dr. Q (Cynthia) Han

Biography

I received my education at the universities of Nanjing (BA), and Utrecht (MA, PhD). Over my career, I have mainly focused on how societies are represented in media and in turn how mediatized representations can influence society, challenge audiences’ values, and transform viewers’ opinions. Two strands of research have been developed accordingly. The first is understanding cinema as an interactive, intercultural, international, and interdisciplinary “contact zone”, reflecting the historical interactions between the United States and China, with a focus on the representation of diasporic Chinese people and communities in films, and the Chinese reception of American representations of China and the Chinese. A second research strand investigates the visual representation of different epidemic experiences down the lines of race, gender, and wealth by employing an explicitly historicised approach.