” in: TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research, 19.04.2021, https://trafo.hypotheses.org/28106

“Dotting with Kingfisher Blue,” in: https://www.renaissanceskin.ac.uk, King’s College, London, 2018.

 

Presented Conference Papers (Selection)

“Celebrating Urban Spectacles: Asian Elephants, Territorial Locality, and the Transcultural Practices in Early-Modern China and Europe,” Bilderfahrzeuge Conference “Political Cargo. Image Vehicles in Global Exchange,” Warburg Haus, University of Hamburg, October 29-30, 2021.

“The Last Gift from Beijing: The Jesuits and the Eighteenth-Century Sino-European Botanical Exchanges“, Virtual International Conference “Cosmopolitan Pasts of China and the Eurasian World,” LMU Munich, June 11-12, 18-19, 2021.

“Jesuitengärten als Wissensorte im Peking der Frühen Neuzeit”, Wissensorte in China. XXX. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Vereinigung für Chinastudien e.V., Centre for Asian and Transcultural Studies, Heidelberg University, November 15–17, 2019.

 “Kaiser Qianlongs Tiersaal und das Phänomen des transkulturellen (Bild-)Denkmals”, Symposium “Jenseits des Paradieses – Das Tierbild in alten und neuen Medien,” Muthesius Kunsthochschule Kiel, June 13–15, 2019.

“Enframing Chinese Plants: Jesuit Botany and the 18th Century Physiocraticism,” International Workshop “Reframing Chinese Objects: Collecting and Displaying in Europe and the Islamic World, ca. 1400–1800,” Karl-Jasper Centre for Advanced Transcultural Studies, Heidelberg University, December 7–8, 2018.

“Materialized Identities: Kingfisher Feathers and Qing Material Culture,” International Study Days Workshop “Chinese Objects and their Lives,” Association Française d’Études Chinoises, Paris, June 15–16, 2018.

“Kingfisher Feathers and Qing Material Culture,” Workshop: “Uncovering the Animals: Skin, Fur, Feathers 1450–1700,” King’s College London, June 29, 2018.

“A Global ‘Cake’ Without Asia? Three Jesuit Buildings in Beijing Revisited,” Panel: The Role of Missionaries in Asian and American Artistic Interaction, RSA Annual Meeting, New Orleans, March 22–24, 2018.

“Fountains and Jesuit Water Landscape in Eighteenth-Century Beijing,” Conference “New Research on the History of Chinese Gardens and Landscapes,” University of Sheffield, October 26–27, 2017.

“Presenting the Mastiff: Animal Encounters and Qing Authority in Frontier Areas,” Second Conference of the European Association for Asian Art and Archaeology, August 24–27, 2017.

“Exotic Plants and Transplanted Spaces in Eighteenth-Century Beijing,” Panel: Travelling, Collecting, Gardening, Workshop “Transplanted Places: Garden Design and Shifting Cultural Geographies, 1650–1800 – Transregional Perspective,” FU Berlin, June 22–24, 2017.

“Hybrid Spaces Reconsidered: Knowledge, Identity and Publicity in Eighteenth-Century Jesuit Gardens in Beijing,” Panel: Chinese Architecture and Gardens in a Global Context (chaired by Tracy G. Miller), Annual conference of Architectural Historians (SAH), University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, June 7–11, 2017.

“How Water Became Landscape: Fountains and Hydraulic Devices in Early Modern China,” International Warburg Seminar “Memorial Landscapes: World Images East and West,” (Phase II), Warburg Haus, Hamburg University, April 3–8, 2017.

“The Shaman Hounds: Animal Portraits and Qing Authority in Frontier Areas,” Panel: Power, People, and Animals in Asia (part 3), Annual Conference of American Association of Asian Studies (AAS), Toronto, March 16–19, 2017.

“Water as Landscape: Fountains and Hydraulic Devices in Early Modern China,” International Warburg Seminar “Memorial Landscapes: World Images East and West,” (Phase 1), National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, September 26–30, 2016.

“Ten Noble Hounds: Animal Portraiture in the Qianlong Court,” Panel: New Perspectives on Qing Material Culture (chaired by Nixi Cura), 21st Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies, Saint Petersburg, Russia, August 23–28, 2016.

“European Cityscapes on Chinese Plates,” joint Symposium “Cross Media Porcelain,” Panel: Global Porcelain, Heidelberg University, State Art Collections Dresden (SKD), March 31–April 1, 2016.

“Giuseppe Castiglione and Children’s Portraits in the Qianlong Court,” International Workshop “Jesuit Legacies: Images, Visuality, and Cosmopolitanism in Qing China,” Karl Jasper Centre for Transcultural Studies, Heidelberg University, December 13–14, 2015.

