Academic interests
- Reception history of Ibsen in China
- Theatre studies
- Digital Humanities
- Chinese traditional and modern theatre
- China Studies
- Gender studies
- Global influences of theatre cultures
Research projects
Visualising Lost Theatres -- Virtual Praxis and the Recovery of Performance Spaces
VR model of Ibsen's Komediehus
Ibsen Between Cultures
Ibsen in Translation
Courses taught
IBS4000 Research Ethics, Information Resources and Advanced Academic Writing for Ibsen Studies
IBS4001 – Theoretical, Methodological, and Interdisciplinary Approaches to Ibsen Studies
IBS4210 – Ibsen i praksis
IBS4102 – Henrik Ibsen’s oeuvre in the perspective of its reception history
IBS4205 -- New Perspectives in Ibsen Studies
IBS4204 – Ibsen in Performance
IBS4105 -- Ibsen Between Cultures
IBS4390 – Master's Thesis in Ibsen Studies
Background
Program co-ordinator (fagkoordinator), Centre for Ibsen Studies, UiO, 2021-
Acting Head, Centre for Ibsen Studies, UiO, 2019-2020
Associate Professor, Centre for Ibsen Studies, UiO, 2016-
Teaching assistant, University of Oslo, 2012-2013
PhD in Ibsen Studies, University of Oslo, 2009-2012
Tags:
Ibsen,
China,
Theatre,
Gender Studies,
Reception Studies,
Translation Studies,
Digital Humanities
Publications
Joanne Tompkins, Jonathan Bollen, Julie Holledge, and Liyang Xia (2022). Visualising Lost Theatres: Virtual Praxis and the Recovery of Performance Spaces. Cambridge University Press. www.cambridge.org/9781108476751
Xia, Liyang (2021). The Silent Noras: Women of the First Chinese Performance of A Doll's House. Asian Theater Journal. ISSN 0742-5457. . doi: 10.1353/atj.2021.0011
Xia, Liyang (2018). A myth that glorifies: Rethinking Ibsen’s early reception in China. Ibsen Studies. ISSN 1502-1866. 18(2), s 141- 168 . doi: 10.1080/15021866.2018.1550868
Xia, Liyang (2016). Heart Higher than the Sky: Reinventing Chinese Femininity through Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, In Frode Helland & Julie Holledge (ed.), Ibsen Between Cultures. Novus Forlag. ISBN 9788270998630. 5. s 113 - 142
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Xia, Liyang
(2016).
Heart Higher than the Sky: Reinventing Chinese Fimininity through Ibsen's Hedda Gabler.
In Helland, Frode & Holledge, Julie (Ed.),
Ibsen Between Cultures.
Novus Forlag.
ISSN 9788270998630.
p. 113–142.
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Xia, Liyang
(2007).
Power Struggle in Hedda Gabler - A Close Reading of the Conversations between Hedda, Brack and Løvborg.
In Helland, Frode; Mollerin, Kaja*; Nygaard, Jon & Sæther, Astrid (Ed.),
The Living Ibsen: Proceedings - The 11th International Ibsen Conference, 21 - 27 August 2006.
Unipub forlag.
ISSN 978-82-91540-10-8.
p. 153–158.
View all works in Cristin
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Haaland, Agnete G.; Xia, Liyang & Skuggevik, Erik
(2023).
Panelsamtale under Performance and Reception of Professedly Authoritative Texts.
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Xia, Liyang
(2013).
Heart Higher than the Sky - Reinventing Chinese Femininity through Ibsen's Hedda Gabler.
07 Gruppen.
Show summary
This dissertation examines a Chinese transcreation of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler into the yueju
Heart Higher than the Sky (Xin Bi Tian Gao). It argues that this performance text is
implicated in contestations over the representations and consumptions of femininity, Chinese
identity, and aesthetic purity within contemporary China theatre. Two intertwined aspects of a
cultural imaginary dominate the discussion: the representations of women in the yueju genre
and by extension within the Chinese culture, and the search for a Chinese identity in and
through Chinese traditional theatre.
The discussion of femininity is closely tied into the discussion of "Chinese-ness". This
dissertation asks questions such as: What is a Chinese woman? What are their socially
prescribed aspirations? What kind of gender norms apply to them? The author attempts to
answer these questions by looking at the female depiction in the history of the yueju genre, an
art form that closely reflects and informs the transformations of women's social status in
China. In addition, she looks at the lived realities for women in today's Chinese society,
arriving at the conclusion that this yueju adaptation of Hedda Gabler challenges some areas of
the current gender norms in China, as well as reinforces other areas.
As part of the effort to change the way women and their assigned roles are viewed in the
cultural imaginary in China, Heart Higher than the Sky suggests certain ethical values, both
for the women and for the society at large, through promoting traditional "Chinese" values in
traditional theatre. By adapting an Ibsen play into the traditional Chinese yueju form, the
artists of this production evoked a search for a "Chinese identity" in and through Chinese
traditional theatre. This searching is done in a two-way manner: placing Ibsen's provocative
characters and stories in traditional Chinese theatre challenges the Chinese audience's idea of
what "Chinese-ness" is; and interpreting Ibsen's play through a traditional Chinese theatre
form sets up an image of a Chinese imaginary to the world.
View all works in Cristin
Published
Apr. 6, 2017 9:43 AM
- Last modified
Dec. 8, 2023 3:26 PM