FASS Staff Profile

DR LIM ENG HUI ALVIN
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
DEPARTMENT of ENGLISH, LINGUISTICS & THEATRE STUDIES

Appointment:
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Office:
AS5/05-25
Email:
ellleha@nus.edu.sg
Tel:
Fax:
Homepage:
http://profile.nus.edu.sg/fass/ellleha/
Tabs

Brief Introduction

I hold a PhD in Theatre Studies jointly awarded by the National University of Singapore and King’s College London. My key research interests are popular religious practices, spirit mediums and rituals, with emphasis on new media and digital technology. I am Assistant Professor with the Theatre Studies Programme at the Department of English Language and Literature, National University of Singapore. I am also Deputy Director and Technology and Online Editor (Mandarin) of the Asian Shakespeare Intercultural Archive (A|S|I|A, http://a-s-i-a-web.org/). They are part of the Asian Intercultural Digital Archives (AIDA) project that aims to make some of the most important contemporary theatre practices in Asia available and accessible online to a wide audience. I have published on Singapore theatre, religious practices, and digital archiving. I am also a member of the “After Performance” working group, which explores experimental modes of writing on performance and co-authorship.


Teaching Areas

GES1039 Cultural Performances and Practices in Singapore

TS2232 Asian Theatres: Tradition and the Contemporary

TS3233 Southeast Asian Performance

TS4221 Performance Research

 


Graduate Supervision

MA: Koh Yee Cheng, “Reconsidering Kuo Pao Kun’s Legacy As A Chinese Cultural Figure”.

PhD: Philip Kwame Boafo, “Procession Performance: Performing Knowledge and Memory in a West African Community”


Current Research

I have recently published my book on Religion, Mediality and Performance, titled Digital Spirits in Religion and Media: Possession and Performance (Routledge, 2018). 

I am also working on a postdoctoral project titled, "Island Performatives and Spiritualities: The voyages of travelling troupes, religious practices and performing communities in Southeast Asia." This project will explore how islands are embodied in and through performance. By looking at “islands” as a theoretical trope, along with its derivatives—arrivals and derivations, modes of transport and vessels, one can examine the nature of an assemblage of performances, spirits, histories, technologies, translations, messengers, vessels, mediums, and migrant communities. It will study travelling performances and performers in the Southeast Asia region and investigate how certain contemporary performances found in the region assert an island performative – an act that mediates and reiterates several meanings about spirituality in a new context. Such a context includes art and theatre festivals, religious festival and processions, capital cities, and continental venues. Bounded by existing cultural and economic systems, islanders are part of a vast network of people, spirits, gods and commodities travelling to and fro nodes of exchanges. I will attempt to trace those voyages and productions of knowledge.

I am a member of the Performance, Religion and Spirituality working group, which is part of the International Federation of Theatre Research. 

I am also member of a performance studies working group and the members are Ella Parry-Davis (King's College London), Matt Yoxall (NUS) and Felipe Cervera (NUS). We call ourselves the "After Performance" research collective and we explore issues of authorship, the post-2008 geopolitical climate, and performance studies as an academic discipline in our readings and writings. The group held workshops at King's College London and the University of Melbourne, and presented our work in the symposium, "The Politics of Collaboration - European Currents" hosted by Middlesex University. We have published a thought-piece on Performance Research Vol.21 No.5, ‘On Trans/Performance’ (ed. Amelia Jones), where we wrote about our evolving methodology we term ‘transauthorship’. We reconvened to host a workshop at the PSi#23 conference in Hamburg, June 2017.


Research Interests

Intercultural theatre, digital archiving, religion, spirituality and technology, and travelling cultures


Publications

BOOKS/MONOGRAPHS AUTHORED

ARTICLES IN JOURNALS

  • Lim, Alvin Eng Hui. 2022. "Wangye practices online: From burning effigy vessels to digital networks". Global Networks, 00, 1– 15. https://doi-org/10.1111/glob.12412
  • Lim, Alvin Eng Hui. 2022. "Lemongrass, lotteries and the digital: interfaces, mediums, and underworld gods on a live-stream". Religion 52(2): 214-230. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0048721X.2022.2051803?journalCode=rrel20
  • Lim, Alvin Eng Hui. 2021. "Technologies of the Hungry Ghosts and Underworld Gods", Performance Research, 26:1-2, 133-144, DOI: 10.1080/13528165.2021.1959248
  • Lim, Alvin E.H. 2020. "Live Streaming and Digital Stages for the Hungry Ghosts and Deities" Religions 11, no. 7: 367. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11070367 
  • Lim, Alvin Eng Hui. 2019. "Between the Sea and the Shore: Mediating the Nine Emperor Gods Festival in Singapore". Journal of Contemporary Religion 34(1): 117-134. 
     
