Tina Young Choi
Professor
Office: Atkinson Building, 720
Phone: (416)736-2100 Ext: 22149
Email: tinayc@yorku.ca
Tina Young Choi specializes in nineteenth-century British literature and culture, with a particular interest in the intersections between scientific and literary narrative.
Her published work includes two monographs, Victorian Contingencies: Experiments in Literature, Science, and Play (Stanford University Press, 2021) and Anonymous Connections: The Body and Narratives of the Social in Victorian Britain (University of Michigan Press, 2015), as well as articles on a range of interdisciplinary subjects, such as nineteenth-century medicine, statistics, thermodynamics, and print culture. Her course offerings also focus on the nineteenth century; they include an undergraduate survey of nineteenth-century British literature and culture, an honours seminar on the Victorian city, and graduate seminars on Victorian sexuality, the historical novel from Scott to Eliot, and the literary culture of the 1840s.
Her current research investigates the culture of mass-market maps -- travel and tourist maps, children's games and puzzles, and educational works -- and forms of cartographic literacy in nineteenth-century Britain. This project is supported by a SSHRC Insight Grant (2020 to 2025).
She is a member of the Graduate Faculty in Science and Technology Studies at York University. In 2019 she was the George Whalley Visiting Professor in the English Department at Queen's University.
Degrees
Ph.D., University of California, BerkeleyA.B., magna cum laude, Harvard University
Professional Leadership
Advisory Board, Victorian Review, 2019 to present
Advisory Board, North American Victorian Studies Association (2019-21)
President, Victorian Studies Association of Ontario (2015-17)
Member of the Executive, Victorian Studies Association of Ontario (2013-15, 2017-19)
Community Contributions
DEPARTMENT of ENGLISH, YORK UNIVERSITY:
Committee on Teaching (2007-2011; 2013-17, 2019-20).
GRADUATE PROGRAM in ENGLISH, YORK UNIVERSITY:
Professionalization Workshop Program Coordinator (2008-11; 2013-15);
Graduate Scholarships and Prizes Committee (2006-2009, 2012-18, 2019-21).
EXTRADEPARTMENTAL: Steering Committee, Victorian Studies Network at York (2008-present)
Research Interests
- Department of English Graduate Fellowships, 2001-2002; 1998-1999 - 2001
- Mabelle McLeod Lewis Dissertation Fellowship, 2000-2001 - 2000
- Mellon Dissertation Fellowship, 1999-2000 - 1999
- Department of English Graduate Fellowships, 2001-2002; 1998-1999 - 1998
Reviews in Victorian Studies, Isis, Prose Studies, and The Journal of British Studies.
“Styles of Cartographic Vision: Science, Art, and Labor in Thomas Hornor’s Surveys." European Romantic Review 33.4 (2022): 479-95. Special issue on Romanticism and Vision, edited by Terry Robinson and John Savarese.
"Lost Labor: Street Cries and the Representation of Urban Nostalgia." Nineteenth-Century Contexts 43.2 (2021): 149-70.
"History, Memory, and Rewriting the Past in A Tale of Two Cities." SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 60.4 (2020): 783-804.
“Causality.” [co-authored with Edward Jones-Imhotep.] Victorian Literature and Culture 46.3-4 (2018): 604-08.
“Slow Causality: The Function of Narrative in an Age of Climate Change.” [co-authored with Barbara Leckie.] Victorian Studies 60.4 (2018): 565-87.
“Producing the Past: The Native Arts, Mass Tourism, and Souvenirs in Victorian India.” LIT: Literature, Interpretation, Theory 17.1 (2016): 50-70.
“The Railway Guide’s Experiments in Cartography: Narrative, Information, Advertising.” Victorian Studies. 57.2 (2015): 251-83.
"The Late-Victorian Histories of Indian Art Objects: Politics and Aesthetics in Jaipur’s Albert Hall Museum.” Victorian Literature and Culture. 41.2 (2013): 199-217.
“Vaccination, Poetry, and an Early-Nineteenth-Century Physiology of the Self.” Literature and Medicine 29 (2011): 58-80.
“Natural History’s Hypothetical Moments: Narratives of Contingency in Victorian Culture.” Victorian Studies 51 (2009): 273-95.
