Bio
Joseph S. C. Lam is a professor of musicology in the School of Music, Theatre & Dance at the University of Michigan at the University of Michigan. A musicologist and sinologist, Lam specializes in the musics and cultures of Southern Song (1127-1275), Ming (1368-1644), and modern China (1900 to present). Lam regularly and extensively lectures in China, Europe, and the U.S.
Lam’s recent publications include: “Why and How do Chinese Sing Shijing Songs?” in Oxford Handbook of Chinese Music edited by Jonathan Stock and Yu Hui (2023, New York: OUP); “ Kunqu Cross-Dressing as Artistic and /or Queer Performance” in The Oxford Handbook of Music and Queerness, edited by Fred Everett Maus, Sheila Whiteley (2022, New York: Oxford University Press); “The Southern Story of the Western Wing: The Composition, MusicalPerformance, and Stage Realization of Kunqu Opera,” in How to Read Chinese Drama, edited by Patricia Sieber and Regina S. Llamas (2021, New York: University of Columbia Press).
Lam’s latest book publication is Kunqu, the Classical Opera of Globalized China (2022, Hong Kong University Press).
Since 2020, Lam regularly teaches courses on Chinese music and culture, ethnomusicology practices and theories, and music as creative and/or historical practices. From winter 2024 on, Lam will teach a course of shiyue (Chinse songs set to lyrics in the Shijing/The Classic of Poetry that Confucius anthologized.
