Department of Theatre and Dance

• Ph.D. in Performance Studies, Northwestern University
• M.A. in Film Studies and Screenwriting, Beijing Film Academy
• M.A. in Theatre and Drama Studies, University of London
• B.A. in English, Chinese University of Hong Kong

Dr. Kin-Yan Szeto is a Professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance at Appalachian State University. Previously, she taught performance studies at Northwestern University and film studies at the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Szeto’s teaching and research interests include theatre, dance, film, and media studies; comparative literature; postcolonial and intercultural studies; and gender and ethnicity in transnational perspectives.

A productive writer, Dr. Szeto has over twenty publications. Her writings have appeared in scholarly sources including Oxford Bibliographies in Cinema and Media Studies, Visual Anthropology, Adaptation, Critical Stages/Scènes critiques, Dance Chronicle, Journal of Dance Education, Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media, and elsewhere. She has also written for edited volumes on film and media studies. Her book The Martial Arts Cinema of the Chinese Diaspora, according to the WorldCat database, is owned by over 1,000 libraries. The book analyzes how a unique “cosmopolitical awareness” allows film directors and artists to succeed in today’s transnational environment of media production, distribution, and consumption. She has also shared her expertise with news outlets; for example, she was interviewed for a New York Post article, entitled “How Jackie Chan’s Kickass Fighting Style Evolved Over His Career.”

In addition to her scholarly work, Dr. Szeto is a director and choreographer. She has directed more than fifteen plays, including Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, Gao Xingjian’s The Other Shore, Stan Lai’s Pining in Peach Blossom Land, Brian Sloan’s WTC View, Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice, and Wei Yu-Chia’s A Fable for Now. Recently, Dr. Szeto’s works were showcased in an exhibition at the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts.

Dr. Szeto has received numerous awards and grants such as New York Public Library Research Fellowship and Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation Grant, among others. At Appalachian State, these include Global Learning and Teaching Award, Appalachian Foundation Fellowship, University Research Council Grant, Office of International Education and Development Grant, and others. Dr. Szeto has received the 100 Scholars Research Award from the Cratis D. Williams School of Graduate Studies and is a two-time awardee of the College of Fine and Applied Arts Award for Outstanding Scholarship and Creative Endeavor. She formerly served on the boards of the Congress on Research in Dance and the Dance Studies Association. She is a fellow of both the Association for Theatre in Higher Education Leadership Institute and the University of North Carolina’s BRIDGES Academic Leadership Program.

A list of Dr. Kin-Yan Szeto’s select publications can be found on her scholar profile at University Libraries.