Speaker: Dr. Marta Rosa Bisceglia, Adjunct Professor and Research Fellow, University of Bologna
Discussant: Yeewan Koon, Associate Professor, Chair of Department of Art History, and Associate Dean (Global), The University of Hong Kong Faculty of Arts
Chair: Shane Chalmers, Assistant Professor, The University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law
Date: October 23, 2025 (Thursday) Time: 4pm-5pm Venue: Room 723, 7/F Cheng Yu Tung Tower, The University of Hong Kong
The seminar will begin with a presentation of the European research project WRITE – New Forms of Calligraphy in China: A Contemporary Culture Mirror (国书法新形式：当代文化之镜, PI Prof A Iezzi). The project investigates how emerging forms of calligraphy in contemporary China are reshaping Chinese cultural identity. At its core, WRITE undertakes the first systematic analysis of these innovative artistic practices. By creating a comprehensive dataset of artworks and adopting a media-based categorization, the project explores the development of new forms of calligraphy across multiple creative domains, including fine and contemporary art, decorative and applied arts, architecture, performing arts, and graffiti art.
Within this broader framework, the seminar will focus on graffiti as one of the most dynamic and experimental areas where calligraphy is being redefined. Graffiti, a global art movement in constant evolution, emerged in China only in the mid-1990s. Despite being relatively underexplored, it has developed into a remarkably vibrant phenomenon, giving voice and vitality to the anonymous neighborhoods of the country’s vast metropolises. Chinese graffiti occupies a liminal space between legality and illegality, free street expression and commercial production, state endorsement and social critique, revealing both its unique local character and the complex cultural landscape of contemporary China.
In this context, Dr Bisceglia, a specialist in Chinese graffiti, a member of the WRITE project, and co-author of the book Graffiti in China, will advance the discussion by presenting her most recent research on the intersections between calligraphy and graffiti in China, and the emerging new era of Chinese graffiti.
This event is co-organized by the CILS of HKU Faculty of Law, Center for the Study of Globalization and Cultures (CSGC) of HKU, and the School of Humanities of HKU Faculty of Arts.
For inquiries, please contact Ms. Grace Chan at mcgrace@hku.hk / 3917 4727. To learn more about The Centre for Interdisciplinary Legal Studies (CILS), visit https://cils.law.hku.hk/.
For updates on future events hosted by the Center for the Study of Globalization and Cultures, please visit https://www.csgc.hku.hk/
Roundtable Discussion Rose Casey in conversation with Leila Neti, Shane Chalmers, and Daniel Elam
Speakers: Rose Casey, Associate Professor of English, West Virginia University Leila Neti, Irma M. and Jay F. Price Professor in English, Occidental College Shane Chalmers, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, HKU Daniel Elam, Assistant Professor, Department of Comparative Literature, HKU
Date: Wednesday, October 22, 2025 Time: 10:00 am Hong Kong Time (10:00 pm/21 Oct/Morgantown) Venue: On Zoom
Across Africa, Asia, and the Americas, English-derived property laws are being transformed by writers as well as legal actors. In Aesthetic Impropriety: Property Law and Postcolonial Style, Rose Casey analyzes vanguard legal actions and literary innovations to identify a pattern of anticolonial property law reforms in Nigeria, India, South Africa, and the English Atlantic. Describing these legal transformations as productively “improper,” and identifying a similar, aesthetic impropriety in postcolonial literary works, Casey shows that literature is involved in undoing property law’s colonial legacies. By reading fiction and poetry alongside landmark legal cases and instruments, Aesthetic Impropriety argues that both law and literature play vital roles in creating anticolonial world orders.
Rose Casey is associate professor of English at West Virginia University in the United States. She is author of Aesthetic Impropriety: Property Law and Postcolonial Style, published by Fordham University Press in 2025. Her scholarship has appeared widely in academic and public venues. She is working on her next book, Inheriting Dispossession: South African Succession Law and Literature’s Narrative Temporalities.
This event is co-organised by Center for the Study of Globalization and Cultures (CSGC), Department of Comparative Literature, and the Faculty of Law, The University of Hong Kong.
