The research is intended to provide a comprehensive review of the ‘Hong Kong Literature Archives’ compiled by Lo Wai Luen (Xiao Si) (1939- ), who is acknowledged as 'the most qualified writer on Hong Kong literary history'. There are two main objectives in the study:

1. Providing a historical survey of ‘Lo Wai Luen's Hong Kong Literature Archives’; and
2. Analyzing the most recent relations between Hong Kong and China in the context of Hong Kong literary history since the 1920s.

Combining the two perspectives, we shall be able to learn more about the changing understanding of relations between Hong Kong and China in terms of literary history over the last ten decades, including Hong Kong initiatives in advocating an independent cultural identity. The research will focus on literary history and archives, a field where discourse and concrete documents meet, and will have a wide impact on our understanding of the complex relations between Hong Kong and China as well as Hong Kong literature and its sociopolitical contexts. The actual history of Hong Kong, from British colonialism to Chinese imperialism, will also provide a valuable perspective from which to study how literature is manifested in different political situations. Above all, this research demonstrate the advantages of literary history that is based on archival studies and long term interviews with the most accomplished scholar and archivist of Hong Kong literature. It will also assist scholars to understand the actual meanings, impacts, and specificities of literary history, a long overdue task as well as burgeoning academic area of studies in recent years.

After World War II, the strategic town for the Chinese-language film industry migrated south from Shanghai to Hong Kong; and the Cold War situation changed the film distribution and production model. Since the 1950s, Singapore and Malaysia had replaced Mainland China as the biggest export market for Hong Kong-produced films. To understand the postwar Chinese-language film industry’s funding cycle, production model, and film genre evolution, one cannot ignore the cultural production networks of Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia and the important influence of geopolitics behind the business. This study continues the research in the academic book I will soon publish, Hong Kong Cinema and Singapore: A Cultural Ring between Two Cities. (1950-64), (forthcoming). This study will focus on the early days of the Motion Picture & General Investment Co., Ltd. (MP&GI)—its golden age; from 1955 to 1964, MP&GI produced 152 Mandarin and Cantonese films. The Chairman of MP&GI, Loke Wan Tho, son of the richest man in Singapore and Malaysia, studied history and economics in Europe and had a Western style. In the mid-1950s, Loke imitated the Hollywood studio model by integrating three links—theater, distribution, and production, produced high-quality Chinese-language films in Hong Kong, and distributed to Singapore, Malaysia, North America, and other places. MP&GI, known as the “literati studio,” hired quite a few cultural figures, and MP&GI films were famous for approximating the Hollywood style. Besides Loke’s personal background and European flair, factors of the times and geopolitical changes also dictated MP&GI’s style. In this study, I will continue to explore the effect of the Cold War political environment on the production strategy for MP&GI films, the film genres produced, and the studio’s leading middle-brow filmmaking style. Besides concentrating research on the relationship in film culture between Singapore and Hong Kong, MP&GI’s network would also extend to Taiwan. From a political environment perspective, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia were once British colonies; in terms of official system, the United Kingdom took charge by including Hong Kong and Singapore within the scope of Southeast Asia, and both places had similar political and economic systems. On funding source, MP&GI can be seen as the paragon for early cross-regional Chinese-language cinema. Due to the Cold War situation, MP&GI was incorporated into the “right” and maintained a close relationship with Taiwan. The emphases of this research plan are MP&GI’s regional network and studio style of focusing on wen-yi films and comedies.

This project aims at comparing the phonological system of Proto-Min (‘PM’), the putative ancestor of all modern Min varieties, with that of Old Chinese (‘OC’), the oldest attested stage of the Chinese language used in the pre-Han period, from a historical perspective. The Min dialect group is well known for keeping a rich layer of pre-Middle Chinese elements, and its relationship with OC is basically unquestioned. Yet, recent advances in linguistic reconstruction have not been fully reflected in existing comparative studies of Min and OC. For example, modifications have been proposed since the PM phonological system was first reconstructed in the 1970s. It will be timely to review and incorporate some of these proposals in an updated PM phonological system. There is a lack of consensus over the number of vocalic nuclei in OC. In this project, we consider PM to be an objective criterion for evaluating OC reconstruction. We will compare the vowel systems of OC (where the main difference of the two camps lies) with that of PM, and examine which OC system is more compatible with PM. This project will be able to settle fundamental debates in the question about whether there are 4 or 6 vocalic nuclei in OC. Unlike previous studies which compare OC and PM, the present research will approach the reconstruction of PM and OC phonological systems without making any presumptions about the two languages’ relationships (‘mother-son’ or ‘sisters’). In addition, this project will draw on new Min data and more robust methods in the comparison of OC and PM. More specifically, we will investigate and suggest interpretations for the OC reflexes of (a) the PM voiceless sonorant initials; (b) the PM ‘softened’ initials; (c) the distinctions between PM ‘close’ and ‘open’ vocalic nuclei; and (d) the PM final *-al. Attention will be paid to the connections between PM and OC dialects such as those spoken in the ancient Qi and Chu regions. This study will deepen our understanding of not only Chinese dialectology, but also Old Chinese reconstruction and historical linguistics.

