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Yifen Beus

Associate Academic Vice President for Faculty
Faculty of Arts & Letters

Lorenzo Snow Building 203

Biography

Research Interests

Dr. Beus's work is situated at the crossroad of cinema & literary studies, and like that of most comparatists, her intellectual identity rests within several disciplines & national literatures. Her fields of research interest include comparative literature, theatre & film studies, cultural studies, and inter-arts studies. Since coming to BYUH, she has been engaged in the following topics: modernity in visual culture, intertextuality and reflexivity in art and literature, cultural/national identity & globalization, and indigenous story-telling, covering Sinophone and Francophone areas studies. Her current research studies indigenous storytelling in Pacific narrative cinemas.

Education

PhD, Comparative Literature, Indiana University
MA, Theatre & Film, Brigham Young University
BA, English, National Chengchi University

Teaching

Dr. Beus's teaching reflects the interdisciplinary nature of her training that cuts across different cultures, theories, media & genres. Courses she has taught include, Introduction to Film, Post-colonial Literature & Film, Women's Literature & Film, Cultures of Asia, Cultures of Europe, and Chinese language courses. She experiments with methodologies & upholds a Deleuzian open-ended teaching philosophy by encouraging & often requiring students to utilize a number of creative genres & formats in research & writing. Typical student assignments range from curatorial projects, art-making, ethnography, critical journal entries, to videos, creative fiction, & research papers to allow students to explore & examine different narrative voices, forms, & levels of authorial control & authority associated with different media and genres.

Current Classes

  • FILM 102: Introduction to Film
  • FILM 365R: Special Studies in World Cinema
  • HUM 100R: Exploring Humanities

Publications

Monograph

Towards a Paradoxical Theatre: Schlegelian Irony in German and French Romantic Drama, 1797–1843, Bern & New York: Peter Lang, 2003.

Journal Articles

"The Force Awakens: Mana as Causal Agent in Pacific Narrative Cinemas," New Zealand and Pacific Studies Journal, 6.2 (2018): 121-136.

“Cinematic Tropes of Migration: Cruise and Train Ride in Contemporary China,” Working USA, The Journal of Labor and Society, 17.1 (March 2014): 77-92.

“Authorship and Criticism in Self-reflexive African Cinema,” Journal of African Cultural Studies 23:2 (2011): 133-52.

“Far Away, So Close? Nation, Global Chinese Cinema and the Question of Identity” in Quarterly Review of Film and Video 25.4 (July 2008): 306-314.

“Alfred de Musset’s Romantic Irony,” Nineteenth-Century French Studies 31. 3/4 (Spring/Summer 2003): 197-209.

Book Chapters

“Redemption Songs: Musical Moments in Joseph Gaï Ramaka’s Karmen Geï (2001) and Flora Gomes’s Nha Fala (2002),” in The Sight of Sound: When Music Takes Over in Film, eds. Phil Powrie, Claus Tieber and Anna K. Windisch, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023, pp. 161-180.

“On Becoming Nora: Transforming the Voice and Place of the Sing-song Girl through Zhou Xuan” in Vamping the Stage: Female Voices of Asian Modernities, eds. Andrew Weintraub and Bart Barendregt, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2017. Pp. 65-82.

“Festivals, Censorship and the Canon: the Makings of Sinophone Cinemas,” in Diasporic Cinemas to Sinophone Cinemas, eds. Audrey Yue, Olivia Khoo and Song Hwee Lim, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. Pp. 45-61.

“Postcolonial Beaux’ Stratagem: Dancing and Singing Back with Carmen” in Storytelling in World Cinemas, vol. 2 Context, ed. Lina Khatib, London: Wallflower Press, 2013. Pp. 90-100.

“Griots and Talanoa Speak: Storytelling as Theoretical Frames in African and Pacific Cinemas” in De-Westernizing Film Studies, eds. Saër Maty Bâ and Will Higbee, London: Routledge, 2012. Pp. 113-126.

“Colonialism, Democracy, and the Politics of Representation in Alain Corneau’s Le prince du Pacifique” in New Zealand, France and the Pacific, eds. Ian Conrich and Dominic Alessio, London: Kakapo Books, 2011. Pp. 91-108.

“Self-reflexivity in Play within the Play and Its Cross-genre Manifestation” in The Play within the Play: The Performance of Meta-Theatre and Self-Reflection, eds. Gerhard Fischer and Bernhard Greiner, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007. Pp. 15-26.

“Oriental’s Orientalism: The Fantastic and Cultural Authenticity,” in Querying the Genealogy: Chinese American Literature and Chinese Language Literature in the United States. Ed. Jennie Wang, Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 2006. pp. 428-438

“After the Last Sky: A Liminal Space” in Paradoxical Citizenship: Edward Said, ed. Silvia Nagy-Zekmi, Lanham, M.D.: Lexington Books, 2006. Pp. 211-220

“The Road to Modernity: Urban and Rural Scenes in Zhang Yimou’s The Story of Qiu Ju, Not One Less, and The Road Home” in Representing the Rural: Space, Place, and Identity in Films about the Land, eds. Catherine Fowler & Gillian Helfield, Detroit: Wayne State UP, 2006. Pp. 276-291

Chapters/Entries in Encyclopedia/Sourcebooks

“Novels and Memoirs”, The Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration, ed. Immanuel Ness, Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013

“Bye Bye Africa,” in Directory of World Cinema: Africa, eds. Sheila Petty and Blandine Stefanson, Bristol, UK: Intellect Books, 2010

“Karmen Geï,” in Directory of World Cinema: Africa, eds. Sheila Petty and Blandine Stefanson, Bristol, UK: Intellect Books, 2010

“U-Carmen,” in Directory of World Cinema: Africa, eds. Sheila Petty and Blandine Stefanson, Bristol, UK: Intellect Books, 2010

Book Reviews

“Review of Reel Resistance: The Cinema of Jean-Marie Teno” by Melissa Thackway and Jean-Marie Teno. JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies (62.2, 2023): pp. 195-198.

"Review of Possessing Polynesians: The Science of Settler Colonial Whiteness in Hawaiʻi and Polynesia" by Maile Arvin. Journal of New Zealand and Pacific Studies (9.2, 2021): pp. 269-271.

“Review of Huihui: Navigating Art and Literature in the Pacific,” edited by Jeffrey Carroll, Brandy Nalani McDougall, Georganne Nordstrom, Journal of New Zealand & Pacific Studies (5.1, 2017): pp. 104-106.

“Review of The Black Pacific: Anti-Colonial Struggles and Oceanic Connections” by Robbie Shilliam. Journal of New Zealand & Pacific Studies (4.1, 2016): pp. 76-77.

Tags
Film Program Visual Arts Program Integrated Humanities Program

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