人文學科研究所 Research Institute for the Humanities
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Conference

Resistance and Reconciliation International Conference

27-29 April 2020 (postponed)

The 21st century has been characterised by intersecting crises and conflicts. Continual changes of concepts in time and space, arbitration and social relations, and origins and succession have opened up new ways and formats of expression. Humanists call on consciousness for justice; artists express and create forms for many of new thoughts and feelings; and historians reform their interpretations and theories. Cultural producers are sensitive in revealing social conflicts and fissures, while social movements associate discontent in daily life with political expression. Young people become more active in reshaping the scope and normativity in society; the poor and underprivileged cry out for better prospects. With an unceasing extension of insecurity and impacts of anxiety all over the world, new approaches to the reconciliation are essential for our future.

The Research Institute for the Humanities and its research centres will jointly host a two-day international interdisciplinary conference on 30 March - 1 April 2019. The conference aims to initiate dialogues between scholars and postgraduate students from the humanities disciplines of cultural studies, history, philosophy and religious studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and institutes across the world to share their complementary methodologies and conceptual approaches, as well as discuss critical questions in conflict resolution, transition and peace reconciliation of the old and new orders. The conference will be followed by a one-day youth forum and a film show on 1 April 2019 to connect with young people and the community. The objective is to revisit the theories and practices of human rights, reassess social development under advanced capitalism, reconsider the role of memory, and address the relationship between violence and law in view of wider promotion of justice. Today is a crucial time to understand the standpoints, worries and philosophy of different stakeholders of the community with regard to their conflict narratives, their conceptual structure of resistance and reconciliation, and to find out how reconciliation can be achieved through cultural, political, economic, philosophical and sociological demonstrations.

To facilitate discussion and exchange of ideas, the conference will be organised into four sessions:

  • 1. Theory and practices
  • 2. Literary Narratives
  • 3. Social conflicts and fissures
  • 4. Violence and law

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    International Conference on Urban Planning & Heritage Conversation: A Comparison between Hong Kong and Paris

    5-6 March 2020 (postponed)

    The Research Institute for the Humanities and the Leung Po Chuen Research Centre for Hong Kong History and Humanities of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the Consulate General of France in Hong Kong and Macau will host a two-day conference on 5-6 March 2020 in Hong Kong. Historians, urbanists, architects and specialists in heritage and museums from Hong Kong and France will exchange their ideas on urban planning and heritage conservation in Hong Kong and Paris.

    Cities are a crucial attribute of the rise of human civilisation. The identity of a city is always inseparable from its history. Unlike the history of politics, economy, thoughts or cultures, which observes a city merely from the perspective of personalities or events, urban history analyses a city's evolution process, the turning points in its transformation and the reasons for its breakthroughs in order to identify keys to its future development. A review of a city allows us to reconstruct our identity by revisiting various landmarks, historical sites and characteristics of spatial design. The process by which a city is built from scratch depends on its geographical environment, inhabitants, economic resources, development status of its neighbouring regions, as well as objective economic and political circumstances. As a city’s population grows continuously and its structure changes, its government’s pace of urban development is influenced by the measures employed to address urgent social needs. How does a city’s early construction and planning reflect the cultural encounters and conflicts of different civilisations? What are the factors that cause town planning to adapt and change with the times? What opportunities does its government make use of to introduce urban development models of other cities? How major a role does conservation and revitalisation of historical sites and buildings play in urban renewal policies? Are there conflicts between urban renewal and new planning? How do the authorities balance the interests of different parties through urban planning and achieve established goals? These are all questions worth exploring in depth.

    To facilitate discussion and exchange of ideas, the conference will be organised into three sessions:

  • 1. Origins and transformation
  • 2. Conception and governance
  • 3. Conservation and revitalisation

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    International Conference "Environmental Humanities 2018"

    6-7 December 2018

    The Research Institute for the Humanities will host a two-day conference on 6-7 Dec 2018, gathering scholars from CUHK and institutes across the world. Scholars will share their work as part of their effort to foster interdisciplinary conversation and learning. Presenters will bring a humanities perspective to the understanding of landscapes, empires, imagined environments, and the boundaries of nature and humanity.

    Environmental humanities involves human beings and non-humans (animals, plants, minerals, objects, etc.), as well as a certain number of critical positions (post-capitalism, post-humanism, post-colonialism, rejection of anthropocentrism, distance with constructivism) that deserve to be discussed and confronted. The objective is to enrich pre-existing conjunctions across environmental philosophy, environmental history, ecocriticism (cultural geography, cultural anthropology and political ecology, including their debates as captured by environmental humanities. These alliances could help build environmental humanities across regions, environments, and animals.

