Univ.-Prof. Dr. Rossella Ferrari

I am a Professor of Chinese Studies in the Department of East Asian Studies. I hold a BA and MA (Laurea summa cum laude) from the University of Venice and an MA and PhD from SOAS University of London, where I taught before joining the University of Vienna in September 2020. I specialize in the performance cultures of the Chinese-speaking region. In "Pop Goes the Avant-garde: Experimental Theatre in Contemporary China" (2012), I propose the notion of “pop avant-garde” to understand aesthetic and power relations between performance, politics, and economics in postsocialist China. Research on Hong Kong’s transmedia group, Zuni Icosahedron, has led me to explore connections between theatre and other disciplines (e.g. film, architecture, visual arts) and to think through the idea of what I call “Xiqu 2.0”, namely, how heritage performance genres interact with new techniques and technologies. I have drawn on Asia-focused methodologies to formulate the notion of “Asian theatre as method”, which seeks to destabilize Western-centred approaches to intercultural analysis while investigating processes of informal reconciliation through the arts. My third book, "Transnational Chinese Theatres: Intercultural Performance Networks in East Asia" (2020), explores transnational performance networks in the contemporary Sinosphere and across East Asia to see how contested historical memories and sociopolitical conflicts are tackled collectively and comparatively through intercultural collaboration. Another book, "Asian City Crossings: Pathways of Performance Through Hong Kong and Singapore" (2021, co-edited with Ashley Thorpe) proposes the notion of “city as method” to look at city-to-city networks centred on Hong Kong and Singapore. I have also researched strategies of intertextuality and adaptation between Chinese, Asian, and global performance cultures (e.g. Latin America). I am currently working on the FWF-funded project "Performing Postsocialism in Twenty-First-Century China".