The Confucian classics exerted long-lasting and pivotal influence on literary writing and knowledge acquisition in pre-modern China. The representation as well as interpretation of Confucian canon, however, was flexible throughout history. After the Wanli period of the Ming dynasty, there appeared an exuberant amount of new editions of Confucian Classics featuring pingdian (評點 punctuation and critique) commentary of the original texts. Over 60 titles of pingdian editions of Shijing 詩經, Shangshu 尚書, Liji 禮記, Zhouli 周禮, Zuozhuan 左傳 etc. were published during the late Ming, not to mention the legion of reproductions or recompilations throughout the seventeen-to-eighteenth century. While Chinese intellectual history often neglects such works, Chinese literary history dismisses them as an illustration of “the preference for the examination essay” without conducting any in-depth research. In fact, the pingdian commentaries play an important role in the re-canonization of the pre-Qin classics. The present project takes Sun Kuang 孫鑛 (1543-1613), the most renowned commentators in the late Ming, as the core case, and then treats other literati such as Chen Shen 陳深, Zhong Xing 鍾惺, and Tu Long 屠隆. It aims to reconstruct the system of pingdian criticism through detailed analysis of the technique terms with which the commentators single out the formal features of classical texts. I hope to argue that, while citing ancient texts to exemplify their aesthetic preferences of “antiquarian wonder”, these literati have introduced a new way to read the classics. In addition to textual and literary studies, this project will explore the socio-historical background that nurtured the flourishing of pingdian. Many publishers produced pingdian books with black and vermilion print so as to differentiate the main text from the commentaries. How were the literary commentaries promoted by new printing techniques? In what circumstances were the classical texts repackaged and republished? Was the hierarchy of knowledge undermined when the method of pingdian insinuated itself into the highly varied contexts of novels, dramas, Eight-Legged essays, histories and canons? This research will investigate the interaction between elite culture and mass publication; and discuss how intellectuals, stimulated by literary interest, opened up their vision to a broader epistemological landscape with the help of the publishing industry. This research project aims to integrate the methodologies of literary criticism, social networks analysis and material culture. With such interdisciplinary approach, it will not only deepen our understanding of traditional Chinese literary criticism, but also provide new perspectives for the study of reading culture and intellectual history in late imperial China.

Xunzi was a key figure of pre-Qin Confucianism, whose scholarship and philosophical thoughts have had an immense influence over generations of the Chinese people. Researchers on his ideas have to rely on his eponymous title, Xunzi; however, the authorship and the year(s) and place(s) of composition of its thirty-two chapters have remained subjects of intense debates. A significant number of parallel passages can be found both among its chapters and with other Han and pre-Han texts. Yet no comprehensive analysis has been carried out on this topic. The present study will target this niche and compile a full listing of all occurrences of similar wordings, passages, and ideas within Xunzi as well as with other transmitted and excavated Han and pre-Han texts, with a view to a thorough investigation of the intratextuality and intertextuality of Xunzi. Based on such data, a computer program will be developed to estimate the year of composition of a text. The phenomenon of parallel passages between Xunzi and other transmitted Han and pre-Han texts far exceeds our existing understanding and calls for an in-depth examination. Relevant excavated texts—such as the Chu bamboo scripts from Guodian and Baoshan, the Shanghai Museum manuscripts, the Shuihudi bamboo manuscripts, the Dingxian Han scripts, and the recently available Chu bamboo scripts from the Warring States period collected by Tsinghua University—will also be covered in the present study.

 The main objectives of the present study are: 1. To analyse the intertextuality and intratextuality of Xunzi; 2. To reassess the date of and the circumstances surrounding the formation of Xunzi as a book and the composition of its individual chapters; 3. To distinguish Xunzi’s core ideas from those developed by his followers; and 4. To revisit the composition and formation process of ancient Chinese texts.