The Society of Architectural Historians has awarded the 2023 SAH Dissertation Research Fellowship to Tong Su. Her dissertation is titled "The Phantom of Empire: Stagecraft in Qing Court Production of Art and Theater, 1700–1827."
Tong Su is a Ph.D. candidate in the History of Art and Architecture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research focuses on the art and urbanism of late imperial China from the 17th to the 19th century. Her dissertation examines the design of theater and performance space in relation to the state building during the Qing dynasty (1644–1911). Before pursuing her doctoral degree at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, she achieved cross-disciplinary education and degrees in digital animation, art and architectural history, and other areas of arts and humanities from the University of Chicago (MA in Humanities), Maryland Institute College of Art (MFA in Illustration Practice), and Nanyang Technological University Singapore (BFA in Digital Animation). She was awarded the Kohler Art Conservation Fellowship from the Kohler Foundation in 2019 to participate in the conservation and restoration of urban sculpture in Kansas. She also received a 2022 Doctoral Grant from the Metropolitan Center for Far Eastern Art Studies in Kyoto to conduct field research on the Qing court production of theater in China.
The SAH Dissertation Research Fellowship supports dissertation research in the field of architectural history and related areas including, but not limited to, the history of interiors, landscapes, urbanism, architectural theory, and architectural criticism by graduate students whose work has potential to impact discourse in the field.
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