Josh Stenberg

Associate Professor Josh Stenberg serves in the Discipline of Chinese Studies within the School of Languages and Cultures, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, at the University of Sydney. He holds a B.A. from Harvard College, an M.A. from the University of British Columbia, and a Ph.D. in Chinese Theatre from Nanjing University, completed in 2015. Stenberg joined the University of Sydney in 2017 as a lecturer in Chinese Studies and has since been promoted to Associate Professor. His research specializations include xiqu (traditional Chinese opera), modern Chinese literature, overseas Chinese communities, and Sino-Indonesian cultural performances. He has held a Fulbright grant during his doctoral studies in 2014-2015 and was an International Institute for Asian Studies Fellow in 2022.

Stenberg is the author of two monographs focused on Hokkien opera and Sino-Indonesian performance, notably Minority Stages: Sino-Indonesian Performance and Public Display, published by University of Hawai'i Press in 2019. This work explores the role of performance arts in shaping public memory among Chinese communities in Indonesia. Other significant publications include 'Genealogy and sketch of Indonesian musical theatre' in Studies in Musical Theatre (2024), 'The Woman with No Escape: Operatic Retellings of the Zhu Maichen Story' in Cambridge Opera Journal (2022), 'Opera Diplomacy' in Pacific Historical Review (2022), and 'Ethnic Loyalty versus Spring Fancy' in Prism (2022). His scholarship has earned recognition through an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) for $398,378 starting in 2021, and his role as a chief investigator on the ARC Discovery Project 'Opening Australia’s Multilingual Archive,' funded at $1,028,537 from 2021. In 2023, he received an Honorable Mention for the American Society for Theatre Research Translation Prize. Stenberg contributes to academic leadership as Managing Editor of the Australian Society for Asian Humanities and Deputy Director of the China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. His research impacts the fields of Chinese performing arts, diaspora studies, and cultural diplomacy in Southeast Asia.

Professional Email: josh.stenberg@sydney.edu.au