Professor Xiaomei Chen loves to teach Chinese films that she grew up with in the People’s Republic of China. Her Chinese 101 is a popular course covering classics from the silent film era to the twentieth-first century. Her research areas include modern Chinese literature and culture, performance studies, and visual cultural studies, which can be examined through the critical analysis of films.

Her publications include Occidentalism: A Theory of Counter-discourse in Post-Mao China (Oxford, 1995, second and expanded edition, 2002), Acting the Right Part: Political Theater and Popular Culture in Contemporary China (Haiwaii UP, 2002), and other edited and co-edited volumes on visual culture, East-West comparative performance studies, and Chinese drama in English translation.

Professor Chen received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Indiana University.