Elena Suet-Ying Chiu

Professor Chiu received her BA in Chinese Language and Literature from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and her PhD in Asian Languages and Cultures from the University of California, Los Angeles. She studied Manchu language, a critically endangered language, in both Beijing and the U.S. She is currently Associate Professor of Chinese literature in East Asian Languages and Cultures. 

Prof. Chiu is the author of Bannermen Tales (Zidishu): Manchu Storytelling and Cultural Hybridity in the Qing Dynasty (Harvard University Asia Center, 2018). Bannermen Tales is the first book in English to offer a comprehensive study of zidishu (bannermen tales)—a popular storytelling genre created by the Manchus in early eighteenth-century Beijing. She is working on a new project pertaining to Chinese novels/novellas focusing on contemporary issues (shishi) written in the late Qing. Professor Chiu’s research and teaching interests include traditional Chinese narrative and drama, Ming-Qing oral and performing literature, Manchu language, literature, and culture, as well as ethnicity and gender issues in late imperial and early Republican China. Her research has been supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from Stanford University’s Center for East Asian Studies as well as grants from UMass Amherst, Columbia University, and other external funding. 

• Traditional Chinese narrative and drama
• Oral and performing literature in late imperial and early Republican China
• Manchu language, literature, and culture
• Ethnicity and gender issues in late imperial China
• Ming-Qing fiction and fiction commentary
• Popular culture in late imperial and modern China

Monograph

Bannermen Tales (Zidishu): Manchu Storytelling and Cultural Hybridity in the Qing Dynasty. Harvard University Asia Center (2018). 

Articles and Translation

“The Quotidian Life of Imperial Bodyguards in the Qing Dynasty: The Self-Reflexive Tendencies in Yigeng’s Bannermen Tales (Zidishu).” Journal of Tongren University, 18.1 (2016): pp. 41-47.
 
“The Origins and Original Language of Manchu Bannermen Tales (Zidi Shu),” CHINOPERL Papers, no. 30 (2011): pp. 1-24.

Co-translator, “The Manchu Preface to Jakdan’s Selected Stories Translated from Liaozhai zhiyi.” China Heritage Quarterly, no. 19 (Sept. 2009).
http://www.chinaheritagequarterly.org/scholarship.php?searchterm=019_man...

“Some Intertextual Relations between The Dream of the Red Chamber and Manchu Zidishu” in Stephen Wadley and Carsten Naeher eds., Proceedings of the First North American Conference on Manchu Studies: Studies in Manchu Literature and History, pp. 27-61. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2006.

“Ernü yingxiong zhuan: An Integrative Reflection of Manchu and Han Cultures.” Saksaha: A Review of Manchu Studies 7 (2002): pp. 29-48.

• Chinese 197Q: Late Imperial Chinese Literature and Culture
• Chinese 394WI: Women in Chinese Culture, an IE course
• Chinese 597P: Traditional Chinese Drama and Performing Arts
• Chinese 597M: The Ming-Qing Novel I
• Chinese 597Q: The Ming-Qing Novel II
• Honors 391AH: Exploring Chinese Culture through Tea