Prof. WANG Lianming

Lianming Wang is an art historian specializing in early modern Sino-European exchanges. He holds a Ph.D. (2014) in East Asian Art History and is currently Associate Professor (History of Art) at the Department of Chinese and History, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR. Before this position, Wang worked as a Lecturer (2009-11) at the University of Würzburg, an Assistant Professor (2014-21) of Chinese Art History at Heidelberg University, and a Visiting Professor (2021/22) at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut and the Global Humanities Visiting Professor of East Asian Art and Architecture at the Department of History of Art (Lent Term 2021/22) of the University of Cambridge, and a Balzan Junior Fellow (2022) in Global Environmental History at Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies of the University of Freiburg (Breisgau). His primary areas of interest include but are not limited to global encounters of art and architecture in early modernity, animal trade, exchange of objects and diplomatic gifts, export art, Ming-Qing gardens, and Qing court workshops. Currently, Wang is conducting a Gerda Henkel Stiftung-sponsored project (AZ 47/V/20) on Qing global animals.   

Wang organized workshops and conferences related to Sino-European/Islamic exchanges and World Art Studies, including The Jesuit Legacies: Images, Visuality, and Cosmopolitanism in Qing China (chief organizer, 2015); Reframing Chinese Objects: Practices of Collecting and Displaying in Europe and the Islamic World, 1400-1800 (with Sarah Elisabeth Fraser and Yu Yusen, 2018); the Hengstberger-DFG Joint International Symposium, Before the Silk Road: Eurasian Interactions in the First Millennium BC (chief-organizer, 2019); the Inaugural WAI Workshop Connecting Forces: The Energies of Art, WAI Shanghai, September 15-17, 2023 (with Frank Fehrenbach, Jasmin Mersmann, Fan Baiding); the Joint Workshop World Art History in Museums and Universities, Luxun Academy of Fine Arts, December 18-19, 2023 (with Jiao Lin et al.); the Interdisciplinary Workshop Mapping Animals in Global Spaces, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz - Max-Planck-Institut, January 25-26, 2024 (with Christine Kleiter and Gerhard Wolf); and most recently, the Bei Shan Tang Foundation-funded International Conference Unfolding the Coromandel Screen: Visual Mobility, Inscribed Objecthood, and Global Lives, City University of Hong Kong, November 22-25 (incl. a traveling seminar to Hong Kong and Guangzhou), 2024 (with Mei Mei Rado).

Heidelberg University awarded Wang the Hengstberger Prize (2018) for excellent research. His latest volume, Jesuitenerbe in Peking: Sakralbauten und transkulturelle Räume, 1600–1800 (Winter Verlag, 2020), explores the global entanglements of Jesuit art and architecture in the 17th and 18th centuries. The volume was awarded the Academy Prize (2021) by Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften and shortlisted for the 2021 ICAS Book Prize – German Language Edition.

Education

• Ph.D. (summa cum laude), Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, 2009-14. East Asian Art History.
• Magister Artium, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, 2004-2009. Art History, Classical Archaeology, Art Education, Italian Philology.
• Bilateral exchange with a full scholarship: Università degli Studi di Padova, 2006-07. Art History and Italian Language.                                                                                   

Previous Positions

• Global Humanities Visiting Professor of East Asian Art and Architecture, Department of History of Art, University of Cambridge, U.K., 2021/22
• Guest Professor (External Advisor), World Art History Institute, Shanghai International Studies University, PR China, 2022
• Visiting Professor, Department Prof. Wolf, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut, Italy, 2021-22
• Assistant Professor of Chinese Art History, Institute of East Asian Art History, Heidelberg University, Germany, 2014-21
• Lecturer, Department of South and East Asian Cultural Studies, University of Würzburg, Germany 2009-11

Honors, Stipends & Fellowships (Selection)

