Jane Wong, a Ph.D. candidate in English, gave a talk titled "Going Toward the Ghost" on March 23, 2016, as part of the series of 2016 TEDxTalks on "Liminal Spaces."
TEDx events follow the same format as the talks associated with the well known TED (Technology, Education, Design) Conferences but are organized independently, in this case by the Pine Crest Schoolin Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
In her talk, Wong argues that her role as an Asian American poet is to bear witness to a "history of trauma and migration", and offers that this is a "poetics of haunting" that is essential to reclaim histories and narratives that remain untold, or worse, are simply forgotten.
Wong holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is a former U.S. Fulbright Fellow and Kundiman Fellow. Her poem "Thaw" was recently chosen by Sherman Alexie in the Best American Poetry 2015 anthology. She is also the recipient of scholarships to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown.