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Department ofCommunication

Hsin-I Cheng

Hsin-I Cheng

Professor

B.A. in Sociology, Fu-Jen Catholic University, Taipei, Taiwan, 1998
M.A. in Communication, University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee, 2001
Ph.D. in Communication, Bowling Green State University, 2006  

Hsin-I Cheng studies human communication through historical and sociopolitical lenses with methods such as ethnographic fieldwork, qualitative interviewing, and discourse analyses. Her research and teaching interests focus on how multiple identities intersect and influence human interaction and relationships. Her first book Culturing interface: Identity, communication, and Chinese transnationalism investigates the experiences of Taiwanese and Chinese communities living and working on the U.S.-Mexico border. Her second book Cultivating Membership in Taiwan and Beyond: Relational Citizenship proposes the theory of “relational citizenship,” rooted in the Taiwanese context, to explain the communicative nature of membership and belonging. Her most recent co-edited collection Resistance in the era of nationalisms: (Per)Forming identities in Taiwan and Hong Kong will be published in 2023 by Michigan State University Press. This collection focuses on how people in Taiwan and Hong Kong, two post-colonial and cosmopolitan societies, strive for autonomy over their democratic ways of life. Her work is published in Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, Western Journal of Communication, International Journal of Communication, Language and Intercultural Communication, and Women & Language. Her current research focus is on Asian American diasporic communities in their identity negotiations, and relationships between racial minorities in the United States. She collaborated with her students to build the Asian & Black Alliance website to promote Black-Asian solidarity. Cheng is a member of the 2023-2025 U.S.-Taiwan Next Generation Working Group in the Institute of East Asian Studies at UC-Berkeley.

Courses
  • Communication & Social Interaction (COMM 10)
  • Qualitative Methods (COMM 101)
  • Intercultural Communication (COMM 116)
  • Identity & Citizenship in Asia (COMM 189)
  • Multicultural Family & Communication (Comm 116M)
  • Asian Pop Culture (COMM 181A)