• Balzan-FRIAS Joint Junior Fellowship in Global Environmental History, Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies, University of Freiburg, 2022
• Smart Lecturer, Department of Art History of the University of Chicago, AY 2021-22
• Fellow (Akademie-Kolleg), Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, since 06/2021
• Academy Prize, Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2021
• Honorable Mention for ICAS Book Prize – German Language Edition, 2021
• Transcultural Forays: Publication Grant, Karl Jaspers Centre for Advanced Transcultural Studies, Heidelberg University, 2020
• Funding for International Scientific Events, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), 2019
• Funding for International Scientific Events, The Geschwister Supp Stiftung, 10/2019
• Art Histories Fellow, Research Forum Transregional Studies, Berlin; Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut, 2018-19
• Klaus Georg and Sigrid Hengstberger Prize for Outstanding Young Scholar, Heidelberg University, 2018
• Travel Grant, German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), 03/2018; 06/2015
• DAAD Visiting Fellowship, Saint Petersburg State University, 2017
• Eugen Arnold Research Grant, Institute of European Art History, Heidelberg University, 2016
• Heinz Götze Scholarship for Chinese Art History, Heidelberg University, 03/2014;07/2013
• Ricci Institute Research Grant, Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History, University of San Francisco, 03/2013
• Travel Grant, International Balzan Prize Foundation (Senior Prof. Dr. Lothar Ledderose), 2013
• 2-Year Ph.D. Scholarship, Geschwister Supp Stiftung, 2010-12
• Travel Grant, Excellence Initiative of the Graduate Academy, Heidelberg University, 2010
• Publication Subsidy, Heimatmuseum Eibelstadt e.V., Eibelstadt, 2010
• HGGS Fellowship, Heidelberg Graduate School for Humanities and Social Sciences, Heidelberg University, 2009-12
• Master Graduation Stipend, Bavarian State Ministry of Sciences, Research, and the Arts, 2008-09
• Bilateral Scholarship, Università degli Studi di Padova, 2006-07

Projects & Third-Party Fundings

• Core Member, Project "Shared Coasts, Divided Historiographies. Mobilizing Peoples, Ideas, and Artifacts in the East Asian Mediterranean," Getty Research Foundation and Kyushu University, Fukuoka, 2023-25
• PI, CityU Start-up Grant for New Faculty, Project "Mapping Networks and Diversity: The Corpus of Coromandel Screen 1650-1750," 2023-2025 (24 months).
• PI, CityU Strategic Research Grant for the Project "Unraveling Coromandel Screen: Global Trade, Local Network, and Braided Histories of Art," 2023-25 (24 months).
• PI, Project “Transgressive Animals, Territorial Locality, and the Qing Global Histories” (AZ 47/V/20), Gerda Henkel Stiftung, 2021-24 (ongoing)
• Co-applicant/participating scholar, Project “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, 2017-18 (completed)
• Co-applicant/participating scholar, Project “Shifting Paradigms in Art-Historical Training: Connecting Heidelberg University with China’s Leading Museums,” Excellence Initiative II, Heidelberg University, 2016-17 (completed)
• PI, Project “Knowledge, Organization and Cosmopolitanism: Giuseppe Castiglione and the Sino-European Visual Culture at Manchu Court, 1690–1770,” Excellence Initiative II, Heidelberg University, 2015 (completed)

Teaching

Department of Chinese and History, City University of Hong Kong, since 2022/23: CAH4507 Critical Approaches to Art and History; CAH3548 Critical Approaches to Cultural Heritage; CAH2524 Texts in Chinese Art and Culture (renamed "Exploring China: Words, Images, and Objects since Semester B 2024/25); CAH5741 Cultural Heritage Theories and Practices in China; CAH5798 Capstone Project (Kingfisher Feather). 

Department of History of Art, University of Cambridge, Lent Term 2021/22: Seminar: Transcultural Encounters in Chinese Art: The Jesuits and the Qing Court; Roundtable “Cambridge Visual Culture” – The Global Perspectives, Fitzwilliam Museum

Arts College, Sichuan University, PR China, June 26-July 10, 2022: UIP Seminar: Transcultural Encounters in Early-Modern Chinese Art

