Chenshu Zhou

Chenshu Zhou is an Assistant Professor of Cinema and Media Studies in the History of Art Department and Cinema and Media Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania. She holds affiliations with the East Asian Languages and Civilizations (EALC) department. Previously, she held postdoctoral positions at NYU Shanghai (2019–2020) and Stanford University (2016–2019). She earned her PhD from Stanford University in 2016.

Her research bridges film/media studies and Chinese cultural history, focusing on spectatorship, exhibition practices, and temporality. Her award-winning book Cinema Off Screen: Moviegoing in Socialist China (2021) redefines film exhibition’s role in shaping cultural meaning, analyzing China’s cinematic infrastructure from 1949 to the 1990s. Current work explores digital media in China under neoliberalism, examining how creators and audiences craft alternative temporalities through digital labor.

Dr. Zhou publishes in journals like positions: asia critique, Journal of Chinese Cinemas, and Contemporary Cinema. She guest-edited a 2022 special issue on Sinophone Film Exhibition and contributed to Teaching Chinese Film and Oxford Handbook of Chinese Digital Media (forthcoming).

At Penn, she teaches courses on cinema studies, art history, and East Asian media. She prioritizes interdisciplinary work on analog/digital media and modern/contemporary East Asian art cultures. As of 2022, she is not admitting new graduate students.