Biography
As a PhD student of the East Asian Languages and Civilizations and Theater and Performance Studies joint program, I primarily work on Chinese opera’s engagement with different media forms from late imperial China to the modern era, especially the process of transmediation. I am interested in topics of late imperial drama, opera films, opera reforms, cross-dressing performance, revolutionary culture, and Shanghai cultural history. I draw upon an interdisciplinary approach integrating philosophy, history, film, gender, and music. Grounded in almost fifteen years of theatrical training, I am deeply passionate about the all-female Chinese opera genre Yue opera and the art of the young male lead (xiaosheng) role. I bring attention to the voices of opera performers and draw on my performance background to delve into artistic details that reflexively generate new insights into larger fundamental historical and intellectual concerns. In April 2024, I organized the “100 Years of Women’s Yue Opera” event at UChicago, which marked the first time that Yue Opera was commemorated in a concentrated, multimedia manner that connected academic and practitioner perspectives outside China.
Publications
"Becoming Awakened: Four Yue Opera Segments in Xie Jin’s Two Stage Sisters." CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature 42, no. 2 (2023): 130-164.
Translation of Judith Zeitlin’s Opera Quarterly article “Operatic Ghosts on Screen: The Case of A Test of Love (1958)” [戏曲电影中的女鬼: 以越剧电影《 情探》 为例] in Xiju Yishu《戏剧艺术》, no.4, 32-46, 2024.