SOAS China and Inner Asia Studies

23/08/2026

15 August is widely commemorated as Victory in the Pacific (VP) Day, marking the end of the Second World War in Asia. Yet war memory in East Asia remains a deeply contested cultural field.

How do films and visual culture not only represent the past, but also negotiate identities, power relations, and international dynamics in the present? Read the open-access bilingual Spanish/English roundtable “Whose Memory Is It? Visual Culture and War Memories in East Asia”, featuring Dr Xiaoning Lu (SOAS), Dr Edward Vickers (Kyushu University) and Dr Bingbing Shi (Oxford), in the latest issue of L’Atalante. Revista de estudios cinematográficos (no. 42, pp.170-191).
https://revistaatalante.com/index.php/atalante/issue/view/42
Interested in memory studies? These are also questions explored in our final-year undergraduate module "History and Memory in East Asian Cultures."

26/06/2026

Many congratulations to our Year 2 student Nicole Cervantes!

24/06/2026

Dr Cosima Bruno, Reader in Chinese Literature, participated in a 5-day symposium in Bern, Switzerland, where she presented a paper entitled "A World that Comprises: Chen Yuhong's Planispheric Poetry". The symposium was organised by Dr Wen-chi Li, Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Bern, and gathered 12 international scholars, who explored Taiwanese literature as planetary literature.

02/06/2026

Congratulations to Nicole Cervantes, a Year 2 BA Chinese student, and Charlie Thomas, a BA East Asian Studies and Music student, who will represent SOAS in the UK Regional Final of the 25th “Chinese Bridge” Chinese Proficiency Competition. The competition will be held at SOAS this Friday. We are very proud of their achievement and wish them both the very best of luck!

15/04/2026

Join us at the SOAS Undergraduate Open Day this Saturday, 18 April! The China Section is hosting an academic taster session for the BA Chinese programme: "Humans and Animals in Chinese and East Asian Myths" with Dr Desmond Cheung, B203, SOAS Gallery Building, 1:10pm–2:00pm.

Join us for our exciting Undergraduate Open Day at SOAS University of London, where you will have the chance to attend taster lectures, tour the Bloomsbury campus, meet our academics, and learn about student life.

27/03/2026

Dr Desmond Cheung will be giving a talk on “Smashing Statues as Posthumous Punishment in Imperial China” on 20 April at SOAS. All are welcome!
Interested in premodern Chinese culture and language? Dr Cheung also teaches Classical and Literary Chinese, as well as Myths, Legends and Folkways of East Asia.

In this seminar, Dr Desmond Cheung will examine cases of statue smashing in Hangzhou during the Ming dynasty, analysing their significance.

06/03/2026

Full scholarships available for postgraduate study in 2026 📚

If you’re a home student with a strong academic record, this could be your opportunity to take your studies to the next level. The SOAS Academic Excellence Scholarship is offering 15 full scholarships to support outstanding postgraduate students.

Apply by 29 May 2026: https://bit.ly/4b4wOBs

SOAS alumni network

19/11/2025

Explore our postgraduate programmes (MA Chinese Studies; MA Chinese Studies and Intensive Language) and meet our academics on 4th December (5pm -8pm).

Discover what makes SOAS different, visit our London campus, connect with students and academics and find the postgraduate path that’s right for you.

04/11/2025

We’re pleased to share a new blog post by our MA Chinese Studies student, Helene Bode. It offers a glimpse into her MA dissertation research, which investigates the rise of #离婚派对 (divorce parties) shared on Chinese social media platform RedNote, and their social and political significance.

By Helene Bode On Xiaohongshu (a popular Chinese social media platform), a woman in a black dress poses with her female friends, a banner in the background spelling out “This fu***ng marriage ends…

21/10/2025

[Alumni News] It was wonderful to welcome Dr Heather Inwood (PhD, 2008) back to SOAS. On Monday she delivered a stimulating lecture titled “Spiritual Pollution in the Sewers: Towards an Aesthetic Theory of Chinese Netfic.” Using the netfic Sweeping Rubbish in the Wasteland 《我在废土世界扫垃圾 》as her point of departure, Dr Inwood explored the aesthetic function of netfiction, reappropriating age-old concepts to reconsider how contemporary popular writing exerts its power over readers—by turns pleasing, frightening, and angering its audience.