“Ten Noble Hounds: Compositional Features of Animal Painting in Qianlong’s Court,” Conference: Fifty Years East Asian Art History in Heidelberg, Karl Jasper Centre for Transcultural Studies, Heidelberg, December 12, 2015.

“How did the Chinese Perceive European Prints? The Transmedia Copying in Ming-Qing Visual Culture from a Macro Perspective,” International Conference of Ming-Qing Studies, Academia Sinica, Taipei, December 10–11, 2015.

“From La Flèche to Beijing: The Transcultural Moment of Jesuit Garden Spaces,” 12th International Verbiest Symposium “Chinese Catholicism and missionaries from the Low Countries from the 17th to the 20th century in China,” Catholic University of Leuven, August 31-September 3, 2015.

“Shijunquan tu ji qinggong shoupu de liangge mianxiang (Ten Noble Hounds: Two Facets of Qing Animal Painting),” International Conference: Shiqu baoji guoji xueshu yantaohui (Qianlong Emperor’s Precious Collection of the Stone Moat), The Palace Museum, Beijing, September 17–18, 2015.

“Giuseppe Castiglione and Manchu Portraiture Revisited,” 14th International Congress for Eighteenth -Century Studies, Panel S104 “Pictures in Motion: Portraiture around the World during the Long Eighteenth Century,” Erasmus University Rotterdam, July 27–31, 2015.

“Castiglione and His Contributions to Jesuit Sacred Space in Beijing,” AAS-in-Asia “Asia in Motion: Ideas, Institutions, Identities,” Panel “Intercultural Spaces in Eighteenth Century Beijing,” June 22– 24, 2015.

“The Jesuits and the Construction of the European-Style Gardens in Early Modern Beijing,” International Conference: Eurasian Objects: Art and Material Culture in Global Exchange, 1600– 1800, International Balzan Foundation, Heidelberg University, November 21–23, 2014.

“La costruzione dello spazio sacro ai tempi di Martini,” Convegno Internazionale: Martino Martini, uomo di dialogo (1614-1661). La sua opera sulla Cina nella cultura tedesca e italiana, chaired by Noël Golvers, Centro Studi Martino Martini, Trento, October 15–17, 2014.

“Visualizing the Power: Missionary Artists and the First French Garden in Early Modern China,” The First Conference of European Association for Asian Art and Archaeology, Palacký University Olomouc, September 25–27, 2014.

“Sacred Space, Ritual and Royal Identity: Jean-Denis Attire and the First European Garden,” Annual Conference of Renaissance Society America, Panel: Early Modern Gardens, Tamed Nature as the Mirror of Power – Section 1, chaired by Laurent Odde, New York, March 27–29, 2014.

“Picturing the Feast of the Sacred Heart: Missionary Artists and Their Impacts on Chinese Visual Experimentation Outside the Qianlong Court,” Annual Conference of Association for Asian Studies, Panel: Giuseppe Castiglione and Qing Visual Narrative Revisited, 1730–1770, chaired by Richard E. Vinograd, Philadelphia, March 27–30, 2014.

“Architektur, Stadt und Öffentlichkeit: Zur jesuitischen Topgraphie in Rom, Macau und Peking,” XXIV. Jahrestagung der DVCS “Raum und Grenze,” Panel: Raum in Kunst und Architektur,” University of Würzburg, November 8–9, 2013.

“Picturing the Feast of the Sacred Heart: An Eighteenth-Century Chinese Church Painting in the Bibliothèque national de France,” 32nd German Oriental Studies Conference, Panel: Image, Artifact and Visual Object: New Perspectives on Jesuit Artistic Legacy in China, 1600–1800, University of Münster, September 23–27, 2013.

“Rethinking Evonne Levy’s Propaganda-Theory: The Jesuit Architectural Legacy in East Asia,” International Conference: Portugal and Europe in Global Perspective, 1450–1900, Panel: (Mis-) understanding Religious Art in Colonial Encounters, Centro de História de Além-Mar, Lisbon, July 17–20, 2013.

“Picturing the Funeral of the Lord of Heaven: Further Research on the Screen Painting ‘The Feast of Sacred Heart’ from a Comparative Perspective,” [in Chinese], International Conference Comparing China and the West: Bringing the Disciplines Together, Peking University, July 12–14, 2013.

“Appropriating the West: ‘Celebrating the Sacred Heart’ and the Transformation of Qing Narrative Painting”, 84. KSK: Estrangement and Appropriation: Art in Movement, Universität Zürich, June 13–16, 2013.

“An Eighteenth-Century Chinese Church Painting: Its Western Elements and an Etic Viewer’s Perspective,” 2. Forum East Asian Art History, Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz, May 31–June 1, 2013.

