Lisha Xu
Teaching Fellow in Chinese and Translation Studies
- Chinese and Translation Studies
- School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures
- The University of Edinburgh
Contact details
- Email: Lisha.Xu@ed.ac.uk
Address
- Street
-
4.06, 40 George Square
- City
- Newington, Edinburgh
- Post code
- EH8 9JX
Availability
Office Hours: Wednesday 13:00--14:00
Background
Lisha Xu is currently a Teaching Fellow in Chinese and Translation Studies at the School of Literatures, Languages & Cultures at The University of Edinburgh. She obtained her Ph.D. in Translation from Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland. Her research interests are in theatre translation and literary translation in general, especially translating xiqu for the Anglophone stage and the study of Chinese translators of the early 20th-century diaspora. She has been invited by editors to contribute book chapters to academic essay collections to be published by Routledge and by Hodder & Stoughton (Hachette). She has been commissioned to edit a special issue of JoSTrans on theatre translation, to be published in 2024-25, and is currently preparing a research monograph on the topic of xiqu translation.
CV
143573.pdf
Qualifications
October 2017 – January 2021
PhD in Translation Studies
Centre for Translation and Interpreting, Queen’s University Belfast
September 2014 – July 2017
MA in Translation Theory and Practice:
School of Foreign Studies, Minzu University of China
August 2015 – May 2016
Exchange Programme in Creative Writing:
College of Arts and Sciences, Southern Illinois University
September 2010 – July 2014
BA in English Language and Literature
School of Foreign Studies, Minzu University of China
Responsibilities & affiliations
Teaching Fellow in Chinese Studies and Translation Studies
Undergraduate teaching
Foundation English-Chinese Translation
Postgraduate teaching
Co-teaching:
Portfolio of Written Translation Exercises in Chinese
Research in Translation Studies
Gender and Translation
Thinking in Translation
Translation and Creativity
Translating the Sacred: Concepts, Texts and Transmission of Religions
Translation Studies 1/2
Open to PhD supervision enquiries?
No
Research summary
Translation and Digital Representation on Stage; Audio-visual Translation in Theatre; Translation technologies in Theatre; Translation and Culture Anxiety - translation of Classical Chinese Operas for new audiences; Diaspora translators; Translation and Advocacy
Current research interests
I am currently interested in Translation technologies in Theatre Translation, eg. Audio-visual Translation in Theatre, Translation and Digital Representation on Stage and how technologies will ensure accessibility for a wider audience in the theatre.Past research interests
Keywords: Translating Classical Chinese Culture: Translation and Culture Anxiety - translation of Classical Chinese Operas for new audiences; Diaspora translators; Translation and Advocacy My PhD research looks at how Peking Opera, one of the most widely-staged forms of Classical Chinese Opera in China today, might be translated for performance in the English-speaking world. In this regard, my thesis analyses Lady Precious Stream, the first English-language production of Peking Opera on the London stage (1934) by a Chinese translator (S.I. Hsiung), which serves as an extended case study in this regard. Through the case study, I analyse Hsiung’s strategies for negotiating the formal and narrative codes that bind Peking Opera performance into its characteristically unified harmonious aesthetic. In other words, translation for performance is considered in my research as a form of writing that both recognizes the demands of spectatorship, as well as the rights and interests of the original.Journal Articles
Xu, Lisha, and David Johnston. "Between safeguarding and translating: Chinese classical opera and Spanish Golden Age theatre." Translation Studies 15, no. 3 (2022): 323-339.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14781700.2022.2120906
Johnston, David, and Lisha Xu. "Ecologies of translation: Chinese classical opera and Spanish Golden Age theatre." Boletín de la Biblioteca de Menéndez Pelayo 97, no. 1 (2021): 197-224.
https://publicaciones.sociedadmenendezpelayo.es/BBMP/article/view/441/464
Research Monograph
Translating Classical Chinese Opera: The Translation for a Performance of Emotion, Routledge Studies in Literary Translation Series, Routledge. 2025. (Contract signed)