Vivien Wai-ying Ng is an American historian and filmmaker. Born to a Chinese-American family, she obtained her PhD at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and was a professor at the University of Oklahoma before moving to the University at Albany, SUNY, where she is associate professor emerita at the Department of Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies. A scholar of

social history Social history, often called the new social history, is a field of history that looks at the lived experience of the past. In its "golden age" it was a major growth field in the 1960s and 1970s among scholars, and still is well represented in his ...

in China and later Asian-American studies, she was the president of the

National Women's Studies Association The National Women's Studies Association (NWSA) is an organization founded in 1977, made up of scholars and practitioners in the field of women's studies also known as women's and gender studies, feminist studies, and related names in the 21st c ...

from 1993 until 1994 and has served as the chair of SUNY Albany's Department of Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies and women's studies program. Outside of academia, she also works on documentaries and short stories.

Biography

Vivien Ng was born into a Chinese-American family, with her great-grandfather running a restaurant in

Springfield, Massachusetts Springfield is a city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States, and the seat of Hampden County. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers: the western Westfield River, the ...

, her paternal grandfather running a grocery store in Chinatown, Manhattan, and her maternal grandfather being a Columbia University-educated filmmaker and businessman. She studied at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UH), where she was awarded the 1976 Lee Shao-sheng Award for Excellence in Chinese Studies. Later, she obtained her PhD at UH; her 1980 dissertation, ''Homicide and Insanity in Qing China'', was supervised by Brian E. McKnight. After teaching at UH starting in 1981, she moved to the University of Oklahoma in 1982, where she was assistant professor of history and women's studies by 1987. She was a 1989 Southwestern Bell Humanities Fellow. She was one of the two 1990-1991 Rockefeller Residency Fellows at

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admi ...

, with her project being a study on the impact of the end of the First Sino-Japanese War on Chinese women "The New Woman: Gender Reconstruction in Modern China, 1895-1911". She was present at the

American Association of University Women The American Association of University Women (AAUW), officially founded in 1881, is a non-profit organization that advances equity for women and girls through advocacy, education, and research. The organization has a nationwide network of 170,000 ...

(AAUW)'s 1986 Southwest Central Regional conference, became president of the AAUW's Oklahoma division in May 1987, and was part of the AAUW Educational Foundation's board from 1989 until 1993. She was the president of the

from 1993 until 1994. In 1995, she moved to the University at Albany, SUNY, where she became director of their women's studies program by 1998. She was also chair of their Department of Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies from 1995 until 2000 and from 2011 until 2017. Ng initially started with

in China, with articles on LGBT rights and rape law. In 1990, she published '' Madness in Late Imperial China: From Illness to Deviance'', a book on the treatment of the criminally insane during Qing dynasty China which is "still being used in comparative law courses in several law schools." As of 1998, she was reportedly undergoing work on another book, ''Essential Woman: Construction of Womanhood in Early 20th-Century''. Later, she shifted to Asian-American studies in the 1990s. Ng has also worked in documentaries, including as a researcher and producer for the Maryknoll Sisters-focused ''Trailblazers in Habits''. Work on two more documentaries, each focusing on

Barbara Zuber Barbara Zuber (1926 – 2019) was an American painter and illustrator. She was the first African American woman to graduate with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Yale University. Her work focused on the daily life of African Americans. She contributed ...

and her maternal grandfather, is currently underway, as well as on a biography on Elizabeth Hirschboeck. She has also published short stories in ''

13th Moon ''13th Moon'' is an American feminist literary magazine founded in 1973 by Ellen Marie Bissert. The magazine showcased short fiction stories, essays, and reviews by women authors. The publication featured prominent figures such as Adrienne Rich ...

'' and the anthology "Telling Moments: Autobiographical Lesbian Short Stories". She lived in Norman, Oklahoma, as of 1986.

Filmography

Publications

*'' Madness in Late Imperial China: From Illness to Deviance'' (1990)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ng, Vivien Living people Historians from Oklahoma People from Norman, Oklahoma 20th-century American historians 21st-century American historians American women historians American social historians Historians of China Women's historians American academics of Chinese descent Hawaii people of Chinese descent University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa alumni University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa faculty University of Oklahoma faculty University at Albany, SUNY faculty American short story writers of Chinese descent American documentary filmmakers American short story writers American women short story writers Year of birth missing (living people)