Keynote Speakers
Rossella Ferrari
Rossella Ferrari is Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Vienna, Austria, and she previously worked at SOAS University of London, UK. Her main expertise is in the performance cultures of the contemporary Sinosphere. Her research interests include experimental performance practices in the Sinophone region, transnational Chinese theatres, Asian performance networks, intercultural performance, avant-garde studies, memory studies, intermediality, and adaptation. She is the author of Pop Goes the Avant-Garde: Experimental Theatre in Contemporary China (2012), Transnational Chinese Theatres: Intercultural Performance Networks in East Asia (2020), and Asian City Crossings: Pathways of Performance through Hong Kong and Singapore (2021, co-edited with Ashley Thorpe). Her current project is on postsocialist performance in postmillennial China.
Suk-Young Kim
Suk-Young Kim is Professor of Theater and Performance Studies and the Associate Dean of Faculty and Students at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film, and Television. She is an interdisciplinary scholar whose work primarily focuses on transmedia, entertainment industry, and the historical roots of today’s popular culture. She is the author of Illusive Utopia:Theater, Film, and Everyday Performance in North Korea (Michigan, 2010), DMZ Crossing: Performing Emotional Citizenship Along the Korean Border (Columbia, 2014), K-pop Live: Fans, Idols, and Multimedia Performance (Stanford, 2018), and Surviving Squid Game (Applause Theater and Cinema Books, 2023). She also co-authored Long Road Home: Testimony of a North Korean Camp Survivor (Columbia, 2009) and edited Cambridge Companion to K-Pop (Cambridge, 2023). Currently she is completing a book titled Millennial North Korea: Forbidden Media and Living Creatively with Surveillance (forthcoming from Stanford UP) and is translating Life of a City by a prominent South Korean architect and cultural critic Yoo Hyunjoon. Her scholarship has been recognized by the James Palais Book Prize from the Association for Asian Studies, the Association for Theater in Higher Education Outstanding Book Award, ACLS/SSRC/NEH International and Area Studies Fellowship, and the Academy of Korean Studies grants. She was a visiting professor at Yonsei University, University of Bologna, and Arizona State University. She presently serves as a member of the Hong Kong Research Council and co-edits the Columbia University Press’ new book series ‘Critical Voices from East Asia.’ Her commentary on Korean politics and media have been featured in major media outlets, such as Billboard, CNN, NPR, NYT, WSJ, and her opinion pieces have been published by the Los Angeles Times and NBC.