    To contribute to such debates, the Conference will focus on seven broadly formulated topics and questions:

  • 1. The Management of Nature in the Ancient World
  • 2. Eco-Humanities: History, Narratives and Reflections
  • 3. Body and Nature
  • 4. Religion and Environment
  • 5. The High North: Arctic Encounters
  • 6. Nature at the Point of No Return? Philosophical Reflections
  • 7. Survival of the Fittest: A Historical Perspective

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    Re-viewing Taiwan: Re-viewing Taiwan: Regional Developments in a Global Frame

    22-23 October 2015

    The Research Institute for the Humanities at the Chinese University of Hong Kong has host the “Re-viewing Taiwan: Regional Developments in a Global Frame” Workshop on 22–23 October, 2015. The workshop is also co-organized by Collaborative Innovation Center for Peaceful Development of Cross-Strait Relations, Taiwan Research Institute, Xiamen University and Institute of Global and Public Affairs, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Macau. This two-day workshop is held at the Chinese University of Hong Kong on 22 October and at University of Macau on 23 October.

    Taiwan, like most subjects, can be looked at from many different perspectives, certainly from more than one discipline. “Re-viewing Taiwan: Regional Developments in a Global Frame” has invited directors and scholars of Taiwan studies centers and programs from different regions and institutions to showcase to people how they choose to study this subject and their reasoning for so doing. Thus this workshop addressed the issue from cross-strait relations, Taiwanese arts, literature, and history, as well as a wide variety of disciplinary questions and interdisciplinary considerations.

    The Re-viewing Taiwan workshop is sponsored by Andrew W. Mellon foundation “Religion, Secularism, and Political Belonging” Project and “Focusing on Taiwan: Health, Peace, Memory” Project.

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    Cold Front: The Chinese Cold War Experience in Comparison

    15-16 September 2014

    The conference focused on the changing sense of “belonging” during the Cold War period in China and other regions. It brought together foremost scholars from different fields and areas, including Prof Hsiung Ping-chen from The Chinese University of Hong Kong; Prof Cao Shuji from Shanghai Jiao Tong University; Prof Shen Kui-yi from The University of California, San Diego; Prof Mayfair Yang from The University of California, Santa Barbara. The conference synthesizes existing research to expand to additional stimulating topics on the implication of a Cold War in Greater China region on issues like land reform, art, politics and religion of the cold war period. Papers on visual arts, film, academic institutions, and public health represent newer studies that draw people’s attention in particular. This set of articles are under revision for publication.

    • > Venue: Conference Room, 2/F, Art Museum East Wing, Institute of Chinese Studies, CUHK
    • > Organizer: Research Institute for the Humanities, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
    • > Co-organizer: The Department of History, Shanghai Jiao Tong University
    • > Sponsors: The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange, “Focusing on Taiwan: Health, Peace, Memory” Project
    • > Conference Summary Report (by Dr. Adam Cathcart): Report

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    「流離與歸屬：二戰後港臺文學與其他」學術研討會

    14-15 February 2014

    • > Venue: Conference Room, 2/F, Art Museum East Wing, Institute of Chinese Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong
    • > Organizer: Taiwan Research Center, Research Institute for the Humanities, CUHK
    • > Co-Organizers: Center for the Comparative Study of Antiquity, Research Institute for the Humanities,CUHK National Cheng Kung University
    • > Sponsors: Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange, Fo Guang Vihara of Hong Kong, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

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    The 2014 Annual and Board Meeting of Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI)--Performative Humanities

    5-8 June 2014

    The Humanities are performed not only in lectures, texts, seminars, and classrooms, but also in theatres, concerts, festivals, electronic and networked media, and other sites of intellectual and cultural activity and exchange. But it might also be said that the Humanities are 'performed' in a wider field that encompasses social struggles, the machinations and mediated rhetoric of politics, in hospital emergency rooms and police stations, or in global financial markets: places in which subject-object relationships dissolve into one another, or where artistic practices become a kind of performed hermeneutics.

    Proudly hosted by the Research Institute for the Humanities at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, the first CHCI Annual Meeting to be held in Asia with the theme "Performative Humanities" will explore these emerging issues, the ways in which they are transforming scholarly practice and the landscape of the Humanities, and their regional/global inflections.

    Our program will feature leading scholars and filmmaker — including a talk by world-renowned Director Tsai Ming-liang — organizational leaders from Asia and beyond, workshops, and opportunities for stimulating interaction with peers from CHCI's increasingly global membership, including meetings of our member groups and Networks. The city of Hong Kong and the New Territories, with their complex social and cultural histories, will themselves feature in the program in the form of historic meeting venues, culinary experiences, musical performances, poetry readings, and opportunities to engage with the sights and sounds of this incredible city.

    In addition, a full morning will be devoted to presentations by scholars from five continents who are participating in CHCI's Humanities for the Environment and Religion, Secularism, and Political Belonging projects. Generously funded by a major, multi-year grant from the A.W. Mellon Foundation, these pilot projects are part of a developing program that will demonstrate the ways in which we might leverage the collective strength of CHCI's international networks to explore exciting new forms of multi-institutional collaboration. Our over-arching goal in this project is to create models for future CHCI member-driven programs, and we will be devoting time to the work of our project groups in all upcoming Annual Meetings through the life of the grant.

