Dr. Olivia Xu

Biography

Olivia Lingyi Xu is a Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer specializing in English literature, with a focus on Anglophone and Sinophone literary traditions of the long nineteenth century. Her particular interests include novel theory and translation studies. Currently, she is engaged in a project that explores the translational history of the novel alongside the tectonic shifts in world language regimes during the long nineteenth century, notably the rise of global English and the decline of Classical Chinese. This work challenges the traditional narrative that the novel form originated in Europe and was subsequently translated elsewhere, proposing instead that translation is a prerequisite for the novel to evolve into a literary form. Through an Anglo-Chinese comparative lens, she reads novelistic forms as they relate to historical mimesis, narrative framing, free indirect discourse, and heteroglossia, highlighting how translingual and translational technologies contest imperial formations of linguistic dominance. Her research has been acknowledged with the “Expanding Field” essay award from the Northeastern Victorian Studies Association and has forthcoming work in Victorian Studies, Comparative Literature, and ELH.

Research Interests