Society For Ming Studies
Society For Ming Studies The meeting was called to order by outgoing President Kim Besio.
1. Besio introduced Martin Heijdra, new President of the organization,
and turned the meeting over to him.
2. Heijdra introduced Katy Ryor (Carleton College) the new editor, and
Phillip Kafalas (Georgetown University) the new book review editor of
Ming Studies. Ryor urged people to consider submitting their academic
work to the journal, stating that "we're fast, refereed and we will do
illustrations." Kafalas also solicited both books to be reviewed and
volunteers to do reviews. Books for review should be mailed to his
office address:
Professor Philip A. Kafalas
Dept. of East Asian Languages & Cultures
Georgetown University
Box 571052
Washington, DC 20057-1052
3. Ted Farmer invited submissions for the monograph series published by
Ming Studies.
4. Heijdra opened the floor for nominations to the Board of Directors
for the Society for Ming Studies. Three people were nominated and
elected, one to fill the remaining term of Katy Ryor, who has assumed
editorship of Ming Studies. The three four new members of the board are
Kenneth Swope (Marist College), Tsing Yuan (Wright State University),
and Anne Gerritsen (Warwick University), and Joe Dennis (Minnesota) as
the student representative.
5. Heijdra announced the procedure for those wishing for Ming Studies
sponsorship of an AAS panel. Ming Studies welcomes the opportunity to
sponsor proposals for panels related to Ming topics. Please send panel
proposals to Martin Heijdra
who will then distribute the proposal to board members for approval.
6. Heijdra opened the floor for nominations to the position of
president-elect of the Society for Ming Studies. The president-elect
will assume the presidency at the 2005 AAS meeting. Outgoing board
member Sarah Schneewind (SMU) was nominated and unanimously elected
president-elect. This concluded the business portion of the meeting.
7. Heijdra introduced Tom Nimick (U.S. Military Academy) and Bruce Rusk
(UCLA/Princeton) who discussed their experience using electronic
resources in their research. Three data bases discussed and compared
were the Siku Quanshu, the Academia Sinica's Scripta Sinica, and Taibei
Gugong. Discussed was also the electronic version of the Ming Shi lu,
compiled at the Academia Sinica. Libraries in the US have difficulty
subscribing to this, since it is handled more as an exchange database,
and not many libraries have anything to exchange. Martin was asked to
write to the AS on behalf of the Society for Ming Studies, to see
whether access could be improved. Peter Bol (Harvard) told the group
that individuals are welcome to come to the Harvard-Yenching Library to
use the Ming Shi lu database if available there; subsequent checking
has ascertained it is indeed available there in addition to at the
California system libraries. Other projects announced briefly were a
project at Minnesota (Su Chen) on Ming gazetteers, and the two
complementary GIS projects under way at Harvard and the Academia
Sinica.
8. Soren Edgren (Princeton) presented a review of Quanming fensheng
fenxian keshukao compiled by Du Xinfu and Du Tongshu (Beijing:
Xianzhuang shuju, 2001). Important flaws were pointed out, with some
suggestions on how it still could be useful. The hope was expressed
that this review would be published in Ming Studies.
4. People were again urged to post more items of interest, including
books and conference reports, on the Ming list; clearly, people are
appreciative of the efforts. Items do NOT have to be new. As an example
to follow was cited Tthe Europe in China list. was cited as an example
to follow.
10. The floor was then opened for a lively discussion on topics to be
discussed in future general sessions, especially regarding invitations
to or joint sessions with other groups, both within Chinese Studies
(other dynasties; more subject-specific groups: the Song-Yuan group was
mentioned as perhaps the most obvious candidate, and could include
discussions of the Song-Yuan-Ming transitions book) and outside (World
History). The board committee members will take this upon themselves;
suggestions are welcome. Topics could range from "what do you miss in
Ming Studies" to "what do you wish Ming scholars would pay more
attention to in your field", but we should also feel free to ask the
same questions of them. Also more interest was expressed in wider
educational issues.
The meeting concluded at approximately 9:00 pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Peter Ditmanson
Secretary for the Society of Ming Studies