Daphne Pi-Wei Lei

Biography

Ph.D. Tufts University 
Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Stanford University

My intellectual interest is the contact zone, where conflicts occur and solutions are sought, where hybridity is nurtured or resisted, where identity is challenged and performed. I focus on intercultural exchanges along the Pacific Rim, especially interactions between Asians and Asian Americans and negotiations between Asian and non-Asian cultures.

My book Operatic China: Staging Chinese Identity Across the Pacific (Palgrave, 2006) is an investigation of Chinese opera and identity performance in such geographical and ideological contact zones. Chinese opera is a symbol of eternal Chineseness for theatrical and paratheatrical performances by Chinese and non-Chinese in various geopolitical sites (nineteenth-century Chinatown of the Gold Mountain, late-Qing political reforms and actors’ rebellions, Chinese Americans’ amateur opera performance in California, Asian American theatre and global film market).

Alternative Chinese Opera in the Age of Globalization: Performing Zero (Palgrave, 2011) is a study of “alternative Chinese opera,” contemporary innovative forms of traditional operas on the Pacific Rim.  It provides an in-depth examination of local performances and balances discourse on the local and global, personal and political, national and transnational, tradition and innovation, center and peripheries, home and diaspora in the age of globalization. The alternative voices from the peripheries include Innovative Beijing opera in Taiwan, Cantonese opera in Hong Kong, Kun opera in California, and Robert Wilson's Beijing opera experiment in Taiwan.

I have actively participated in the international discourse on performance and have published and presented works on traditional Chinese theatre, Asian American theatre, Chinese immigrant theatre and intercultural theatre, both in English and in Chinese. I currently serve on the Executive Committee of American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR) and on the editorial board for Theatre Survey. As a negotiator of cultures and languages, I also constantly engage in translation and interpretation projects related to Chinese opera on a transnational scale.

I challenge students to open their minds, to think critically and globally. I am devoted to a multicultural curriculum in theatre studies that reflects the global needs of the twenty-first century. Multicultural Spring, a program I launched in spring, 2007, is my effort to integrate multicultural and interdisciplinary performance into our regular curriculum. My passion for diversity extends to the professional field: I serve on the Advisory Board of Asian American Theatre Company (AATC), and on the Diversity Advisory Council of Laguna Playhouse.

Find out more about Daphne:

:: Biography
:: Publication
:: Talks and Conference Papers
:: Courses
:: Honors and Awards
:: Multicultural Spring