CUHK Historians

The latest article of “CUHK Historians” has been posted at the website of History Department (https://www.history.cuhk.edu.hk/about/cuhk-historians/).

At the golden anniversary of the History Department, alumni were cordially invited to share the achievements, visions, research experience and interesting stories of teaching and learning of our predecessors who built, contributed to, and taught at the Department in its early days. Let us know more about our CUHK Historians and explore the interesting and fascinating episodes of their times.

Recapping the Academic Seminar “傳統律法在現代法庭：從清律中的親女承產談起” conducted by Dr. SOO Yiu Chung on 16 October 2021

Dr. SOO Yiu Chung from the School of Chinese, The University of Hong Kong, was invited by the Centre for Chinese History to deliver a lecture entitled “傳統律法在現代法庭：從清律中的親女承產談起” on 16 October 2021.

Dr. SOO introduced the regulations associated with daughter’s inheritance rights in the Qing code, he then used some cases to explain how the code was used by the courts to deal with disputes involving daughter’s inheritance rights in the New Territories. At the end of the lecture, Dr. SOO discussed with the audience how the Qing code was interpreted by the court for those cases.

Recapping the Academic Seminar “學究與秀才：芻議研究生讀書的內緣與外緣” conducted by Prof. CHEUNG Hiu Yu Jack on 22 October 2021

Prof. Jack CHEUNG shared with our postgraduate students his experience and understanding of scholarship in his lecture “Scholars and Literati: A Brief Discussion on Postgraduate Reading” in the Graduate Seminar on 22 October. Prof. CHEUNG advised students that apart from becoming an expert in one’s field, one needs to acquire a broad knowledge base in order to excel as a scholar. This involves reading widely and delving into areas that are outside one’s area of expertise. He explained that scholars can often reach a breakthrough when they venture outside their own disciplines, time period and primary materials. He emphasised the importance of becoming an expert scholar in one’s field as well as a widely-read literatus (既做學究，也做秀才). He shared with students the “scholar” (學究) way of learning is reading widely on one’s area of expertise and reading beyond one’s thesis topic to prepare oneself for future ideas and research. He also elucidated the “literati” (秀才) mode of scholarship as reading broadly on secondary literature and reading cross-disciplinary publications. He also advised students to establish confidence in reading through building a memory library by sorting readings into categories in their heads and reading foreign publications in the original language as much as possible.

Lecture Series on History of the New Territories

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 Monday.