Wei Yang Menkus

Wei Yang Menkus provides strategic leadership across the university’s Asia-focused programs, serving as Director of the Center for Asia Pacific Studies, Director of the Asian Studies Program, and Co-Director of the Asia Pacific American Studies Program. In these roles, she advances interdisciplinary research, fosters collaboration across academic and public spheres, and promotes engagement with cultural, social, policy, and innovation issues in the Asia-Pacific region. Her work integrates teaching, research, and institutional initiatives, creating dynamic opportunities for students, faculty, and the broader community to engage with the Asia-Pacific.

She teaches and researches broadly in Asian and Asian American cinema in a global context, with special interests in film genre, spatiality, transnational practice, and the intersection between Asia and Hollywood. Her teaching interests include Asian and Asian American cinemas, genre films, gender and visual culture, city literature and film, and film adaptations.

• Chinese cinema
• East Asian cinemas
• Asian American cinema
• Film theory (spatiality, genre, intertextuality, adaptation)

• Director, Center for Asia Pacific Studies (2025-present)
• Director, Asian Studies (2018-present)
• Co-Director, Asia Pacific American Studies (2023-present)

• PhD, East Asian Languages and Literature, Yale University