Romance Languages and Literatures
Wan Sonya Tang
Assistant Professor of Hispanic Studies
Director, Asian American Studies Program
Wan Sonya Tang
Ph.D.
Contact
Lyons Hall 311B
Telephone: 617-552-1096
Email: wan.tang@bc.edu
ORCID
Education
- B.A. University of Southern California
- M.A., Yale University
- M.Phil., Yale University
- Ph.D., M.Phil., M.A., Yale University
Courses
SPAN 6607 Warrior Women of Spain, 19th-21st Centuries
SPAN 6645 Race and Representation in Spain (19th-21st Centuries)
SPAN 6649 Haunting Modernity: The Fantastic Short Story in 19th-Century Spain
SPAN 6681 Representations of the Spanish Civil War
SPAN 9919 Monsters, Specters, and the Supernatural in 19th-Century Spain
SPAN 9920 The Spanish Civil War in Word and Image
SPAN 9962 Machos ib茅ricos: (De)Constructing Masculinity in Contemporary Spain
Research Interests
19th鈥�21st Century Spanish Literatures and Cultures; Benito P茅rez Gald贸s; Gothic and the Fantastic in Spain; the Spanish Short Story; Gender Studies; Decolonial studies; Television and media studies; Hispano-Asian Studies
Profile
Wan Sonya Tang is a scholar of 19th-21st-century Spanish cultural production. Her book Specters, Monsters, and the Damned: Fantastic Threats to the Social Order in Nineteenth-Century Spanish Fiction (Vanderbilt University Press) examines how familiar Gothic tropes function within open-ended fantastic storytelling to explore fraught questions of class, gender, and race in a way that the dominant realist narrative could not. She is also the co-editor of Televising Restoration Spain: History and Fiction in Twenty-First-Century Costume Dramas (Palgrave MacMillan), which examines how Spain's relation to modernity in the late 1800s and early 1900s is explored through the heritage film/television industry.
As of 2023, Wan is the director of Asian American Studies at Boston College. In this role, she is committed to supporting AAPI students and faculty at 吃瓜网, particularly by fostering positive relationships across the university and lending support to events and new initiatives on campus. Her most recent research likewise turns to Spanish representations of Asia and Asian representations of Spain, from the nineteenth century onwards.
Selected Lectures and Conference Presentations
鈥淐ursed to Extinction: Imperialist Cultural Encounters in Emilia Pardo Baz谩n鈥檚 鈥楨l brasile帽o鈥� (1911).鈥澛燤odern Language Association Annual Convention. San Francisco, CA, January 5-8,聽 2023.
鈥淢onstruos, maldiciones e imperialismo en el cuento 鈥楾ropiquillos.鈥欌�澛燲II Congreso Internacional Galdosiano. Casa Museo P茅rez Gald贸s, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain. June 20-23, 2022.
鈥淔antastic Fiction and the Critique of Capitalism in Early Restoration Spain.鈥澛�Imaginarios econ贸micos en la literatura y el cine de Espa帽a y Latinoam茅rica. Symposium. Lehman College, Bronx, NY.聽 April 5-6, 2019.
鈥淕aldosian Spain, Francoist Censorship, and the Construction of Masculinity in Jos茅 Luis Borau鈥檚 Adaptation of聽Miau聽(TVE 1972).鈥澛營 Symposium of the Asociaci贸n Internacional de Galdosistas. Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME. Sept. 14-15, 2018.
鈥淭he Insufficiency of Excess and the Construction of Masculinity in Gald贸s鈥檚聽La Sombra.鈥澛營nterdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies 2018 Supernumerary Conference. University of Roma Tre, Rome, Italy. June 13-15, 2018.
鈥淢ere Shadows of Men: Gothic Conventions and Masculine Crisis in Gald贸s鈥檚聽La sombra.鈥澛燤odern Language Association Annual Convention. New York, NY.聽 January 4-7, 2018.
鈥淔rom Photos to Forensics: Technology, Modernity, and the Internationalization of Spanish History in Gran Hotel.鈥� IV Jornadas de ALCESXXI. Residencia Pignatelli, Zaragoza, Spain. July 3-7, 2017.
鈥淐risis de masculinidad en la narrativa fant谩stica de Gald贸s: Hombres inseguros en La sombra y 鈥樎緿贸nde est谩 mi cabeza?鈥�.鈥� XI Congreso Galdosiano. Casa Museo P茅rez Gald贸s, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain. June 19-23, 2017.
鈥淚mpairment of Vision and Visions of Impairment in Gald贸s鈥檚 Marianela.鈥� Modern Language Association Annual Convention. Philadelphia, PA. January 5-8, 2017.
鈥�The Aesthetic Appeal of Ahistorical History in the Spanish Television Series聽Gran Hotel.鈥� Annual Kentucky Foreign Language Conference. University of Kentucky, Lexington. April 14-16, 2016.
"The Art of the Spanish Historical Drama: A Case Study of the Television Series聽Gran Hotel." Aqu铆 y Ahora: TV and Film Production in Contemporary Spain Conference. Swarthmore College, Swarthmore. March 25-26, 2016.
鈥�Two Spains in Alberto Rodr铆guez鈥檚聽La isla minima/Marshland聽(2014).鈥� Spanish Film Series. Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, NY. November 5, 2015.
鈥淕endered Trauma and the Spanish Civil War in聽La pla莽a del Diamant聽by Merc茅 Rodoreda.鈥� Annual Meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association. University of Washington, Seattle. March 26-29, 2015.聽聽聽聽聽聽
鈥淪acred and Supernatural: Representations of Madrid in Fantastic Narratives from 19th-Century Spain.鈥� Annual Meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association. New York University, New York. March 20-23, 2014.
鈥溾�楳y Dear, These Things Are Life鈥�: A Woman in the Spanish Civil War in聽La plaza del diamante.鈥� Annual Northeast Modern Language Association Convention. Susquehanna University, Harrisburg. April 3-6, 2014.
鈥淓l retrato de las clases sociales en dos cuentos fant谩sticos de Gald贸s.鈥� X Congreso Internacional Galdosiano. Casa Museo P茅rez Gald贸s, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. June 18-21, 2013.
鈥淗aunted House/Scary Street: Crises of Self and Space in 19th-Century Spanish Fantastic Narrative.鈥� Annual Northeast Modern Language Association Convention. Tufts University, Boston. March 21-24, 2013.
鈥淥f Trams and Trains: Fantastic Movement Through Madrid and Spain in Gald贸s's Short Fiction." Mid-America Conference on Hispanic Literature. University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln. October 12-14, 2012.
鈥淭he Haunted City: Madrid in the Fantastic Fiction of Gald贸s.鈥� Invited talk before the Whitney Humanities Fellows. Yale University, New Haven, CT. March 28, 2012.