Peng Xu

Peng Xu

Peng Xu (Ph.D. University of Chicago, 2014) teaches Chinese drama and theatrical culture, Asian theater history, and directs Chinese stage productions in the Department of Theatre + Dance at UH Mānoa.

Her articles on Chinese music, voice, drama editing and theater history have appeared in peer-reviewed journals including T’oung Pao: International Journal of Chinese Studies, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Late Imperial China, CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature, Xiqu yishu, and Xiqu yu suwenxue yanjiu. She is the co-editor of a peer-reviewed special issue of CHINOPERL, “Chinese opera, Xiqu, and New Media, 1890s–1950s” (with Margaret Wan). She is working on two books, one entitled “The
Courtesan’s Drama: Women and Chinese Elite Theater, 1570–1600,” the other “Kunqu Theatre: An Introduction” (Bloomsbury).

Her research and scholarly activities have been sponsored by Henry-Luce Foundation/American Council of Learned Society, Alliance to Advance Liberal Arts Colleges Fund, and the Center for Chinese Studies at UC Berkeley, among others.

An award-winning singer, she was trained by a master of Peking opera, Mr. Liu Zengfu (1914–2012), in a vocal style popular in the early twentieth century. She also studied with great amateur artists of kunqu opera in the Beijing Kunqu Learned Society.