Finding a home for the video essay: Videographic criticism and the study of Chinese television drama

Although some conflate the digital humanities with data-driven quantitative research, other conceptualizations of the digital humanities emphasize post-print methods of scholarship with unprecedented reach outside of the academy. Video essays are an example of this vision for the digital humanities: they are critiques of film advanced through film itself with crossover appeal to popular audiences. This paper places the author's personal experience creating a video essay on Chinese television in the context of the state of the field of Chinese television studies and current debates over the function of videographic criticism. Current scholarship on Chinese television often neglects the visuality of the televisual text and the individual experience of television viewing. Because video essays are themselves an audiovisual text, they foreground the visual, and their position between popular and scholarly forms of communication creates room for including subjective responses. The critical reflexivity of 'scholarly video essays' on Chinese television would serve as a useful complement to the vernacular audiovisual ­commentary already prevalent on the Chinese internet. By reconceptualizing the work and proper position of the scholar, videographic criticism can productively challenge the 'regime of separation' between researcher and object of study upon which East Asian studies is built.