Xi Li

Ph.D., University of Kansas

Xi Li (Cecilee) is currently a Lecturer in Communication Studies at the University of Kansas (KU), where she obtained her Ph.D. degree in May 2024. Her research methodologies stretch from humanistic to social scientific inquiries with a focus on rhetorical criticism, argumentation, digital media, and intercultural communication. Her goal as a communication researcher is to explore new approaches to understanding cultural politics, political discourses, media practices, and public life in non-Western societies and to promote the inclusiveness, visibility, and diversity of intercultural research in a Global South context such as contemporary Chinese society. She also studies how media and cultural forces in a non-Western context produce very different communicative norms and social practices than in the Anglophone and North-Atlantic paradigms of communication. Cecilee’s studies in rhetorical and intercultural analysis of Chinese culture and communication processes has been recognized by KU and won multiple awards at major conferences including the National Communication Association (NCA) and International Communication Association (ICA).

Prior to studying at KU, she served as a full-time faculty member in English Studies and director of debate programs at the Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU) for ten years. She was a national media guest speaker for Dialogue, the prime-time daily English talk show, and an invited news commentator for China 24, a prime-time news program, at CGTN, China’s national English TV channel. Cecilee believes in the value of good communication education in nurturing students’ critical thinking abilities, intercultural competence, and open-mindedness to embrace the diversity, challenges, and opportunities of the world.