Dr. Yoke-Sum Wong

Associate Professor, Liberal Studies

“Leap sideways. Keep the recognizable method or methods in reserve, in case of illness, misery, fatigue; go rambling again. Explore space, a flying insect, a stag at bay, a stroller always chased off his habitual path by guard dogs growling around familiar places……..Wander as free as a cloud, cast your gaze in every direction, improvise.”

Yoke Sum Wong
Yoke-Sum

Yoke-Sum Wong comes from an interdisciplinary background in English, Education, and Sociology. She taught in the UK before returning to Canada in 2016. She specializes in cultural theory and historiography. Her PhD was on postcolonial landscapes in South East Asia, with a concentration on the hybrid colonial vernacular architecture of the 19th and early 20th century in Singapore. Since then she has pivoted to researching everyday domestic interiors, kitchens, modernist houses and housing estates, and mid-century modernism in the non-west. She has also been involved in organizing experimental workshops on creative methodologies on writing and theorizing. The workshops bring together art and media communities, and academics from different disciplines in order to foster collaborative ways of working together.  She is also working on decolonizing practices in higher education, and pedagogy. Her current project is an auto-ethnographical and affective exploration on the beingness of decolonization in everyday life after the retreat of British rule in South-East Asia. The manuscript also focuses on the intertwining of food, popular and material culture and architecture in the making of a post-colonial identity. She is the Editor in Chief of The Journal of Historical Sociology (Peer reviewed, Quarterly, Wiley).

 

Education

PhD. Dept. of Sociology, University of Alberta, Canada

M.Ed. Dept. of Educational Policy Studies (International/Intercultural Education), University of Alberta, Canada

BA in English (Minor - Political Science), University of Alberta, Canada

Selected Professional Activity

The Ex-Situ/Structures of Feelings Workshops - These workshops involve theoreticians and practitioners (artists, architects, designers, academics, students, etc), and are usually organized with a member of the host institution. 

Co-Curator with Aristide Antonas (Freie Universität Berlin) & Dr. Adam Kaasa (Royal College of Art),  Structures of Feelings: A Structure of Revenge 4-8th June, 2016. The Onassis Foundation, Athens, Greece. Sponsored by The Onassis Foundation and Theatrum Mundi.

Co-Organizer with Dr. Endre Danyi (Goethe University) Crisis and Representation March 11th, 2016. School of Social Sciences, Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany.

Co-organizer with Dr. Adam Kaasa (School of Architecture, Royal College of Art) Structures of Feelings May 15th, 2015. Royal College of Art, London, UK.

Co-Organizer with Craig Campbell (UT Austin) Ex-Situ: A Workshop and a Journey (Theorizing Site-Specificity) April 9th & 12th, 2014. Austin, Tx and Marfa, Tx. This workshop is twofold – and encompasses a road trip workshop where the participants write the journey from Austin to Marfa.

Selected Publications

Publications (selected, past 5 years)

Co-Editor (with Craig Campbell & Karen Engle), Special Issue, “Structures of Anticipation”, Imaginations – Journal of Cross Cultural Image Studies (Digital Open Access) Jan 2021 http://imaginations.glendon.yorku.ca/?p=13933

Primary Author, with Karen Engle and Craig Campbell “Introduction” Special Issue, “Structures of Anticipation”, Imaginations – Journal of Cross Cultural Image Studies (Digital Open Access) Jan 2021 http://imaginations.glendon.yorku.ca/?p=13933

Co-edited with Karen Engle, Feelings of Structure: Explorations in Affect, Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2019 (222 pages)

“The Future is Hybrid: Isamu Noguchi and the Mid-Century Modern,” in Karen Engle and Yoke- Sum Wong (eds), Feelings of Structure: Explorations in Affect, Montreal: McGill Queens University Press, 2018, pp. 117-138

“Caterpillar Dreams: A Multispecies Fabulation,” Nrivijnana Patrika, Vol. 22, Department of Anthropology, Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh, July 2017, pp. 89-99

 

Selected Recent Writings

Co-Author, “Introduction: Thinking Feeling” in Karen Engle & Yoke-Sum Wong (eds) Feelings of Structures, McGill Queens University Press, (forthcoming 2018)

“The Future is Hybrid: Isamu Noguchi and the Mid-Century Modern” in Karen Engle & Yoke-Sum Wong (eds) Feelings of Structures, McGill Queens University Press, (forthcoming 2018)

“Caterpillar Dreams: A Multispecies Fabulation” Nrivijnana Patrika, Vol 22, Department of Anthropology, Jahangirnagar University, (July 2017)

“Edith doesn’t Live Here Anymore: A Story of Farnsworth House” in Dariusz Gafijcuk and Derek Sayer (eds) The Inhabited Ruins of Central Europe: Space, History and Memory  Palgrave, 2013 

 “A Presence of a Constant End: Contemporary Art and Popular Culture in Japan” in Joshua Nichols and Amy Swiffen (eds) The Ends of History: Questioning the Stakes of Historical Reason Routledge, 2012

"Modernism's Love Child: The Story of Happy Architectures" in Devalued Currency: Elegiac Symposium on Paradigm Shifts Part 1 Vol. 14, NO. 3 Common Knowledge (Summer 2008), 445 – 471.

"When there are no Pagodas on Pagoda Street: Navigating 19th Century Urban Singapore" Vol. 38 special issue of Environment and Planning A. (2006), 325-340.

Edited Collection

Karen Engle & Yoke-Sum Wong (eds) Feelings of Structures, McGill Queens University Press, (forthcoming 2018)

Managing Editor 

The Journal of Historical Sociology (JHS) is an international interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal, published quarterly by Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford since 1988 with over 2600 Institutional/Consortial (electronic and non-electronic) subscriptions.