Skip to main content

Staff Profile

Professor Sabrina Qiong Yu

Professor of Film and Chinese Studies

Background

I joined the school in February 2008 before I obtained my PhD from Nottingham University in July 2008.

Roles and Responsibilities


Director of Research, School of Modern Languages, 2024-

Principal Investigator of AHRC-funded project on Independent Cinema in China (2019-2024)

Founder of Chinese Independent Film Archive (CIFA), 2020 - 

Founder and General Editor of Chinese Independent Cinema Observer, 2021-

Programme Director for MA Film: Theory and Practice (2011 -- 2020)

Steering group member for the Research Centre for Film (2011- 2019)

Head of East Asian Section (2012 - 2015)

Programme Director for Single Honours Chinese/Japanese Studies (2013-2015)

Year Abroad Officer (2008 - 2011)

Qualifications

PhD in Film Studies, Nottingham University, UK

MPhil in Cultural Studies, Birmingham University, UK

MA in Journalism and Mass Communication, Beijing Normal University, China

BA in Chinese Literature and Language, China



Teaching

UG modules

SML2011 Cities in East Asian Cinema: Culture, History and Identity (module leader)

CHN4011 Documenting China: Studying Chinese Culture and Society through Independent Documentaries (module leader)

CHN4009 Gender and Media in Modern China (module leader)

SML8099 Dissertation

PG modules

FMS8355 Stars: Systems, Theories and Nations (module leader)

FMS8360 Researching Film: Skills and Methods (module leader)

FMS8055 Approaches to Film Theory and History

FMS8358 Exhibition Culture

FMS8099 Dissertation (module leader)

Research

My research and publications focus on transnational Chinese cinema, Chinese independent film and film festivals, stardom and performance, gender and sexuality. I am the author of Jet Li: Chinese Masculinity and Transnational Film Stardom (2012, 2017), and the co-editor of Revisiting Star Studies: Cultures, Themes and Methods (2017).

I regularly curate film festivals/events in Newcastle in collaboration with indie film festivals or film companies in China (for example 'The Tenth Anniversary of the China Independent Film Festival UK Celebration'). I am committed to promoting the exhibition of and research into Chinese independent cinema in the UK.

I am the Principal Investigator of AHRC-funded project 'Independent Cinema in China, 1990-2017: State, Market and Film Culture'. This four-year international project aims to preserve indie films made in the PRC in the past three decades and to conduct comprehensive research into this unique but under-researched film culture. The project team, comprised of Co-Is Prof Chris Berry, King's Collage and Dr. Luke Robinson, Sussex University, Research Associate Dr. Lydia Dan Wu, Newcastle University), is working with a large number of Chinese indie filmmakers and curators as well as two industry partners. There will be a range of outcomes including academic publications, conferences, the archive, Youtube channel, the online database, film tours, exhibition, film festival panels, and documentary summit.

I am the founder of Chinese Independent Film Archive (CIFA), located in Newcastle University, and the founder and General Editor of Chinese Independent Cinema Observer.

I have supervised eight research students to completion.

Lydia Dan Wu, MLitt, 'Representations of Hong Kong Identity in Three Post-handover Nostalgia Films', 2011

James Cummings: MLitt, 'Homosexual Identity Consturction at the Intersection of Sexuality and Regionalism in China', 2013

Kelly Mc George, MLitt, 'Transforming "Ordinary" Experience of China's Post-Socialist Modernization into Public Consciousness through Magic(al) Realism and Ecology in the Independent Cinema of Jia Zhangke, 2015

Lydia Dan Wu, PhD, 'Minjian Film Exhibition in Post-Socialist China: Sustainability and Self-Legitimation', 2016

Yang Li, PhD, 'Screening Tibet: Approaching New Tibetan Cinema from a Postcolonial Perspective and the Field of Subaltern Studies', 2018

Lewis Pringle, MLitt, 'Unruly Women? A Comparative Study of Stardom, Gender and Performance in French and American Comedies of the 1930s', 2017- 2018

Carrie Poon, PhD candidate, a project on Taiwanese director Edward Yang, masculinity and modernity, 2018 -2024

Kelly McGeorge, PhD candidate (AHRC studentship holder), a project entitled 'Transitions of (Dis)appearance: Aesthetics and Political Practice in Chinese Ecocinema', 2018 -2023

I am currently supervising the following research students:

Xinyue Hu, PhD, A Cross-cultural and Cognitive Narratological Reading of Multi-media Mulan Adaptations from 1998 to present, 2022-

Frank Xue, MLitt, film nior in Mainland Chinese cinema, 2023-4

Publications