Duke Kunshan University professor Zairong Xiang has been named one of 12 educators around the world to receive the inaugural McCall MacBain Leading Educators Award.
Zairong Xiang (second row, third from left) on the online ceremony of the award.
Xiang, associate professor of comparative literature and director of arts at DKU, was honored during a virtual ceremony Sept. 8.
Presented by McCall MacBain Scholarships at McGill University, the award recognizes educators whose teaching and mentorship have a lasting impact on students, helping them develop confidence, purpose and leadership. Recipients are nominated by graduating McCall MacBain Scholars and alumni to recognize educators from their undergraduate institutions who significantly influenced their development.
Xiang was nominated by Eldar Wang, a 2023 DKU graduate and 2023 McCall MacBain Scholar.
In her nomination, Wang recalled hesitating to attempt her first performance art project. Xiang helped her work through the ideas behind it and consider how form could carry meaning. He later connected her with artists and scholars and created opportunities for her to explore the relationship between art, research and the world beyond the classroom.
“Rather than offering generic reassurance, Professor Xiang responded by creating opportunities,” Wang wrote.
Xiang works across literature, art and philosophy in his research, teaching and curatorial practice, drawing on English, Spanish, French, Chinese and Nahuatl. He is the author of “Queer Ancient Way: A Decolonial Exploration.” His curatorial projects include the 2021 Guangzhou Image Triennial, “Ceremony (Burial of an Undead World)” at Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, and the 14th Shanghai Biennale, “Cosmos Cinema.”
Other students describe similar ways Xiang helped them find paths of their own.
When Tianyu Zhang, a 2024 graduate, entered DKU, he was determined to major in computer science. At the time, he saw it as the best way to make a real difference in the world. He initially took Xiang’s Global Art History course simply to broaden his knowledge.
The course changed his thinking.
Rather than teaching art history as a chronological survey, Xiang introduced texts from philosophy, religious studies and other fields, encouraging students not only to learn from established thinkers and artists but also to challenge them.
“After this course, I decided to take a path I hadn’t imagined and major in humanities,” Zhang said.
He is now pursuing a doctorate in East Asian studies at the University of Southern California.
When Kazuma Amarsanaa, a 2026 DKU graduate, sought Xiang’s advice, he was considering an unconventional move from data science to film.
Amarsanaa remembers arriving at Xiang’s office with his portfolio, nervous about how to justify the leap. Xiang did not ask him to defend the decision or measure himself against a template of what an artist should be. Instead, he encouraged him to tell his own story.
“He makes you accountable to yourself,” Amarsanaa said.
Xiang gave him room to explore and make mistakes, Amarsanaa recalled, while also challenging him when his actions did not align with what he said he wanted. That approach helped him stop comparing himself with others and become more confident in his own choices.
Amarsanaa is now pursuing an MFA in film studies at China Academy of Art with a full scholarship.
Outside the classroom, Xiang founded and directs dKunst Art on Campus, which connects students with artistic practice through artist residencies, exhibitions, screenings, workshops and encounters with artists and scholars.
For Dongkun Lyu, a 2025 DKU philosophy graduate, one of those opportunities opened up a world that had once seemed far away.
Lyu grew up in a small town in northern China without a museum or gallery. Contemporary art, he recalled, had always felt distant. When he applied to a research and creation residency program initiated by Xiang in 2022, he had little expectation of being selected.
What mattered to Xiang, Lyu recalled, was not applicants’ backgrounds or whether they had taken his courses, but the thoughtfulness and sincerity of their proposals.
The residency became the starting point for a multiyear fieldwork project and Lyu’s first experiments with ethnographic writing and documentary filmmaking. His research turned to the often-overlooked labor and everyday lives of workers behind the contemporary art system, reshaping how he understood what art could be and where artistic knowledge could come from.
Although Lyu never formally took one of Xiang’s courses, he continued bringing his curatorial proposals to him for feedback.
“He would always respond with candid criticism, unexpected perspectives, and suggestions that opened possibilities I had not imagined myself,” Lyu said.
Lyu has since received two young curator awards in mainland China and curated two group exhibitions. He is now a doctoral student in the University of Rochester’s Graduate Program in Visual and Cultural Studies.
For Xin Xiong, a 2023 DKU graduate who went on to pursue an Erasmus Mundus master’s degree in women’s and gender studies, one memory stands out.
She still remembers Xiang’s office on the third floor of the Conference Center, its door often open and a bookshelf packed with books behind his desk.
Whenever she found herself stuck in her studies, Xiang would reach for a book.
“He would always find something, thick or thin, and hand it to me along with a question to work through on my own,” Xiong said.
Then, she recalled, “every confusion could turn into a journey of learning, and maybe a new field to explore.”
Xiang also recently co-curated “The Condition of Being Near” with Denise Ryner at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania. The group exhibition opened Sept. 26 and explores connections and forms of solidarity among Black, African and Chinese diasporic communities. It runs through Feb. 21, 2027.
DKU students and alumni also joined Xiang (second row, fourth from left) in Philadelphia for the exhibition’s opening.
