Boston University Dept. of World Languages and Literatures, and the BU Center for the Study of Asia

How can we use digital platforms—including social media—to enhance research and learning on modern China? How can we make the “obscure” (to non-specialists) discoverable? What are the expected and unexpected results of making an audiovisual archive public, as measured by views, comments, likes, or Google Analytics data? And what happens when your book project morphs into a multi-platform digital extravaganza?

This presentation will share discoveries from the first few years of the Chinese Film Classics Project (chinesefilmclassics.org), an ongoing international effort to make early Chinese cinema history more accessible to the English-speaking world. Christopher Rea will speak about his experiences building an online course while writing his book Chinese Film Classics, 1922-1949 (Columbia UP, 2021), and how he worked with collaborators to create the world’s largest free digital archive of early Chinese films with English translations. He will illustrate the talk with examples of “playlist pedagogy,” including curatorial techniques that highlight significant features of Chinese films, from songs to special effects.

About the Speaker: 

Christopher Rea is Professor of Chinese and former Director of the Center for Chinese Research at the University of British Columbia. His many books include The Age of Irreverence (2015), The Book of Swindles (with Bruce Rusk, 2017), Chinese Film Classics, 1922-1949 (2021), and Where Research Begins: Choosing a Research Project That Matters to You (and the World) (with Thomas S. Mullaney, 2022). He is the creator of the Chinese Film Classics Project, whose website hosts over 35 early Chinese films translated by Dr Rea and collaborators, as well as a variety of other curricular materials, including an online course on early Chinese film.