January 13, 2021
Ding Xiang Warner, professor of Asian studies in the College of Arts and Sciences, has won a yearlong 2021 fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) to study etched shell casings and other “trench art” made by some of the Chinese laborers who supported the allied armies during World War I.
Mixing archaeology, art history and cultural studies, this project will give insight into the significance of these items to the Chinese themselves as well as within 20th century European culture.
Three years ago, Warner saw a World War I-era photo of two spent shell casings, each engraved with a Chinese poem. It was a “startling” moment of discovery, she said.