Directory

Dr. Sung’s research focuses on early modern, modern and contemporary art of East Asia, cultural interactions between Asia and Europe, and gender and visual culture. Her monograph Women of Chinese Modern Art: Gender and Reforming Traditions in National and Global Spheres, 1900s–1930s (De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2024), examines the contribution of female embroiderers, and traditionalist calligraphers and painters to the development of Chinese modern art and cultural diplomacy on the global stage in the early twentieth century. She is the author of several book chapters and journal articles on Chinese women artists active in the 20th and 21st centuries and is a contributor of articles on modern and contemporary Chinese art to Grove Art/Oxford Art Online. She is co-principal investigator of “Global Makers: Women Artists in the Early Modern Courts,” a digital humanities project to encourage and support sustained, interdisciplinary consideration of the role Early Modern women played in the hands-on production of visual and material culture in the courts of Europe and Asia (c. 1400-1750). She is one of the research leaders of the international “TEAM (Teaching, E-learning, Agency and Mentoring)” for AWARE (Archives of Women Artists Research and Exhibitions). Dr. Sung’s research has been supported by grants from the College Art Association, Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, Kress Foundation, and the Metropolitan Center for Far Eastern Art Studies, and SECAC.

Before joining UA, Dr. Sung was assistant curator at the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) where she worked on Empresses of China’s Forbidden City, an exhibition organized by PEM, National Museum of Asian Art (Freer|Sackler) and the Palace Museum, Beijing. She held the position of project coordinator for the international research and digital humanities project “A New Approach to the Popular Press in China: Gender and Cultural Production, 1904–1937.” Dr. Sung is also a visual artist and an independent curator. She earned her Ph.D. in humanities, and MFA in visual arts from York University, Toronto.

Courses Taught

• ARH 555: Asian Seminar: Global Makers: Women Artists in Early Modern Courts (co-taught with Dr. Tanja Jones)
• ARH 555: Asian Seminar: Modern and Contemporary Chinese Art (Graduate seminar)
• ARH 455: Topics in Asian Art
• ARH 355: The Art of Imperial China
• ARH 356: Art of Japan
• ARH 357: Prints and Print Culture in East Asia
• ARH 354: Art of South and Southeast Asia
• ARH 254: Survey of Art III: Asian Art

Select Publications

• Women of Chinese Modern Art: Gender and Reforming Traditions in National and Global Spheres, 1900s–1930s. Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2024.
• “Enacting Care: Feminist Interventions and Social Activism in the Work of Hong Kong Artist Jaffa Lam.” Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art (Special Issue: “Bodies in Action: Performance Art in China”) vol. 10, no. 1 & 2 (2023): 107–29.
• “Flowers of the Four Seasons: Women Artists in Late Imperial China.” In Hand-Held: The Four Seasons in Chinese Painting, edited by Katherine Anne Paul, 40–51. Birmingham, AL: Birmingham Museum of Art, 2023.
• “Chinese Women Artists in the Early Twentieth Century” in AWARE (Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions) research database (October 2021).
• “Redefining Female Talent: The Women’s Eastern Times, The Ladies’ Journal, and the Development of ‘Women’s Art’ in China, 1910s–1930s.” In Women and the Periodical Press in China’s Long Twentieth Century: A Space of their Own?, edited by Michel Hockx, Joan Judge, and Barbara Mittler, 121–140. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
• Grove Art Online / Oxford Art Encyclopedia entries: “China, Twentieth Century: Exhibitions,” “Shenbao (newspaper),” “Yin Xiuzhen,” and “Zao Wou-Ki [Chao Wu-chi; Zhao Wuji].”
• “The Birth of a Database of Historical Periodicals: Chinese Women’s Magazines in the Late Qing and Early Republican Period.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, Vol. 33, No. 2 (Fall 2014). Co-authored with Liying Sun, and Matthias Arnold.

Selected Presentations

• December 2023. “The Transcultural Embroidery Practice of Chinese Artist Shen Shou.” Invited lecture at Chiba University Art Education Program, Chiba, Japan.
• October 2022. “Art In Conversation: Women Artists in Late Imperial China.” Birmingham Museum of Art.
• September 2021. “The Transcultural Art Practice of Chinese Embroiderer Shen Shou (1874–1921).” Feminist Art History Conference, organized by American University, Washington D.C.
• March 2021. “’Who Would Understand the Joy of the Fish?’: Jin Taotao’s Painting Treatise and Gender Repositioning in the Elite Art World.” Association for Asian Studies (AAS) Annual Conference, online (Panel organizer, chair, and presenter).
• March 2021. “Where Are the Women in Contemporary Chinese Art?” Guest lecture presented at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. (Online)
• December 2020. “Why Have There Been No Great Chinese Women Artists?” Public webinar for TEAM: Teaching, E-learning, Agency, Mentoring, sponsored by AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions. (Online)
• February, 2020. “Affirming Their Roles: An All-Women Art Society in 1930s Shanghai.” presented at CAA 2020, Chicago, Illinois.
• October, 2018. “Women Artists as Valuable Citizens: An All-Women Art Society in 1930s Shanghai.” Presented at SECAC 2018, Birmingham, Ala.
• July 2017. “The Global Experience and Patriotic Virtue of Artist Jin Taotao (1884–1939).” Presented at the International Conference on “Chinese Women in World History,” Academia Sinica, Taipei.
• March 2017. Panel organizer and presenter for the panel “Leaving Their Footprints: Asian Artists in Early Twentieth-Century Paris.” Association of Asian Studies (AAS) Annual Conference, Toronto.
• April 2016. Panel organizer and presenter for the panel “Chinese Women Artists Making Their Mark: Public Identity and Agency from the High Qing to the Contemporary.” Association of Asian Studies (AAS) Annual Conference, Seattle.
• October 2014. “A Chinese Woman in Paris: Pan Yuliang and the Development of ‘Women’s Art’ in China.” Presented at The Fifth Annual Feminist Art History Conference. American University, Washington DC.
• May 2014. Panel co-organizer and presenter at the workshop “A Medium on the Edge: The Chinese Women’s Periodical Press in China’s Long 20th Century.” Berkshire Conference on the History of Women 2014. University of Toronto.