Xinyi Zhao (趙心怡)

Xinyi Zhao is a doctoral candidate in Japanese cinema and media; she is also pursuing a graduate certificate through the Center for Comparative Media. Xinyi’s dissertation delves into the history of cinema in Manchuria through the lenses of race/ethnicity, media archaeology, and feminist historiography. This project has been supported by Japan Foundation Dissertation Fellowship and Donald Keene Research Grant in Japanese Studies. Her other scholarly works can be found in Journal of Chinese Cinemas, Dangdai Dianying (Contemporary Cinema), Humanities, Women Film Pioneers Project, and Routledge Companion to Queer Theory and Modernism (forthcoming). 

Prior to the PhD program, Xinyi received her M.A. in Film and Media Studies from Columbia University, M.A. in Chinese Studies from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Joint B.A. in Economics and Japanese from Shanghai International Studies University.

Fran Zhao 赵洁敏

Field: Chinese Literature
Advisor: Wei Shang
Email: f.zhao@columbia.edu

Fran Zhao is a PhD candidate specializing in premodern Chinese theater. Her dissertation project examines Ming (1368–1644) court theater through the lenses of ritual, politics and infrastructure. Her other research interests include cartography, and the sensorial and experiential culture of East Asian religions.

A lifelong learner, she also has extensive experience teaching a wide range of subjects in multiple modalities, including Chinese history, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), East Asian Buddhism, and visual communication practices. Her student demographics range from primary school children to senior civil servants. She was the Lead Teaching Fellow and Teaching Observation Fellow with the Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning, and produced the podcast series “Teaching and Learning in Asian Studies.” She constantly strives to create environments and experiences that nurture students’ professional and personal development.

Fran also supports her community by helping academics communicate visually. Her maps and illustrations have been published by the Harvard University Press, Routledge, and Brill.

BSocSci (Hons) in Geography, minor in GIS – NUS, Singapore

MA (Research) in History – NUS, Singapore

Yifan Zhang

Field: Chinese Literature
Advisor: Shang Wei
Email: yz2681@columbia.edu

Yifan is a Ph.D. student in Chinese literature, with a focus on the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368-1912). He received his B.A. (2014) from Peking University and M.A. (2016) from Columbia University. He works primarily on Ming-Qing short and long narratives, fiction in particular, and has a keen interest in examining how they speak to the issues that derive from and respond to urban history, local history, elite society, print culture, and material culture. His current dissertation project explores language practice and cultural innovation in the Wu dialect area that centers on Suzhou, the economic and cultural pivot in early modern China.