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    The Annual and Board Meeting of Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI)

    25-27 April 2013

    As a long standing member of the CHCI, RIH will join the Annual and Board Meeting of the CHCI that will be held, from 25 to 27 April 2013, at the Hall Center for the Humanities at the University of Kansas, Lawrence. This year’s theme is focused on “Humanities, Publics, and the State” where allowing all members and organizations to explore the philosophical, political, and pragmatic dimensions of public humanities in the context both of current challenges to the university and emerging responses. Major speakers include Christopher Newfield (University of California, Santa Barbara) and Helen Small (Oxford University).

    Followed by a welcoming decision made by the CHCI International Advisory Board Meeting in 2012 at Oxford that CUHK will be the next host in 2014, our Director is going to present a preliminary program of the 2014 Annual Meeting and Board Meeting to all CHCI members coming from over 20 countries. CUHK and our Institute are honored to be the host of this “inaugural” CHCI Annual and Board Meeting in Asia. This inaugural event does not merely mark a major milestone for the development and extended network of CHCI in Asia, but to uplift and nourish CUHK’s collaborative research development in Humanities at an international level.

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    The 10th Meeting of the Asian New Humanities Net (ANHN)

    1 – 3 November 2012

    With the purpose of enhancing excellence in the humanities through the promotion of co-operation among Asian universities and research institutes, the Asian New Humanities Net (ANHN) serves as a regional network that shares resources of humanities in Asia. Since its establishment in 2004, the ANHN has been serving as an evolving platform that incubates and nurtures the development of humanities in Asia. The ANHN has successfully organized nine meetings in the past seven years, attracting participants from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Singapore, as well as North America and Europe. Following the success in organizing the 8th Annual Meeting, RIH had served as the secretariat of the 9th ANHN Annual Meeting, which was hosted by the Shanghai Jiaotong University from 15 to 17 October 2011, with the theme "Towards the Humanities; Social Transformation and Value Reconstruction". With our Vice-Chancellor, Prof Joseph Sung, presided over the opening, the 9th ANHN Annual Meeting was very well received with participation of an ever larger group of Asian Humanities leaders.

    As the secretariat of ANHN, RIH will continue to facilitate the 10th Annual Meeting organized by the College of Liberal Arts, the National Cheng Kung University from 2 to 4 November 2012, with "Asian Humanities and Higher Education in the 21st Century" as the theme of the year.

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    The Academic Conference on Body and Cognition

    31 August – 2 September 2012

    Hosted by the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, the Academic Conference on Body and Cognition will be held from 31 August to 2 September in Taipei. Our Director, Prof Hsiung Ping Chen, Prof Gordon Mathews from the Department of Anthropology, Prof Huso Yi from the Jocky Club School of Public Health and Primary Care, Prof Desmond Hui and Prof Katrien Jacobs from the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies, Prof Saulius Geniusas from the Department of Philosophy, as well as Prof Poo Mu Chou from the Department of History of our University will be presenting at the Conference, as so to bring CUHK to renowned experts of bodily feelings and cognition in both Hong Kong and Taiwan for future closer professional collaboration.

    The Annual and Board Meeting of Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI)

    11 – 16 June 2012

    As the most important international organization for the humanities, the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI) serves as a network that circulates information and best practices related to the organizational and management dimensions of humanities centers and institutes. With the objective to enhance collaboration and build up partnership with regional leaders, the CHCI Advisory Board moves about the world as a tradition. Further to the previous board meeting held from 2 to 6 November 2011 at CUHK, which was indeed the first CHCI board meeting in Asia, RIH participated in the 2012 CHCI Annual and Board Meeting at Australian National University from 11 to 16 June. In addition to the exchanges on the CHCI member initiatives, namely the Digital Humanities Initiatives, the Humanities for the Environment Initiatives and the Public Humanities Initiatives, the meeting also facilitated presentations by co-conveners of the CHCI Program Planning Projects, including Humanities for the Environment, Integrative Graduate Humanities Education & Research Training (IGHERT), Medical Humanities, as well as Religion, Secularism, and Political Belonging. RIH will also join the 2013 CHCI Annual Meeting, titled "The Humanities and the State", which is scheduled to be held at the University of Kansas, Lawrence from 24 to 27 April 2013, to explore the philosophical, political, and pragmatic dimensions of public humanities in the context both of current challenges to the university and emerging responses.

    Conference on Women, Law and Belief in Ancient and Medieval China

    11 – 13 May 2012

    Given the fact that it is of increasing importance to adopt a comparative perspective to reveal the interconnectedness of world history and humanities in the study of History, RIH sponsored the Centre for the Comparative Study of Antiquity to organize the "Conference on Women, Law and Belief in Ancient and Medieval China" in May. The conference explored the issue of women's role and status in the area of law and belief in early and Medieval China. It was well received among postgraduate students and young faculties in Hong Kong, Mainland China and Taiwan, especially those who were interested in conducting research in the area of ancient history with a comparative perspective.

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