Selina Wang 王和

Field: Japanese Literature
Advisor: David Lurie and Haruo Shirane
Email: hw2687@columbia.edu

Selina is a PhD student in premodern Japanese literature. She focuses on the literary construction and development of humor in premodern East Asia, specifically how people invent and record humor through Literary Sinitic, kana systems, or a mixture of both. She treats humor as a creative crossover point between high and low culture, power hierarchies, and boundaries between wit and emotions. She is also interested in literary theory and the epistemological relationship between writing system and language in East Asia and is pursuing a graduate certificate in the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society.

Selina received a B.A. in Comparative Literature and Society and Philosophy from Columbia University (2022), where she completed a senior thesis focusing on how humor transcended temporal and sociopolitical realities in Shishuo xinyu and Makura no sōshi.

Jiaqi Wang

Field: Premodern Chinese Literature
Advisor: Wei Shang
Email: jw3983@columbia.edu

Jiaqi Wang is a PhD student of premodern Chinese literature. She is primarily interested in late imperial Chinese fiction, intellectual history, and cultural history. Her current project focuses on the popular publications, literary writings, and theatrical performances during the Ming-Qing transition to examine the dynamic relationships among media and investigate the political and historical significance of literary writings during the dynastic transition. Before joining the EALAC PhD program, Jiaqi received her B.A. in Chinese literature (2017) and M.A. in classical Chinese literature (2020) from Peking University, and M.A. in East Asian studies from Columbia University (2022). An abridged version of her M.A. thesis (2020) has been published in Chinese as “Shilun Honglou Meng de wenzhang jiegou (On the Compositional Transitions and Narrative Structure of The Story of the Stone)” in Honglou Meng xuekan (Studies on “A Dream of Red Mansions”), 2022(04).

Alexander Sogo

Field: East Asian Religion
Advisor: Michael Como
Email: acs2299@columbia.edu

Alex is a PhD student in premodern Japanese religion. His studies focus on demonic spirits, possession, exorcism in Heian Japan. This work frequently overlaps with topics such as disease etiology and healing, as well as questions of the identity of “Shinto” in the premodern period. He is also interested in modern issues surrounding theories of religion and magic both in the West and in Japan.
Alex received a BA in Music and Religious Studies from Brown University (2015) and an MA in Asian Studies from UC Berkeley (2017).