IIAS: An Intellectual Home for Global Dialogue

IIAS offers a uniquely enriching intellectual environment—one that brings together a diverse community of brilliant scholars from around the world, supported by an exceptionally generous, efficient, and thoughtful staff. From the very beginning, I found the atmosphere welcoming, collegial, and deeply conducive to both sustained research and spontaneous exchange.

What distinguishes IIAS is its unwavering commitment to interdisciplinary inquiry and transregional dialogue. Regular seminars, public lectures, thematic workshops, film screenings, and museum visits cultivate a vibrant culture of intellectual engagement. These gatherings are far more than academic formalities—they are moments of shared reflection, where ideas travel fluidly across disciplines, geographies, and histories. The global vision of IIAS is perhaps most vividly embodied in initiatives such as Africa–Asia: A New Axis of Knowledge 3, the Conference-Festival held in Senegal in June 2025. Events like this reflect the institute’s enduring mission: to foster genuine dialogue across continents and intellectual traditions. The motto Asia in the World is not merely a slogan but a living practice, realized through sustained efforts in knowledge exchange, community building, and public engagement.

During my fellowship, I advanced my book project on cinematic and media encounters between China, the Third World, and the Euro-American Left during the Cold War. I was able to consult archives and libraries across the Netherlands, present draft chapters, and receive invaluable feedback from a cross-disciplinary and globally informed community. Conversations with scholars in African and Southeast Asian studies, among others, profoundly enriched and reshaped my thinking.

IIAS offered more than time and space—it provided an intellectual home. It enabled not only the growth of my research but also the forging of lasting friendships and scholarly collaborations. At a moment when the humanities and social sciences face shrinking support worldwide, what IIAS sustains is nothing short of vital: a space for public culture, global imagination, and collective responsibility.

Ling Zhang is Associate Professor of Cinema Studies at the State University of New York, Purchase College, and Research Fellow at IIAS (International Institute for Asian Studies), Leiden University, 2024–2025. Her research explores film sound and acoustic culture, Chinese-language cinema and digital media, documentary, and the Cultural Cold War. She is completing her monograph Unruly Sounds: Chinese Cinema and Transnational Acoustic Culture, 1929–1949 and co-edited Socializing Medicine: Health Humanities and East Asian Media (Hong Kong UP, 2025). Her work appears in Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, The Journal of Popular Culture, Film Quarterly, Comparative Cinema, Journal of Chinese Cinemas, among others. She is developing her second book, Sounding Wayward Journeys: Traveling Films and Media in China and the World, 1949–1989.