In March 2023, three PhD students took part in the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) annual conference in Boston. While in Boston, Students and faculty were able to tour the Chinese galleries at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston with Dr. Gillian Zhang, an OSU Alumnus who currently works as a Curatorial Research Associate. 

Maika Kagawa Bahr

PhD student Maika Kagawa Bahr presented a paper entitled “Shanghai’s ‘Ice Cream’ in the 1930s: Liu Na’ou’s Short Story ‘Attempted Murder’ As Cinematic Fiction,” While in Boston, Maika visited exhibitions at the Harvard Art Museums, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and the MFA Boston. Maika’s trip was generously supported by a Sara Jane Pyne Memorial Scholarship and a Symposium Conference Award from the department of History of Art.

Allie Mickle

PhD candidate Allie Mickle presented a paper entitled, "The Promise of Automation: Factory Work in Cao Fei’s Artist Cinema," in the panel she co-organized with OSU alum Eunice Uhm, "Representation of Labor in Global Asias." While in Boston, she also visited the collections of the MFA Boston and the Peabody Essex Museum. Her trip was supported by the ASC Graduate Research Small Grants Program and Sara Jane Pyne Memorial Scholarship.

Yifan Li

PhD candidate Yifan Li presented a paper entitled “Object, Inscription, Reproduction: The Cleverness of an Eighteenth-Century Chinese Jade Pebble” for the panel “Craft and Innovation in the Chinese Material and Dramatic Arts.” At AAS, Yifan also accepted the Best Graduate Student Paper Prize on East and Inner Asia for his 2022 AAS paper "The New Architectural Wonder: Reproducing the Nanjing Yangzi River Bridge in Mao-Era China." 

In addition to attending panels, Yifan participated in the Korean Object Study Workshop at the Harvard Art Museums and explored the “Power and Perspective: Early Photography in China” exhibition at the Peabody Essex Museum. This trip was supported by a Sara Jane Pyne Memorial Scholarship Award and funding from the East and Inner Asia Council of AAS.