Campus
- Downtown Toronto (St. George)
Areas of Interest
- Chinese art and material culture
- History of collecting Chinese antiquities in the early 20th century
- Museums, provenance, and cultural heritage
- Historiography of Chinese studies in Canada
Working Dissertation
Title
Supervisors
Description
Kara's research explores Bishop William Charles White's role within the network of collecting, studying, and displaying of Chinese objects in the early 20th century. Taking an interdisciplinary approach by drawing on the material artifacts collected by White, visual and textual documents, coupled with oral narratives, Kara's research reframes and reexamines White as a Bishop, collector, archaeologist, and specialist on China, as well as the role he played in defining Chinese art and culture for Canadians.
Biography
Kara is a doctoral student in the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Toronto, where she is conducting research on the Bishop William C. White collection of Chinese antiquities housed at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM). Prior to returning to academia in her pursuit of a doctoral degree, Kara worked as an Assistant Technician at the ROM for three years, overseeing both the East Asian and South Asian collections, including acquisitions, gallery rotations, exhibition planning and loans, as well as the day-to-day maintenance of the storage area. During this time, she also contributed to various publications such as The Korean Collection of the Royal Ontario Museum and Chinese Ancient Jade Collection from the Royal Ontario Museum. It is this experience at the ROM that sparked her love and passion for museums and objects.
Awards
- 2020 Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship (CGS) Doctoral Award SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council)
- 2019 Conference Grant School of Graduate Studies (SGS), University of Toronto
- 2018 E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Fellowship for Chinese Collections Study Royal Ontario Museum