Department News
Welcome back!
Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year holiday!
Personalia
We extend our welcome to Dr. CHEUNG Hiu Yu and Dr. JIANG Hongda, who have joined the Department of History as Postdoctoral Fellows with effect from 4 January 2016.
Dr. CHEUNG Hiu Yu gained his MPhil degree from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and received his PhD degree from Arizona State University in 2015. Dr. CHEUNG will teach HIST4140A Topic Studies in Traditional Chinese History in Term 2.
Dr. JIANG Hongda graduated from Nanjing Normal University in 2008. He received his MPhil degree from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 2010 and his PhD degree in History from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2015. Dr. JIANG will teach HIST3118 Society in Late Imperial China in Term 2.
Acting Appointments
Prof. YIP Hon Ming, Department Chair, will be on academic leave between 6 and 17 January 2016. Prof. LAI Ming Chiu will serve as the Acting Chair during her absence.
Academic Activities
Recapping the academic seminar “‘Buddhism Enters China’ in Early Medieval China” conducted by Prof. Robert CAMPANY on 4 December 2015
Prof. Robert CAMPANY of the College of Arts and Science of Vanderbilt University, was invited by the Department, the Centre for the Comparative Study of Antiquity and the Research Institute for the Humanities to present a lecture to the Department’s postgraduate students.
The importance of metaphor in discourse on religions and cultures as in discourse and thought in general, the former are helpfully conceived as repertoires of resources and imagined communities. Prof. CAMPANY shared with audiences how “Buddhism’s entrance into China” were imagined or portrayed in five major narrative motifs through his discourse analysis on various literary texts. Seen from the perspective of these and similar narratives, Buddhism’s influx seems less a clash of monoliths than an almost infinite number of particular acts and events — a pointillist array of particulars. But this array, while vast, is not infinitely varied. The illusion that they do exist is just an epiphenomenon of language and a byproduct of metaphors by which we struggle to gain a handle on naming what was a furiously complex, multifaceted set of much more finely-grained processes and a much more granular ontology of objects and agents.
Recapping the academic seminar “Rewriting Chinese Intellectual History: Ritual, Politics, and the Making of “Neo-Confucianism”” conducted by Dr. CHEUNG Hiu Yu on 14 December 2015
Dr. CHEUNG Hiu Yu, a PhD graduate of Arizona State University, presented a lecture to faculty members and students.
Through an exploration of some important Northern Song (960–1127) debates over ancestral rituals, Dr. CHEUNG discussed the disjunction between Song scholar-officials’ political positions and their intellectual interests. Additionally, by focusing on an etymological change of the Song usage of “daoxue” 道學, his lecture revealed the crucial role played by the New Learning community 新學, i.e., Wang Anshi 王安石 (1021-1086) and his academic followers, in the intellectual awakening movement of the eleventh century in China.
Upcoming Events
| Date : | 8 December 2015 – 31 January 2016 |
| Venue : | Lobby Area, University Library Extension, CUHK |
| Enquiry : | 3943 7306 |
The exhibition is jointly presented by the Philippine Consulate General in Hong Kong, Department of History and CUHK Library, CUHK.
Lecture Series on “The Safeguarding of the Cultural Heritage in Guangdong and Hong Kong”
The lecture series is co-organised by the MA Programme in Comparative and Public History, Department of History, the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Museum of History. The following lectures will be held on Saturdays in January and February 2016 at the Lecture Hall, G/F, Hong Kong Museum of History:
| Date : | 16 January 2016 (Saturday) |
| Time : | 3:00pm – 5:00pm |
| Topic : | Cangdong Village: An NGO Project of Sustainable Cultural Heritage Conservation |
| Speaker : | Prof. TAN Jinhua Associate Professor, Architecture Department, Wuyi University |
| Language : | Cantonese |
| Date : | 30 January 2016 (Saturday) |
| Time : | 3:00pm – 5:00pm |
| Topic : | Harmonious but Different: The Interaction in Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage between Hong Kong and the Mainland |
| Speaker : | Prof. CHAU Hing Wah Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of History, CUHK |
| Language : | Cantonese |
| Date : | 13 February 2016 (Saturday) |
| Time : | 3:00pm – 5:00pm |
| Topic: | Recycling Heritage: The Relationship between Villagers and the Government in Safeguarding of the Cultural Heritage |
| Speaker : | Prof. LIU Zhiwei Professor, Department of History, Sun Yat-sen University |
| Language : | Cantonese |
No reservation is needed. Seats are available on a first-come-first-served basis. For enquiry, please call 3943 8659.
For teachers and students who have information to share with the Department,
please email your articles in both Chinese and English to chanfiona@cuhk.edu.hk by 4:00pm every Tuesday.