Dr. WONG Hor Yau Serena

Assistant Professor

PhD in English Literature, University of Glasgow, UK
MLitt in English Literature: Modernities — Literature, Culture, Theory, University of Glasgow, UK
Bachelor of Laws (Hons) with a Minor in English, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, HK
 
Courses Taught
English Writing
Literature, Film and Society
 
Research Interests
Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group
Modernism(s) and 20th-Century British Literature 
Postcolonial Theories, Transnational Frameworks, and Cross-cultural Literary Analysis
Intersections of Race, Gender, Class, and Political Identity in Literature and Culture
Material and Visual Culture, Decorative Aesthetics, and Object Studies
 
Publications
Book Chapters
  • Wong, Serena, ‘Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, and China’, in Virginia Woolf and Simone de Beauvoir: Literature, Feminism, Life-Writing, ed. by Claire Davison and Luca Lou Pinelli (Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming). [Under review].
  • Wong, Serena, ‘Ornamental Woolf: A New Critical Perspective on Ornamentalism, Orientalism, and Virginia Woolf’s “Chinese” Discourse’, in The Edinburgh Companion to Virginia Woolf and Transnational Perspectives, ed. by Elisa Bolchi, Maria Rita Drumond Viana, Alice Davis Keane, Monica Latham, Sayaka Okumura, and Mine Özyurt Kiliç (Edinburgh University Press, 2025) pp. 333-348. 
Journal Articles
  • Wong, Serena, ‘Stories from the East by Leonard Woolf: A MAPP Archival Tracing of Bloomsbury’s Eastern Scene-Making’, Modernist Archives Publishing Project + ‘Out of the Archives’ Special Cluster, Feminist Modernist Studies, 9.3 (2026). [Under review]. 
Conference Proceedings
  • Wong, Serena, ‘Reading with the Willow Pattern Plate: Virginia Woolf’s Review of Pu Songlings’s Strange Stories from the Lodge of Leisure’, in Woolf, Modernity, Technology, ed. by Ashley Foster and Evelyn Malinowski (Clemson University Press, 2026). [Forthcoming]. In association with the 33rd Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf: Woolf, Modernity, Technology, California State University, Fresno, USA. 
  • Wong, Serena, ‘Elizabeth Dalloway, Chinese Eyes, and the “Real English Way”’, The Modernist Review, 53.1 (2024) <https://modernistreviewcouk.wordpress.com/2024/08/26/elizabeth-dalloway-chinese-eyes-and-the-real-english-way>. In association with Ephemeral Modernisms: British Association for Modernist Studies International Conference 2024, British Association for Modernist Studies (BAMS), University of Leeds, UK. 
Reviews
  • Oden, Leanne and Wong, Serena, ‘Many Paths of Crossing’, Instalments 1-4, Blogging Woolf (2025). <https://bloggingwoolf.org/2025/05/12/many-paths-of-crossing-newcomers-share-their-woolf-encounters-at-conference-33/>. [Conference Review]. 
  • Wong, Serena, ‘A Blue and White Sorority: Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant’s Famous Women Dinner Service’, The Kelvingrove Review, 20.1 (2025), pp. 18-25. [Exhibition Review].
Conferences
  • ‘Mrs. Woolf, Mr. Wu, and Mr. Whyte: A Chinese Gossamer Web around To the Lighthouse’. 34th Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf: Woolf and Dissidence, King’s College London and the University of Sussex, UK, July 2025. 
  • ‘Virginia Woolf’s Grayish-Green Image of a Squat Chinese God’. New Work in Modernist Studies 14, British Association for Modernist Studies (BAMS), The University of East Anglia, UK, December 2024.
  • ‘Elizabeth Dalloway’s Chinese Eyes – A Gaze Returned’. Ephemeral Modernisms: British Association for Modernist Studies International Conference 2024, British Association for Modernist Studies (BAMS), University of Leeds, UK, June 2024. 
  • ‘Strange Stories on a Willow Pattern Plate: Virginia Woolf, P’ou Song-Lin, and the Chinaware of Bloomsbury’. 33rd Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf: Woolf, Modernity, Technology, California State University, Fresno, USA, June 2024. 
  • ‘Who is Virginia Woolf’s “Queen of Hong Kong”?’. Modernism between Past and Future: The Third International Conference of the Modernist Studies in Asia Network (MSIA), Modernist Studies in Asia Network (MSIA), The University of Hong Kong, HK, May-June 2024. 
  • “They Imitate Chinese Pagodas”: Virginia Woolf and Chineseness’. New Work in Modernist Studies 13, British Association for Modernist Studies (BAMS), University of Liverpool, UK, December 2023.
  • ‘Fleshing Out the Chinese: Virginia Woolf and her Opium-Eaters’. 2023 Modern Language Association (MLA) Annual Convention, San Francisco, USA, January 2023.
  • ‘“His life stagnates in a china sea”: Orientalism in Virginia Woolf’s The Waves’. Moving the Centre, University of Glasgow, online, August 2021. 
  • ‘Ornamental Modernism: The Decorative Aesthetics of Virginia Woolf and Ling Shuhua’. The Aesthetics of Global Modernism, Modernist Studies in Asia Network (MSIA) and British Association for Modernist Studies (BAMS), online, July 2021. 
Public Outreach
  • Co-editor, The Modernist Review. 2023-2025.
  • Co-editor, eSharp, 30.1 (2022). 2022-2023. 
  • Co-organiser, Autotheory Conference 2022, University of Glasgow, UK. 2021-2022.