Meet our faculty members in Asian Studies and learn more about their background and passions! In this Faculty Spotlight, we introduce you to Dr. Jiaqi Yao, our new Lecturer in modern Chinese literature, media, and popular culture! Jiaqi obtained her Master’s and PhD degrees from the Department of Asian Studies.
Skip to:
Can you tell us what you will be teaching in the UBC Department of Asian Studies?
What do you want students to gain out of your courses?
What are some other interests you enjoy pursuing outside of your work?
Could you tell us a little about your academic background prior to joining UBC Department of Asian Studies? What brought you to Asian Studies?
I obtained both my Master’s and PhD degrees from the Department of Asian Studies at UBC, so in many ways I have been a member here already. I’m delighted to be starting here in a new role. Before my PhD work, I completed a bachelor’s degree in Chinese Language and Literature at East China Normal University in Shanghai. I then spent two years studying and conducting research in literature and cultural history in Hong Kong, where I first met my supervisor, Dr. Christopher Rea, who was attending a conference there.
My research began with a fascination with modern literature and cultural history in Shanghai. Taking the metropolis as my starting point, I became interested in the displacement and exile of writers and intellectuals, both within China and abroad, during successive periods of war. This eventually led to my dissertation, which examines Chinese travel culture in the twentieth-century Sino-Tibetan borderland, the region we now think of as Western China. I explore how the idea of a unified modern China was authenticated through fleeting geographical and cultural encounters and through artistic creation. In the course of this research, I grew intrigued by the giant panda, an animal largely unknown to the wider world in the early twentieth century that rapidly achieved global fame through the desire of Western collectors and zoologists, its own appeal, and the Chinese state’s deliberate promotion. That interest has since grown into my second research project.
What inspires you to teach?
Throughout my own school years, teachers were not always my favorite people, yet I understand from personal experience how powerful education can be and how it can change the course of a life.
That experience shapes how I teach. I understand students as individuals, each with their own strengths and areas to grow, and I see my role as supporting and encouraging their exploration rather than fitting everyone into a box of the same size. I believe courses in Chinese literature, culture, and cinema should be a means rather than an end: a way for undergraduate students to open up to and connect with a culture from the other side of the world.
I also look forward to discussing all kinds of things with my students, because I believe teaching and learning are mutual in a humanities education. And they certainly know far more about Teens in Times or Assassin’s Creed than I do.
Can you tell us what you will be teaching in the UBC Department of Asian Studies?
I’ll be teaching a wide range of courses on the literature, cinema, and culture of modern China and the Sinophone regions. In the coming year, I’ll be teaching Chinese Popular Cultures (ASIA 319), History of Chinese Cinema (ASIA 355), and Film and Fiction from Modern Taiwan (ASIA 363) across Terms 1 and 2. I hope to develop more courses on fiction and film in the future.
What do you want students to gain out of your courses?
As the saying goes, “Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; teach a person to fish and you feed them for a lifetime.” I believe the best teaching I can offer is to help students strengthen their analytical abilities and develop their own nuanced understanding. For this reason, I favor a learner-centred pedagogy that invites students to participate in a variety of ways, both online and in person. Beyond acquiring knowledge about the literature and culture of China and other Sinophone regions, I hope students will cultivate their critical thinking and learn to translate their thoughts into both spoken and written form.
Further, I want to challenge and encourage them to develop independent habits of research and inquiry into the Chinese world, so that they can distinguish experience from imagination, representation from reality, and the historical from the mythic.
What are some other interests you enjoy pursuing outside of your work?
I studied Tibetan at UBC and hope to keep up my learning and watch more Tibetan films in my spare time. I’ve been enjoying the Vancouver International Film Festival for over ten years now and will be back again this year. I also love rock climbing, both indoors and outdoors, and am always on the lookout for a belay partner.
