Bulletin Spring‧Summer Autumn‧Winter 1999

Buck-Morss, Boris Mikhailov, Mayfair Yang, Chen Kuang - hs i ng, Ch in Hen -we i , Fu Da i -we i, Josephine Ho, Hsia Chu-joe, Liao Ping-hui, Ning Ying-bin, Zheng Wan-long, and L i u Suo-la. A n international network of practitioners in cultural c r i t i c i sm has since been established and subsequent meetings held in Honolulu to facilitate i n f o rma t i on exchange and to enhance collaboration in this new branch of humamties studies. A number of publication projects have also been planned in the USA, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Conference on Prospects of a Cu l t u r al China: Theory and Practice (10th-12th Ma r ch 1993) Co-sponsored by the University's Department of Anthropology, the conference comprised six panels and five workshops, which explored how traditionality interfaces w i th modernity, and how China and the West interact w i th each other in the context of a universal but practicable concept of Cu l t u r al China i n this transnationalist age. Notable scholars from various disciplines of the humanities and social sciences were invited to the conference. They included Wang Gung-wu, Chang Ching-yu, Li Shen-chi, Chen Kong-li, Li Yih-yuan, Liu Mong-xi, Yuan Sung-hsi, Chang Yu-fa, Chen Hsiao-lin, Chen Zi-shan, Huang Pi-tuan, Jiang Yi- hua, Jiang Po-qin, Wang Shou-chang, Yeh Chi- cheng, Shen Ch'ing-sung, Huang Chin-hsing, Jin Guan-tao, Ts'ai Yuan-huang, and Chen Chung- hsin. A 400-page essay collection was subsequently published in July 1994. Conference on Identity: Personal, Cultural and National (2nd-4th June 1994) The function was co-organized by the National Human i t i es Center, N o r t h Carolina, and sponsored by New Asia College and Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange. It featured seven overseas participants from the National Humanities Center and an approximately equal number of paper presenters from Hong Kong, plus four workshops conducted by scholars from Hong Kong and Taiwan. Various case studies on identity were presented, i.e. those on Ancient Greece, O l d Regime France and contemporary Germany, South Africa, the Balkans, and China. Special reference was made to the issues of ethnicity, fictive and cultural identities, gender identities, identity forming mechanisms and the very concept of monolithic identity itself. An essay collection in English is being prepared by the National Humanities Center, while the feasibility of a Chinese version is also being explored in Hong Kong. Publications and Computer Support Other t han supe r v i s i ng major research p r og r ammes and o r gan i z i ng i n t e r na t i onal conferences, the institute plans to launch two publication series, one on tradition and modernity w i th L i u Shu-hsien, Yu Ying-shih, and Hsu Cho- yun as potential authors, and one on Hong Kong and the World, which w i ll carry publications of strategic importance by members of the Arts Faculty. In all its endeavours the institute is supported by the Arts Faculty's microcomputer laboratory, wh i ch is set u p i n a Local Area Ne t wo rk environment w i th a number of workstations and a wide range of application software. Efforts are being made to set up an FDDI-based Internet to provide researchers in the institute wi th full access to relevant databases overseas. The Research Centre for the Humanities looks forward to an even more vigorous programme in 1995. Introducing the Research Institute for the Humanities 5