Dr. Cortney Chaffin Kim

Dr. Cortney Chaffin Kim is a co-founder and The Alchemist of ARTSQ. She earned an MA and PhD in East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a professor of art history in the Art & Art History Area of the School of Design & Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, where she has taught for 17 years. In 2012, Cortney was awarded the University Excellence in Teaching Award and in 2018, she was awarded the Leadership Mentor Award at UWSP. Her research focuses on ancient Chinese funerary art of the Eastern Zhou period (771–221 BCE). She is especially interested in the rich array of fantastic hybrid animal and monster imagery in Chu and Zeng art, and wayfinding signs and symbols in funerary art. Cortney is a Fellow of the Louis J. Kolb Society of Fellows at the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

She has presented her research at the annual College Art Association conference, at national institutions and museums, and at international venues, including Wuhan University in Hubei Province, China. She recently published in the open access journal Arts, and guest co-edited a special issue for Arts with Dr. Ellen Larson. Cortney co-founded the podcast Of the Earth with Dr. Ellen Larson, a podcast that was created to explore the many connections, complexities and contradictions in Chinese art and culture. She is also the co-author of the middle grade nonfiction series Unearthing the Stories of Us. Their first book Fu Hao: China’s Warrior Queen releases in autumn 2024. Read more about Cortney.