“Forms of Closure: The First Law of Thermodynamics and Victorian Narrative.” ELH 74 (2007): 301-322.
“Narrating the Unexceptional: The Art of Medical Inquiry in Victorian England and the Present.” Literature and Medicine 22 (2003): 65-83.
“Writing the Victorian City: Discourses of Risk, Connection, and Inevitability.” Victorian Studies 43 (2001): 561-589.
“Beyond Extinction: Darwin’s Wonderland," Modern Language Association (MLA) (Toronto) January 2021
“Routes, Junctions, Destinations: A Narrative Cartography for the Nineteenth Century,” International Conference on Narrative (Pamplona, Spain), May/June 2019
“Maxwell’s ‘demon,’ Eliot’s Outliers: Testing the Limits of Probability,” North American Victorian Studies Association (NAVSA) (St. Petersburg, Florida), October 2018
“Victorian Street Cries: Lost Labour and Urban Nostalgia,” NAVSA (Banff), November 2017
“Lyell’s Experimental History,” NAVSA (London, Ontario), November 2014
"Making Sense of Time and Space: Nineteenth-Century Railway Guides and the Cultivation of Geographical Literacy,” NAVSA (joint supernumerary conference with the Australian Association for Victorian Studies and the British Association for Victorian Studies) (Venice, Italy), June 2013
“Statistical Uncertainty and the Limits of Knowledge in George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda,” MLA (Boston), January 2013
“Mapping Progress in Victorian Board Games,” NAVSA (Nashville, TN), November 2011
“Bodies, Interstices, and the Victorian Imagination,” Membranes, Surfaces, Boundaries Workshop Proceedings. Berlin, Germany: Max-Planck-Institut for the History of Science, 2011
Current Courses
| Term | Course Number | Section | Title | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winter 2024 | GS/EN6450 3.0 | M | Nineteenth Century British Fiction | SEMR |
| Fall/Winter 2023 | AP/EN2250 6.0 | A | Intro to British Lit | SEMR |
| Fall/Winter 2023 | AP/EN3550 6.0 | A | The Victorians | SEMR |
Tina Young Choi specializes in nineteenth-century British literature and culture, with a particular interest in the intersections between scientific and literary narrative.
Her published work includes two monographs, Victorian Contingencies: Experiments in Literature, Science, and Play (Stanford University Press, 2021) and Anonymous Connections: The Body and Narratives of the Social in Victorian Britain (University of Michigan Press, 2015), as well as articles on a range of interdisciplinary subjects, such as nineteenth-century medicine, statistics, thermodynamics, and print culture. Her course offerings also focus on the nineteenth century; they include an undergraduate survey of nineteenth-century British literature and culture, an honours seminar on the Victorian city, and graduate seminars on Victorian sexuality, the historical novel from Scott to Eliot, and the literary culture of the 1840s.
Her current research investigates the culture of mass-market maps -- travel and tourist maps, children's games and puzzles, and educational works -- and forms of cartographic literacy in nineteenth-century Britain. This project is supported by a SSHRC Insight Grant (2020 to 2025).
She is a member of the Graduate Faculty in Science and Technology Studies at York University. In 2019 she was the George Whalley Visiting Professor in the English Department at Queen's University.
Degrees
Ph.D., University of California, BerkeleyA.B., magna cum laude, Harvard University
Professional Leadership
Advisory Board, Victorian Review, 2019 to present
Advisory Board, North American Victorian Studies Association (2019-21)
President, Victorian Studies Association of Ontario (2015-17)
Member of the Executive, Victorian Studies Association of Ontario (2013-15, 2017-19)
Community Contributions
DEPARTMENT of ENGLISH, YORK UNIVERSITY:
Committee on Teaching (2007-2011; 2013-17, 2019-20).
GRADUATE PROGRAM in ENGLISH, YORK UNIVERSITY:
Professionalization Workshop Program Coordinator (2008-11; 2013-15);
Graduate Scholarships and Prizes Committee (2006-2009, 2012-18, 2019-21).
