Yilun Li

Field: Chinese Media, Cinema, and Science

Advisor: Ying Qian

Email: yl4587@columbia.edu

Yilun Li is a Ph.D. student in Chinese Media, Cultural, and Science Studies at the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures (EALAC). He is pursuing a graduate certificate in Comparative Media through the Center for Comparative Media (CCM), and he is affiliated with the Center for Science and Society. He holds a B.A. from Tsinghua University in China and an M.A. in Film and Media Studies from Columbia University.

His research examines how communication technologies, scientific knowledge, and media cultures intersect in shaping concepts, practices, and imaginaries of (inter)national development, biopolitical governance, and social organization, with a particular emphasis on the history of cybernetics and systems thinking as well as their ramifications in distinct epistemic, material, and media configurations. Broad interests include: comparative media history and theory; history of science and philosophy of technology; history of Chinese cinema and media; documentary and nontheatrical cinema; and the intersection of arts and sciences.

His academic writing has been published in journals such as Dianying Yishu (Film Art). He has curated the exhibition and series of film screenings and discussions Working with Harun Farocki: The Labor of Images and the Distribution of the Sensible – Voices from China at CACHE Space in Beijing, a retrospective of essay films, experimental documentary, and artists’ moving image in China from the mid-2010s to mid-2020s. He also worked as a filmmaker and producer in China.