“Church, ‘Sacred Event’ and the Visual Perspective of an ‘Etic Observer’: An Eighteenth-Century Chinese Western-Style Painting in the Bibliothèque national de France,” International Conference: Face to Face. The Transcendence of the Arts in China and Beyond, University of Lisbon, April 3–5, 2013.

“Reading Jesuit Architectural Iconography: Symbol, Language and Logic (in Chinese)”, 3rd International Graduate Symposium on History of Art: The Logic of Image and Its Interpretations, Peking University, October 19–21, 2012.

“Architektur, Platzwahl und ‘Sacred Strategy’: Zur Topographie der Jesuitenbauten im früh-neuzeitlichen Rom, Macau und Peking”, 1. Forum East Asian Art History, FU Berlin, July 14–17, 2012.

“Botschaften, Identitäten und ‘Module’: Zur Sakralarchitektur der Jesuiten im Kaiserreich China,” Annual Meeting of China AG, Universität München, February 4, 2012.

“The Jesuits and Their Contribution to Ecclesiastical Art in Early Modern China and Macao: Concepts and Issues,” 3rd Heidelberg International Colloquy on East Asian Art History, International Balzan Prize Foundation, Heidelberg University, July 14–17, 2011.

“Die Rätsel der Bilder: Analyse der Architekturzeichnungen zu einer Jesuitenkirche im Peking des 18. Jahrhunderts,” Annual Forum of Heidelberg Graduate School for Humanities and Social Sciences, Heidelberg University, May 27–28, 2011.

“The Architectural Drawings of an Eighteenth-Century Jesuit Church (Nantang) in Beijing: Analysis and Reconstruction,” 9th International Forum “Le Vie dei Mercanti,” Naples/Aversa, April 9–11, 2011.

 

Invited Public Lectures (Selection)

“Fountains, Jesuit Hydrology, and the Making of Qing Political Landscape”, 2021-22 AY Smart Lecture, the Department of Art History, the University of Chicago, January 13, 2022. [planned]

“The Last Gift from Beijing: the Jesuit Gardens and the Sino-European Botanical Exchanges”, Lecture Series of the Research Program “4A Laboratory: Art Histories, Archaeologies, Anthropologies”, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, July 12, 2021. [Online]

“Revisiting the Jesuit Gardens in Eighteenth-Century Beijing,” Lecture Series “Visual and Material Perspectives in East Asia,” The University of Chicago, May 7, 2021. [Online]

“Vom Sala dei Cavalli zum Tiersaal: Die Genese der monumentalen Tierbilder am Hof des Kaisers Qianlong (reg. 1735–1796),” Lecture series “Kunst (geht) auf Reisen – Ostasien trifft Europa,” University of Würzburg, January 27, 2021. [Online]

“How Water Became Landscape: Fountains and Hydraulic Devices in Early Modern China,” Institute of Art History, Waseda University, Japan, January 22, 2021. [Online]

“Ten Noble Hounds and the Qing Transcultural Spaces” [in Chinese], Sun Yat-sen University Zhuhai Campus, December 11, 2020. [Online]

“Fountains and Hydraulic Devices in Ming-Qing China: A Peepbox Print from the Kobe City Museum” [in Chinese], Central Academy of Fine Art, Beijing, March 15, 2018.

“The Beijing Catholic Churches during the Ming and Qing Periods: Images, Architecture and Material Culture” [in Chinese], Department of History, Catholic Fujen University, June 24, 2015.

“Castiglione’s Early Career” [in Chinese], National Palace Museum, Taipei, June 22, 2015.

 

Current research project: Transgressive Animals, Territorial Locality, and Qing Global Histories, funded by Gerda Henkel Stiftung (2021-2024)

Animal enjoyed a momentous status in China’s early-modern histories as both the subject and object of long-distance commercial interactions and vibrant global encounters. Defined as “transgressive animals,” ranging from Central Asian steeds and peacocks to Mediterranean coral and hornbill skull, shagreen, pangolin scale, and numerous feather tributes from South Asia, their trans-territorial and indeed global movement deconstructed existing ecological, sociobiological, and even geopolitical regimes. This interdisciplinary project seeks to explore China’s early-modern global histories through an analytical “animal lens.” Approaching four themes connected to transgressive animals – space and built environment, monumentality, materiality, and knowledge –, it attempts to discuss the wide array of agencies that animals performed in shaping economic, diplomatic and artistic connections in terms of their types of movement – physical, conceptual, commercial and intellectual. To be specific, the project explores the multi-layered copying and translation of images, issues of collecting and display as well as the entangled histories of material practices that relate to transgressive animals.