Institute of East Asian Art History, Heidelberg University, 2014-21: Lecture Class: Art and Material Culture of Early China, 2021; Graduate Seminar: The “Jesuit Centuries”: China and the Arts of Global Encounter, 2020; Graduate Seminar: Picturing Ten Thousand Things: Han Family Shrines and Carved Tombs, 2020; Graduate Seminar: China in the Eurasian World: Power, Technology, Environment, Economy, and Art from Bronze Age to the Middle Period (co-taught), 2019; Graduate Seminar: Art and Archaeology of Early China, 2019; Graduate Seminar: Recarving Early China: Family Shrines and Mortuary Spaces, 2019; Graduate Seminar: Chinese Photography of the Twentieth Century (co-taught), 2019; Graduate Seminar: Monuments and Monumentality in the Qing Political Narratives, 2018; Graduate Seminar: The Kingdom of Khotan: Archaeology, Art, and Material Culture (co-taught), 2018; Graduate Seminar: Paradises in Early Chinese Art, 2017; 3-Day Excursion to Berlin: Kulturforum, Staatsbibliothek Berlin, Neues Museum, 2017; Graduate Seminar: Imperial Peking: Temples, Palaces, and Public Space, 2017; GE Lecture Class: The Cultural Basics of East Asia (co-taught), 2016; Graduate Seminar: Translation Training for Art Historians with China-Focus, 2016; Graduate Seminar: Jesuit Legacies in China: Images, Space and Material Culture, 2015; Graduate Seminar: Die Abstraktion in der chinesischen Kunst (co-taught), 2015; Lecture Class: Introduction to Chinese Funerary Art (co-taught), 2017; Graduate Seminar: Animal Encounters: Art and Political Expression in Qianlong’s Court, 2016; 3-Day Excursion to Amsterdam and Leiden, 2015; Graduate Seminar: Contemporary Chinese Art: Case Study Xu Bing (co-taught), 2015; Excursion to Frankfurt am Main: Museum für Angewandte Kunst, 2015; Excursion to CHINA8 exhibition of Contemporary Chinese Art in Rheine and Ruhr, 2015; Undergraduate Seminar: Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1766) und die Qing-Hofmalerei, 2014; Graduate Seminar: Visual and Material Culture in the Long Eighteenth Century: Asian Imaginaries in German Courts (co-taught), 2014; Excursion to Dresden, Porzellanabteilung, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, 2014; GE Lecture Class: East Asian in the World History II (co-taught), 2021; GE Lecture Class: Introduction to Visual Analysis (co-taught), 2015; 2016; 2017; 2018; 2019; 2020; 2021; Survey I: Ikonographie (co-taught), 2014; 2016; 2020; Survey II: Form und Stil (co-taught), 2015; 2017; 2019; 2021; Survey III: Gattungen und Techniken (co-taught), 2019; 2017; 2015; Survey IV: Methoden und Geschichten (co-taught), 2016; 2018; 2020.

Institute of South and East Asian Cultural Studies, University of Würzburg, Germany, 2009–11: Undergraduate Seminar: Aspekte interkultureller Verständigung zwischen Deutschen und Chinesen, 2009; 2010; Undergraduate Seminar: Selbst- und Fremdbilder im Spiegel deutscher und chinesischer Medien, 2010; Undergraduate Seminar: Landesspezifisches interkulturelles Training mit Schwerpunkt China, 2010; Undergraduate Seminar: Wechselwirkungen im Prozess des Kultur- und Wissensaustausches zwischen Europa und China, 2010; Seminar: China - Kultur und Landeskunde für Nicht-Sinologen, 2009; Intensive Chinese (MA level), 2009; Advanced Chinese (MA level), 2009.

Wang teaches/writes on/reviews publications from the following areas:

(A) Global Art History: Jesuit/Christian art and architecture, Qing court painting, Coromandel screen and its global lives, export art, collecting practices; (B) Sino-European exchange of sciences: botany, hydraulic devices, optical devices, horticulture, architecture, etc.; (C) Histories of Qing frontier, maritime trade, and environment; (D) Animal and Material Cultural Studies: feathers of kingfisher and peacock, shagreen, hornbill skull, pearl, red coral, ivory, etc.

Ph.D. inquiries: If an applicant is seriously interested in pursuing her/his Ph.D. studies under my or my colleagues' supervision in the Department of Chinese and History, I request that she/he refrain from hiring an agent to write inquiry emails. Instead, I encourage the applicant to showcase her/his English proficiency through a published article/essay or a writing sample (e.g., BA or MA thesis or any other type of writing he/she deems appropriate). Additionally, please first submit a condensed version of the research proposal, approximately 800 words in length, which highlights the applicant's interests, methodology, and the key objects she/he wants to deal with in the dissertation. For instance, please include information regarding the location and accessibility of the objects and paintings the applicant intends to study?;  and where they are kept? How many are there? The inquiry emails will be processed only when the applicant fulfills the abovementioned requirements. 

