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The Transformation of Local Religion in Rural Central China under Maoism, 1949-1976

Principal Investigator: Professor Jan KIELY

Fund Source: RGC General Research Fund

Year of Award: 2020

 

 

'A community of shared future’: ideas, debates and innovations in China’s global vision

Principal Investigator: Professor Tim SUMMERS

Fund Source: Direct Grant for Research

Year of Award: 2020

Brief Introduction: This project will examine the ideas and debates which have influenced the Chinese leadership’s development of “A community of shared future for (hu)mankind” as an innovation in its foreign policy discourse and global vision over recent years. As well as contextualising this in Chinese views about the world, the research will position this concept in the ongoing intellectual debates in the PRC, thus bringing together domestic and externally-oriented discussions of China’s place in the world.

 

 

Food Consumption of Left-behind Children and Rural Transformation in Post-reform China

Principal Investigator: Professor LING Minhua

Fund Source: RGC General Research Fund

Year of Award: 2019

 

 

The Hong Kong Crime Film

Principal Investigator: Professor Kristof VAN DEN TROOST

Fund Source: RGC Early Career Scheme

Year of Award: 2019

Brief Introduction: The aim of this project is to write a history of the Hong Kong crime film genre from the late 1940s to the present. The resulting book will place the genre in its political, social and cultural contexts—all the while keeping in mind that genre categories themselves are constructed in discourse. The book’s central argument is that in a highly commercialized and politically censored environment, Hong Kong crime films have historically been one of the few venues in which social and political issues could be addressed and negotiated.

 

 

Dialect Writing and Identity Formation from Late Qing to Contemporary Shanghai

Principal Investigator: Professor GAO Yunwen

Fund Source: RGC Early Career Scheme

Year of Award: 2019

Brief Introduction: This project examines the changing discourse and cultural significance of Wu dialect writing in the history of Shanghai literature and culture from the late Qing period (1849-1911) to the present. Dialect was a vital source in the formation of a new vernacular in late imperial and early Republican China. The Wu dialect region, now called the lower Yangtze River region, boasts a vibrant storytelling tradition. Many regional practices found their way into magazines and newspapers as a result of the flowering of Shanghai’s print culture. Despite various national language movements in Republican and Communist periods that suppressed dialects, dialect writing continues to persist in contemporary Shanghai and overseas Shanghainese-speaking communities. By tracing the historical trajectory of Wu dialect literature in the forms of serialized novel, short story, folk song, and poetry in Shanghai, this research posits oral traditions and narrative strategies from late imperial China continue to shape cultural identity beyond the regional level.

 

 

Tracing the history of Chinese immigrants in Cuba through Cantonese Opera in Havana during the 1920s-1940s

Principal Investigator: Professor GAO Yunwen

Fund Source: Direct Grant for Research

Year of Award: 2018

Brief Introduction: This project examines the operatic tradition and identity formation in the Chinese immigrant communities in Havana during the 1920s to 1940s. I analyze findings from archival research of Chinatown Opera theatre in the Americas and Southeast Asia, as well as contemporary records of Chinese immigrants in Cuba reported and aestheticized in documentary films and oral histories in order to explore the significance of Cantonese opera as a vehicle of the trans-Pacific trade and cultural exchange. Overall, this project contributes to the studies of Cantonese opera and cultural identity in overseas Chinese communities.

 

 

Hybrid Regulatory Regime and the Role of State in China’s Stock Market Crisis 2014-2015

Principal Investigator: Professor LI Chen

Fund Source: RGC Early Career Scheme

Year of Award: 2018

 

 

China's Belt and Road Initiative: Provincial Policy Reponses in Yunnan

Principal Investigator: Professor Tim SUMMERS

Fund Source: Direct Grant for Research

Year of Award: 2018

 

 

Eating Junk: Consumption of Packaged Food among Left-behind Children in Rural China

食"垃圾"︰中國農村留守兒童的包裝食品消費

Principal Investigator: Professor LING Minhua

Fund Source: Direct Grant for Research

Year of Award: 2018

 

 

Political Censorship of Films in Pre-1997 Hong Kong: The 1988 Film Censorship Ordinance

九七回歸前香港電影的政治審查︰1988年電影檢查條例

Principal Investigator: Professor Kristof VAN DEN TROOST

Fund Source: Direct Grant for Research

Year of Award: 2018

Brief Introduction: This project revisited the introduction of the 1988 Film Censorship Ordinance in Hong Kong, including the societal debates about censorship in the years before and after the law was passed. Given the anxiety surrounding the survival of freedom of expression and of the press in the territory following the 1997 Handover, the discussion around film censorship assumed an unusual urgency and importance during this period. The project also assessed the impact of the new censorship legislation on local film genres, especially on so-called “Category III films”.

 

 

Environmental Contention in China: Mapping its Evolution and Political Geography

Principal Investigator: Professor Christoph STEINHARDT (till mid-January 2018)

Fund Source: RGC General Research Fund

Year of Award: 2017

 

 

The Political Economy of China’s Central State Corporatism: Chinese Communist Party and Large State-controlled Business Groups

Principal Investigator: Professor LI Chen

Fund Source: Seed Funding for New Recruits

Year of Award: 2015

 

 

The Repertoire of Repression in Urban China: Threat, Visibility, and Change

Principal Investigator: Professor Christoph STEINHARDT (till mid-January 2018)

Fund Source: RGC Early Career Scheme

Year of Award: 2015

 

 

China in the Twentieth Century, An Additional Focus to “The Historical Anthropology of Chinese Society”

Principal Investigator: Professor David FAURE

Fund Source: The Vice-Chancellor’s One-off Discretionary Fund

Year of Award: 2014

Research Group Members: Click here

Related Activities:

 

 

Northern Jiangsu and Anhui Local Rural Society in War and Revolution, 1937-1957

Principal Investigator: Professor Jan KIELY

Fund Source: RGC General Research Fund

Year of Award: 2014

 

 

Fieldwork Training in Local Religion and Society for Chinese Graduate Students

Principal Investigator: Professor John LAGERWEY

Fund Source: United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia

Year of Award: 2014-2017

Related Activities:

  • 首届「中國研究生地方民俗與社會研習班」(Augsut 2014)
  • 第二届「中國研究生地方民俗與社會研習班」(August 2015)
  • 第三届「中國研究生地方民俗與社會研習班」(August 2016)
  • 第四屆「中國研究生地方信仰與社會論壇︰遂昌的古村和民俗」(August 2017)

 

 

In Search of Identity: Second-generation Migrant Youth in Urban China

Principal Investigator: Professor LING Minhua

Fund Source: RGC Early Career Scheme

Year of Award: 2014

 

 

Historical Anthropology of Chinese Society

Principal Investigator: Professor David FAURE

Fund Source: RGC Fifth Round of Areas of Excellence (AoE) Scheme

Year of Award: 2010

Related Activities: Please refer to the The Historical Anthropology of Chinese Society website

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