  • Lim, Alvin Eng Hui. 2017. "Theology and Belief in Digital Speech Acts and Online Protests: A Singapore Case Study." Performance, Religion and Spirituality 1.1: 25–42.

     

  • CERVERA, Felipe, LIM, Alvin, PARRY-DAVIES, Ella, and YOXALL Matthew. 2017. “Vulnerability and the Lonely Scholar”. Interventions 27.2. Available on https://www.contemporarytheatrereview.org/2017/vulnerability-and-the-lonely-scholar/

     

  • LIM, Alvin E. H. 2016. “Actor training and intercultural jam in a multilingual context.” Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 7.1: 74–88. DOI: 10.1080/19443927.2016.1143873.

     

  • Lim, Alvin. 2015. “Money to Burn: Performance of Excess and Deficit in Chinese Popular Religious Practices in Contemporary Singapore.” Ed. Frank Jacob. Global Humanities Vol. 2: Religion & Poverty. Berlin: Neofelis Verlag, 73–90.

CHAPTERS IN BOOKS

  • Lim, Alvin Eng Hui. 2021. "Both Sides, Now: Between Narratives of Decline and Gestures of Care". In Performing Arousal: Precarious Bodies and Frames of Representation. Meerzon, Yana, Listengarten, Julia, eds. London: Bloomsbury, 160-173.
  • Lim, Alvin Eng Hui. 2019. "Multilingual dramaturgy and staging relevant translations in Singapore". Dramaturgy of Migration: Staging Multilingual Encounters in Contemporary Theatre. Yana Meerzon, Katharina Pewny, eds. Abingdon: Routledge, 88–99.
     
  • LIM, Alvin E. H. 2019. “Routes and Routers of Interculturalism: Islands, Theatres and Shakespeares.” Interculturalism and Performance Now: New Directions? Charlotte McIvor and Jason King, eds. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. [https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-02704-9_3]

     

  • LIM, Alvin E. H. 2018. “Digital Environments for Intercultural Content: A Case Study on the Asian Shakespeare Intercultural Archive.” Digital Echoes: Spaces for Intangible and Performance-based Cultural Heritage. Sarah Whatley, Rosamaria Kostic Cisneros, Amalia Sabiescu, eds. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 191–211. [Available at https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-73817-8_10] 

     

  • Lim, Alvin Eng Hui. 2018. "'In Some Incarnation or Another'—Encountering the Presences of Krishen Jit." Excavations, Interrogations, Krishen Jit & Contemporary Malaysian Theatre, edited by Charlene Rajendran, Ken Takiguchi, and Carmen Nge. Kuala Lumpur and Singapore: Five Arts Centre and Epigram Books, 144–155. 
     
  • LIM, Alvin E. H. 2017. “Thinking Virtually in a Distracted Globe.” Documenting Performance. Toni Sant, ed. London: Bloomsbury, 189–201.

     

  • Rae, Paul and Lim, Alvin. 2010. "Nameless, Sexless, Rootless, Homeless: Performance in a Transnation State." Eds. Matthew Cohen and Laura Noszlopy. Transnational Performance in Southeast Asia. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press, 163–190.

     

SHORTER ARTICLES/COMMENTS IN JOURNAL

  • CERVERA, Felipe, LIM, Alvin, PARRY-DAVIES, Ella, and YOXALL Matthew. 2016. “After Performance: On Transauthorship”. Performance Research 21.5 (On Trans/Performance): 35–36, DOI: 10.1080/13528165.2016.1223445.

     

  • Lim, Alvin. 2014. "Medium." Ecumenica: Journal of Theatre and Performance 7.1 and 7.2, Special Issue on Critical Terms in Religion, Spirituality, and Performance, 49–52.

CONFERENCE PAPERS

  • “‘To Suffer a Sea Change’: Eroded Ecologies, Desert Islands, and Resettlements”. Presentation at the Performance Studies Conference #23, Hamburg, June 2017.

     

    After Performance (CERVERA, Felipe, LIM, Alvin, PARRY-DAVIES, Ella, and YOXALL Matthew). “Migration and Collaboration: Challenging the Conventions of Lonely Scholarship”. Workshop at the Performance Studies International Conference #23, June 2017.

     

    “Performing Islands: Travelling Performers, Performance Practices and Festivals.” Work-in-Progress Presentation at IASH, University of Edinburgh, May 2017.

     

    “Parables of Islet Ecologies and Interstitial Biologies”. Workshop Presentation at the Susan Manning-IASH Workshop, “Beyond the Anthropo—Scenes, Mediums, Apparatuses and Environments”, University of Edinburgh, May 2017.

