Chingling Wo

Ph.D., SUNY at Stony Brook (2004) in Comparative Literature; Certificate in Women’s Studies, SUNY at Stony Brook (1999)

Chingling Wo received her PhD in English (Comparative Literature) at State University of New York at Stony Brook. She joined the English Department in 2005. Her work in general engages issues of empire formation, transnational print culture, and modernization in Asia and Europe. Her teaching interests include 17th-19th century British literature, the epistemological impact of global trade in long eighteenth century, travel writing, image of China in British Literature, cultural theory, feminism, Chinese studies, colonialism and post-colonial literature and criticism; Literature's intersections with visual arts, science, and philosophy. She has presented conference papers on early modern British scientific discourse on other cultures, the discursive function of the European Enlightenment legacy in late nineteenthcentury China, romantic love as an imperialist discourse, critique of developmentalism in a global context, and the intersection of postcolonialism and critical global studies focusing on the discourse of invasive species.

Most of her research work focuses on the intersection between capitalism as an economic system and the colonial structure of feeling. Recently she is working on the formation of sentimentality in 18th century literature of Britain and Qing China. She is also interested in using the invasive apple snail in Asian rice paddies to develop new ways of theorizing global space.