Major scholarly publications

"When the barbarians came by sea: hunting and alienism in entangled Sino-Japanese visual cultures, 1550-1750," World Art 14.3 (2024): 1-33 [Routledge/Peer-Reviewed]. DOI:10.1080/21500894.2024.2385417

"Water and Auspiciousness: Crafting Fairyland at the Qing Court," in Libby Lai-Pik Chan (ed.), The Grand Gathering of the Century. Zodiac Heads from the Yuanmingyuan and Important Treasures, Hong Kong: Indra and Harry Banga Gallery, City University of Hong Kong, 2023, 56-67.

"A World Dotted with Kingfisher Blue: Feather Tributes and the Qing Court," in Alice Bianchi, Lyce Jankowski, eds., Social Lives of Chinese Objects (European Studies in Asian Art and Archaeology 2), Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2023, 228-267. [peer-reviewed]

Co-editor (together with Sarah E. Fraser, Mio Wakita), Women Cross Media: East Asian Photography, Prints, and Porcelain from the Dresden State Art Collection, Heidelberg: arthistoricum.net, Heidelberg University Library, 2022. [open access]

"The Last Gift from Beijing: Jesuit Botanists and the European Quest for Chinese Plants," in Paolo Maurizio, ed., Sulla Via del Catai 22 (2020) - Special Issue: Flora e giardini: influssi e suggestion nei secoli tra Cina e Occidente, 126-55. [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, 807-25.

Jesuitenerbe in Peking: Sakralbauten und transkulturelle Räume 1600-1800 (Heidelberg Transcultural Studies 5), Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2020. ISBN-10: 3825369374.

Reviewed by: Niklas Leverenz, The Burlington Magazine 162 (2020): 820-821; Hang Lin, Ostasiatische Zeitschrift 40 (2020): 58-60; R. Po-chia Hsia, "Art and Architecture in the Jesuit China Mission: Recent Trends in Cultural Transitional Studies," Journal of Jesuit Studies 8 (2021): 490-500; R. Po-chia Hsia, Renaissance Quarterly 74.4 (2021): 1373-1374; David Mungello, Monumenta Serica 69.1 (2021): 288-292; Jacques Scheuer, Nouvelle Revue Theologique 143.1 (2021): 136-137; Rita Unfer-Lukoschik, Das achtzehnte Jahrhundert 45.2 (2021): 302-305; Alina Krüger, Orientierungen. Zeitschrift zur Kultur Asiens 32 (2020): 377-379; Irina Saladin, Rottenburger Jahrbuch für Kirchengeschichte 40 (2021); 377-379; Hans-Heinrich Nolte, Zeitschrift für Weltgeschichte 23.2 (2022): 473-475; Wu Ruoming, "Jingcheng, jiaotang yu gongdian de tuxiang liudong (Beijing, the Churches, and the Moving Images)," China Book Review 12 (2023): 118-122 [in Chinese]; Henning von Mirbach, Academia Sinica-Bulletin of the Institute of Modern History 123 (2024): 137-149.  

"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, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020, 193-215. [peer-reviewed] 

"From Beijing to La Fleche: The Transcultural Moment of Jesuit Garden Spaces," in Anna Grasskamp, Monica Juneja, eds., EurAsian Matters: China, Europe and the Transcultural Objects, 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 Bentman, eds., Raum und Grenze in den China-Studien, Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz, 2015, 189-211.

“Church, a Sacred Event and the Visual Perspective of an 'Etic Observer': An Eighteenth-Century Western-Style Chinese Painting held in the Bibliotheque national de France,” in Rui O. Lopes, ed., Face to Face: The Transcendence of the Arts in China and Beyond, vol. 1, Lisbon: University of Lisbon, 2014, 182-213.

Services outside CityU

• Peer Reviewer, Arts (Open Access Journal, MDPI), since 2023
• Peer Reviewer, Religions (Open Access Journal, MDPI), 2023
• External Ph.D. Examiner, Faculty of Arts, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2023
• External Ph.D. Assessor, Department of History of Art, University of Cambridge, 2022.
• Ph.D. Jury Member, Department of Art History and Archaeology, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, 2019-22.
• Peer Reviewer, Scientific Research and Information Technology (SCIRES it), 2022
• Peer Reviewer, Brill “Asian Studies” Series, 2021.
• Peer Reviewer, Journal of Modern European History, 2021.