Professor Nicholas de Villiers, Fulbright US Senior Scholar of Literature in Taiwan (2023–2024) at National Central University, visited the University of Otago in Dunedin, Aotearoa, New Zealand, for a three-day conference (February 14–16) and a research-sharing roundtable (February 15) with faculty and graduate students in global media, performance, and gender studies.

He presented his research on Taiwan-based filmmaker Tsai Ming-liang’s “Days” (2020) at the conference “Performing Care and Carelessness” hosted by the “Performance of the Real” Research Theme at the University of Otago (by Dr. Susan Wardell, conference co-organizer, and Dr. Suzanne Little, Research Theme director). He participated in a research-sharing roundtable “Another Look at Cinema: Queer, Feminist, Accented and other Minor Perspectives” hosted by Dr. Paola Voci (Global Studies) and Dr. Catherine Fowler (Media, Film, and Communication).

Both activities were crucial for Dr. de Villiers’s current research projects as he is presently revising a chapter on Tsai’s “Days” for an edited collection on “Care and Disability” (forthcoming from Routledge) and is in Taiwan working on his book manuscript tentatively titled “Inter-Asia Network Films and Cosmopolitan Sex Workers.” Receiving feedback at the conference and roundtable from experts and graduate researchers in Asian media studies, gender studies, and care/disability studies was perfectly timed for these projects’ revision and writing stages. Dr. Voci and Dr. Fowler shared their recent video essays with Dr. de Villiers. They offered helpful advice on gaining skills in this new form and mode for public dissemination of scholarship.

Dr. de Villiers plans to join the “Performance of the Real” Research Theme as an affiliate researcher and looks forward to further collaboration and cooperation between the University of Otago, the Center for the Study of Sexualities, and the Department of English at National Central University (his host institution), and the University of North Florida (his home institution).