     

    “Between the Sea and the Shore: The Processional Site-specificity of the Nine Emperor Gods Festival in Singapore”. Panel Presentation at “Sacred Places: Performances, Politics and Ecologies” Conference, Liverpool Hope University, April 2017.

     

    After Performance Working Group (CERVERA, Felipe, LIM, Alvin, PARRY-DAVIES, Ella, and YOXALL Matthew). Roundtable Presentation at “The Politics of Collaboration – European Currents,” Middlesex University, September 2016.

     

    LIM, Alvin, and TAKIGUCHI, Ken. “The Making of Theatre Makers Asia.” Presenting Cultural Specificity in Digital Collections Workshop at the National University of Singapore, August 2016.

     

    CERVERA, Felipe, LIM, Alvin, PARRY-DAVIES, Ella, and YOXALL Matthew. “After Performance: Geopolitics Now and the Making of Collectives: Workshop on Ensemble Research.” Workshop at the Performance Studies International Conference #22, The University of Melbourne, July 2016.

     

    “Deriving and Arriving at Island Performatives and Spiritualities: Voyages in Southeast Asia." International Federation of Theatre Research (IFTR/FIRT) 2016, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden, June 2016.

     

    CERVERA, Felipe, LIM, Alvin, PARRY-DAVIES, Ella, and YOXALL Matthew. “After Performance” Workshop at King’s College London, April 2016.

     

    LIM, Alvin. “Between the Sea and the Shore: Processional Site-specific Performances.” Peformance Studies International (PSi): Beyond Contamination: Corporeality, Spirituality and Pilgrimage in Northern Japan, Aomori, Japan, August 2015.

     

    LIM, Alvin. “Spiritual Assemblages: Cross-spiritual Tools of Analysis”, IFTR/FIRT 2015: Theatre and Democracy, Hyderabad, India, July 2015.

     

    LIM, Alvin. “The Christmas Shows of Protestant Communities in Singapore”, IFTR/FIRT 2014: Theatre and Stratification, Warwick, UK, July 2014.

     

    LIM, Alvin. “Deities as Actors, Routers and Networks”, IFTR/FIRT 2013: Re-Routing Performance, Barcelona, Spain, July 2013.

     

    LIM, Alvin. “Play and Nonsense: For Sia Chan Hong”, TaPRA Post-Graduate Symposium: Play in Performance Practices, London, UK, January 2013.

     

    LIM, Alvin. “Sitting, Forgetting: Staging Forgetting, Sitting and Remembering”, Performance Studies International Conference #17: Camillo 2.0: Technology, Memory, Experience, Utrecht University, The Netherlands, May 2011.

     

    LIM, Alvin. “Saving Ghosts: Thinking Virtually in a Distracted Globe”, Performance Studies International Conference #17: Camillo 2.0: Technology, Memory, Experience, Utrecht University, The Netherlands, May 2011.

     

    LIM, Alvin. “Chinese Ears: Listening in One Language, Hearing in Two” at Performance Studies International Conference #15: Misperformance, Zagreb University, Croatia, June 2009.

     

PAPERS FOR SEMINAR, PUBLIC TALK, LECTURE

  • LIM, Alvin, and Joel Tan. “Checkpoint Conversations: Bridging the Narrative Gap”, Checkpoint Theatre, Singapore, 11 Febuary 2015.

WEB

  • YONG Li Lan*, LIM Eng Hui Alvin, TAKIGUCHI Ken, LEE Chee Keng, LEE Hyon-u, HWANG Ha-young, SUEMATSU Michiko and KOBAYASHI Kaori. 2015. Asian Shakespeare Intercultural Archive (A|S|I|A). 2nd edition. National University of Singapore. In English, Chinese, Japanese. www.-a-s-i-a-web.org

     

  • YONG Li Lan*, LIM Eng Hui Alvin, TAKIGUCHI Ken, LEE Chee Keng, LEE Hyon-u, HWANG Ha-young, SUEMATSU Michiko and KOBAYASHI Kaori. 2011. Asian Shakespeare Intercultural Archive (A|S|I|A). 1st edition. National University of Singapore. In English, Chinese, Japanese. www.-a-s-i-a-web.org

     

  • YONG Li Lan*, Robin LOON, LIM Eng Hui Alvin, TAKIGUCHI Ken, LEE Chee Keng, SUEMATSU Michiko and KOBAYASHI Kaori. 2010. “Asian Shakespeare Intercultural Archive (A|S|I|A).” Pilot edition. National University of Singapore, 2010. In English, Chinese, Japanese. www.-a-s-i-a-web.org. The Pilot edition consisting of the basic interface and applications, data, original and translated scripts and streaming video for 7 productions. The work includes translations by freelance translators.).

     

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