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.