EXTRADEPARTMENTAL: Steering Committee, Victorian Studies Network at York (2008-present)
Research Interests
Awards
- Department of English Graduate Fellowships, 2001-2002; 1998-1999 - 2001
- Mabelle McLeod Lewis Dissertation Fellowship, 2000-2001 - 2000
- Mellon Dissertation Fellowship, 1999-2000 - 1999
- Department of English Graduate Fellowships, 2001-2002; 1998-1999 - 1998
All Publications
Reviews in Victorian Studies, Isis, Prose Studies, and The Journal of British Studies.
“Styles of Cartographic Vision: Science, Art, and Labor in Thomas Hornor’s Surveys." European Romantic Review 33.4 (2022): 479-95. Special issue on Romanticism and Vision, edited by Terry Robinson and John Savarese.
"Lost Labor: Street Cries and the Representation of Urban Nostalgia." Nineteenth-Century Contexts 43.2 (2021): 149-70.
"History, Memory, and Rewriting the Past in A Tale of Two Cities." SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 60.4 (2020): 783-804.
“Causality.” [co-authored with Edward Jones-Imhotep.] Victorian Literature and Culture 46.3-4 (2018): 604-08.
“Slow Causality: The Function of Narrative in an Age of Climate Change.” [co-authored with Barbara Leckie.] Victorian Studies 60.4 (2018): 565-87.
“Producing the Past: The Native Arts, Mass Tourism, and Souvenirs in Victorian India.” LIT: Literature, Interpretation, Theory 17.1 (2016): 50-70.
“The Railway Guide’s Experiments in Cartography: Narrative, Information, Advertising.” Victorian Studies. 57.2 (2015): 251-83.
"The Late-Victorian Histories of Indian Art Objects: Politics and Aesthetics in Jaipur’s Albert Hall Museum.” Victorian Literature and Culture. 41.2 (2013): 199-217.
“Vaccination, Poetry, and an Early-Nineteenth-Century Physiology of the Self.” Literature and Medicine 29 (2011): 58-80.
“Natural History’s Hypothetical Moments: Narratives of Contingency in Victorian Culture.” Victorian Studies 51 (2009): 273-95.
“Forms of Closure: The First Law of Thermodynamics and Victorian Narrative.” ELH 74 (2007): 301-322.
“Narrating the Unexceptional: The Art of Medical Inquiry in Victorian England and the Present.” Literature and Medicine 22 (2003): 65-83.
“Writing the Victorian City: Discourses of Risk, Connection, and Inevitability.” Victorian Studies 43 (2001): 561-589.
“Beyond Extinction: Darwin’s Wonderland," Modern Language Association (MLA) (Toronto) January 2021
“Routes, Junctions, Destinations: A Narrative Cartography for the Nineteenth Century,” International Conference on Narrative (Pamplona, Spain), May/June 2019
“Maxwell’s ‘demon,’ Eliot’s Outliers: Testing the Limits of Probability,” North American Victorian Studies Association (NAVSA) (St. Petersburg, Florida), October 2018
“Victorian Street Cries: Lost Labour and Urban Nostalgia,” NAVSA (Banff), November 2017
“Lyell’s Experimental History,” NAVSA (London, Ontario), November 2014
"Making Sense of Time and Space: Nineteenth-Century Railway Guides and the Cultivation of Geographical Literacy,” NAVSA (joint supernumerary conference with the Australian Association for Victorian Studies and the British Association for Victorian Studies) (Venice, Italy), June 2013
“Statistical Uncertainty and the Limits of Knowledge in George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda,” MLA (Boston), January 2013
“Mapping Progress in Victorian Board Games,” NAVSA (Nashville, TN), November 2011
“Bodies, Interstices, and the Victorian Imagination,” Membranes, Surfaces, Boundaries Workshop Proceedings. Berlin, Germany: Max-Planck-Institut for the History of Science, 2011
Current Courses
| Term | Course Number | Section | Title | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winter 2024 | GS/EN6450 3.0 | M | Nineteenth Century British Fiction | SEMR |
| Fall/Winter 2023 | AP/EN2250 6.0 | A | Intro to British Lit | SEMR |
| Fall/Winter 2023 | AP/EN3550 6.0 | A | The Victorians | SEMR |
