Belinda Qian He
About
After completing a PhD in Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Washington, where she was affiliated with both the China Studies and Taiwan Studies programs, Belinda Qian He worked as a Center for Chinese Studies postdoctoral fellow at UC Berkeley, a lecturer in the Department of Film and Media Studies at the University of Oklahoma, and is now an assistant professor of East Asian and Cinema & Media Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park.
He’s dissertation Expose and Punish: Trial by Moving Images in Revolutionary China explores the complex interrelation between photographic/cinematic media vis-à-vis socialist criminal justice and violence driven by a singular and overarching system of partitioning coded in the term “class.” Centered on the concept of the trial, Expose and Punish suggests that class justice was shaped through the mediality and circulation of various trials and trial-like encounters in space, in print, on screen, and through cinema and argues for the mutual constitution of image making and justice, upon which class struggle was legitimized and, in effect, produced everyday violence.
He’s research continues to focus on the history of East Asian and transnational screen media, especially image circulation of and as violence over space, through time, and across scale.
Her work has appeared in the Journal of Chinese Cinemas, Grey Room, The Child in World Cinema, and Chinese Cinema: Identity, Power, and Globalization, and her in-progress book project which bridges film & media studies, art history, and legal humanities has been supported by the Andrew Mellon Foundation, Asia Art Archive, the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation, the Council on Library and Information Resources, and the Library of Congress.
As a teacher, He’s work revolves around global media history and emergent media cultures. She has also been involved in experimental film production, film festival and archive curation, and organizing interdisciplinary research groups and workshops.
You can find out more about He’s past and ongoing projects at www.belindaherstory.com.
Congratulations on your success in the academy, Belinda!