Education
PhD. Socio/Cultural Anthropology, Rice University
M.A. Socio/Cultural Anthropology, Rice University
B.A. English Language and Literature, Renmin University of China
Areas of Research
Global communication, anthropology of Islam, feminist knowledge production, Chinese diaspora media, podcasting and sound studies, translation, public scholarship
Research Impact
Wang’s research lies in the intersection among global communication, technology, and culture. She specializes in the anthropology of Islam, race & ethnicity, gender and feminist studies, and digital studies such as online forums and podcasts. At its core, her scholarship attends to how communities make their own voices heard and how we imagine more creative, hopeful futures through interdisciplinary approaches.
Currently, Wang is writing a book which centers around resilient Muslim publics in a Muslim-minority context. She has published in peer-reviewed journals such as New Media and Society, Made In China Journal, Media Theory, Feminist Anthropology, Asian Anthropology, Journal of Contemporary East Asia, Terrain: Anthropologie & Sciences Humaines, and Journal of Transformative Learning.
Moving forward, her research projects include
- diasporic media in the global context;
- inter-Asian flows of feminist ideas;
- women’s health and media.
Meanwhile, she loves exploring ideas beyond academic publication. Her translated book Walter Benjamin’s Grave 本雅明之墓 (authored by Michael Taussig) was published by Peking University Press. In 2020, she co-founded TyingKnots 结绳志, an independent, non-profit, volunteer-based group committed to breaking down walls between academia, media, and the public through translation projects and the promotion of public-facing scholarship. From September 2022 to July 2023, she co-founded and produced the Global Media & Communication podcast series as part of the multimodal project powered by the Center of Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC) at Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania. Wang’s commentaries, essays, and podcast interviews feature in academic and public media outlets such as Anthropology News, Pop Junctions, Today’s Totalitarianism, Asian Review of Books, Initium, Inkstone, CNpolitics, Oriental History Review, TyingKnots, among others.
Recent Publications
2025. “Reading Chizuko Ueno in China: inter-Asian translation ethics and the ambivalence of transnational feminisms.” Special issue of “Global Media Ethics: A Feminist Intervention.” Feminist Media Studies
2024. “Global Communication Studies as a Standpoint: An Invitation to Think about Research, Pedagogy, and the Profession from a Global Communication Lens.” Media, Culture & Society.
2024. “Finding Wang Tonghui: The life and after-life of a pioneer female Chinese anthropologist.” Feminist Anthropology.
2023. “Small apps for digital futures: Podcasting ecology in contemporary China.” Radio Journal: International Studies in Broadcast & Audio Media.
2022. “Networked Islamic Counterpublic in China: Digital Media and Chinese Muslims during Global Pandemic of COVID-19.” New Media and Society
Recent Awards and Honors
2025–2027: Fellow, Ninth Cohort for Public Intellectuals Program (PIP), National Committee on U.S.-China Relations
2024–2025: First Book Workshop, Center for the Humanities, UW–Madison
2024–2025: Madison Teaching and Learning Excellence (MTLE) Fellowship, UW–Madison
Courses
J162 Mass Media in Multicultural America
J201 Introduction to Mass Communication
J567 Mass Media and Global Communication
J822 Global Communications
Recommendation Letter Solicitation Prerequisites
Wang is deeply committed to students’ success both in the short and long terms. To provide a compelling letter, she would accept to write recommendation letters for undergraduate and graduate students, ONLY IF they:
- Take two or more classes with her and have talked to her in office hours, project meetings, and other in-person occasions;
- Or work with her as Teaching Assistants and/or Research Assistants
- For TAs, she needs to observe at least one of her TAs’ teaching sections to write a compelling, detailed letter;
- For RAs, she needs to have in-person meetings with them, get to know their projects more in-depth, and/or collaborate with them in a research project before writing a compelling, detailed letter;
- Or are her advisees and for whom she serves as a dissertation committee member
- As a committee member, she needs to have multiple meetings with them through their graduate trajectories and get to know their projects more in-depth before writing a compelling, detailed letter.