Dr Li Ruru started working on Shakespeare when she was an MA student studying European Drama History in China. After she began her PhD in Britain, she narrowed the subject down to Shakespeare performances in China. Dr Li has published extensively on the subject, and have received good reviews for her book Shashibiya: Staging Shakespeare in China (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press). The reviews below give a good overview of Dr Li Ruru's research on the subject.

Timothy Billings in Shakespeare Quarterly: "Li Ruru's book is the perfect introduction to Shakespearean staging in mainland China for those who know a lot about Shakespeare but little about China... he offers continual analyses of the political, cultural, and artistic forces that filter the plays in their passage to the Chinese stage, including discussions of the influence of Marx's and Engels's comments on Shakespeare, early Soviet workshops in the Stanislavski method, and the specifics of traditional Chinese theatrical conventions, such as those of Peking opera, or jingju, and less familiar regional forms such as kunju and yueju."

Constance Orliski in China Information: "Li's discussion of post-1949 Chinese politics, society and culture through the lens of staging Shakespeare in China offers a unique and stimulating resource for examining these issues in a course devoted to the history of People's Republic. Second, the work is an excellent case study of cross-cultural interaction and could be employed to demonstrate this rather standard theme in a modern world history course.'

Richard Forheringham in Australasian Drama Studies:"Li Ruru manages successfully to tell three stories simultaneously: the political history of China in the 20th century and its consequences for artists; the impact of successive waves of Western performance aesthetics and texts on a culture which absorbed them without colonial angst as contributions to its own stage and cultural concerns; and fascinating descriptions of some of the key performances, particularly in the 1980s as, for a brief decade, Shakespeare became a significant player when China emerged from its tragic 'Cultural Revolution'. Towards the end the author herself becomes a character, tracking down retired artists and their unique records and memories of major productions through her family connections (her mother was a major star of jingju or Peking Opera), and then becoming herself a cultural and theatrical interpreter during British Council tours to China.'

Although her current research interest lies largely in Beijing Opera, Dr Li maintains a close research interest in recently staged works of Shakespeare in mainland China and Taiwan. She is also preparing a presentation for the 2011 World Shakespeare Congress.