Rate My Professor Paola Voci

Professor Paola Voci serves as Professor in Chinese and Asian Studies and Director of Global Studies in the Department of Languages and Cultures within the School of Arts, Division of Humanities at the University of Otago. She holds a B.A. Honours in Chinese Language and Literature from Ca' Foscari University of Venice, a Diploma in Film Theory and Practice from Beijing Film Academy, an M.A. in East Asian Studies from Indiana University, and a PhD in Chinese from Indiana University, completed between 1993 and 2002. Her career at the University of Otago includes appointment as Associate Professor in the Department of Languages and Cultures since 2004, and she has also served as Head of Department. From 2015 to 2017, Voci was President of the New Zealand Asian Studies Society (NZASIA). She has supervised numerous postgraduate theses, including PhDs on topics such as radical politics and social media in contemporary Italy, re-writing women in Qingshi, and political TV drama in China, as well as Honours theses on bromance in Chinese culture, children in the May Fourth Movement, and Xu Bing's art.

Paola Voci's research centers on visual culture, particularly film and videomaking practices in contemporary China, encompassing Chinese independent documentary, animation, para-animation, handmade cinema, shadow play, amateur and vernacular creative practices, digital cultures, small-screen cinema, and soft power. Her monograph China on Video: Smaller-Screen Realities was published by Routledge in 2010. She co-edited Screening China's Soft Power (Routledge, 2018). Recent publications include 'Para-animation in Practice and Theory: The Animateur, the Embodied Gesture and Enchantment' in Animation (2023), 'This is Not Reality (Ceci n’est pas la réalité): Capturing the Imagination of the People, Creativity, the Chinese Subaltern, and Documentary Storytelling' in Global Storytelling (2022), and 'Electric Shadows Reloaded: The Post-Digital Animateur, Shadow Play and Handmade Cinema' in Journal of Chinese Cinemas (2017). Additional works appear in Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, Screening the Past, Senses of Cinema, New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies, and Bianco e Nero. Voci teaches courses such as GLBL 202/302 A World of Stories: Global Storytelling in the Digital Age, ASIA 101 Introducing Asia, ASIA 201/311 Asian Popular Cultures, CHIN 131/132 Introductory Chinese, CHIN 242/342 Screening Chinese Cinemas, and CHIN 441 Advanced Topics in Chinese. She welcomes postgraduate supervision in film and media studies, Chinese and Sinophone contexts, and global screen cultures.