For updates on future events hosted by the Center for the Study of Globalization and Cultures, please visit https://www.csgc.hku.hk/
分享嘉賓 Speakers: Prof. Carole HF HOYAN 何杏楓 教授 (Department of Chinese Language & Literature, CUHK) Prof. WONG Nim Yan 黃念欣 教授 (Department of Chinese Language & Literature, CUHK) Prof. Rebecca LEUNG 梁慕靈 教授（School of Arts & Social Sciences, HKMU)
主持兼與談人 Moderators & Discussants: Prof. Nicole HUANG 黃心村 教授 (Dept. of Comparative Literature, HKU) Prof. LIN Pei-yin 林姵吟 教授 (School of Chinese, HKU)
日期時間 Date & Time: October 10, 2025 (Fri) 16:00-18:00pm (HKT) 語言 Language: Putonghua 普通話 地點 Venue: Level 2 Multi-purpose Area, Main Library, Main Campus, HKU 授課模式 Delivery Mode: Face-to-face & Online
A landmark donation made by Dr. Roland Soong and Mrs. Elain Soong Kingman to the Hong Kong Metropolitan University early this year brought the importance of manuscript research to the forefront in Eileen Chang studies. Five Hong Kong scholars gather in this roundtable to share their newest findings. Carole Hang Fung HOYAN will focus on six English essays written by a teenage Chang and discuss their position in Chang’s entire writing career. WONG Nim Yan takes a new look at Chang’s fiction masterpiece Little Reunions and argues that its manuscript form presents an important paratext next to the printed text. Rebecca LEUNG draws from her experience working with a massive amount of Chang and Soong manuscripts to discuss what constitutes research material and to shed light on future projects. Nicole HUANG and Pei-yin LIN will co-moderate the roundtable and also share their most recent findings and reflections. We invite our audience members to participate in an open dialogue.
講者簡介 About the Speakers: 何杏楓 香港中文大學中國語言及文學系教授、雅禮中國語文研習所所長。專著包括《重探張愛玲：改編‧翻譯‧研究》、《重訪中國現代文學：細讀‧數據‧接受》。最近關注「世界中」的中國現代文學，曾發表論文〈「把我包括在外」：張愛玲作為世界作家〉。其他與張愛玲相關文章包括〈錯置與暫借：張愛玲及其衣飾〉和〈最後，點心便在咖啡裏溶化：張愛玲的飲食〉等。
Carole Hang-fung HOYAN is Professor of the Department of Chinese Language and Literature, and Director of the Yale-China Chinese Language Centre at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She is the author of Re-investigating Eileen Chang: Adaptation, Translation and Research and Re-visiting Modern Chinese Literature: Close Reading, Data and Reception. She has recently focused on the study of the worlding of modern Chinese literature and has published various articles on Eileen Chang including “‘Include Me Out’: Reading Eileen Chang as a World Literature Author,” “Misplacement and Borrowing: Eileen Chang’s Clothing and Accessories” and “Finally, the Dim Sum Melted in the Coffee: Eileen Chang’s Food and Drink.”
WONG Nim-yan is an associate professor in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature and the director of the Hong Kong Literature Research Centre at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She has recently focused on the study of middlebrow literature and has written on the materiality of Eileen Chang’s works in various articles including “The Marginality of Eating and Writing of Eileen Chang’s Essays”, “Notes on Perfume-pairing Eileen Chang’s Novels” and “Eileen Chang’s and Middlebrow Culture in Hong Kong”.
Rebecca LEUNG received her BA, MPhil, and PhD in Chinese from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and obtained Postgraduate Certificate in Education from the University of Hong Kong. She is currently Head of Creative Arts cum Associate Professor of the School of Arts and Social Sciences at the Hong Kong Metropolitan University and the Director of the Tin Ka Ping Centre of Chinese Culture. She has published numerous papers in renowned journals such as Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies and Bulletin of the Department of Chinese Literature National Chengchi University. She also published books titled Chinese Creative Writing and Multimedia in Practice, Imagination and Shaping: The Newspaper Coverage of Eileen Chang in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, Visuality, Gender and Power: The Imaginations in Novels from Liu Na’ou, Mu Shiying to Eileen Chang and The Studies of Chinese Humanities in the Digital Era etc. Her research interests lie primarily in the area of Chinese modern literature, Chinese contemporary literature, cultural & film theory and creative writing. Apart from academic research, she is also enthusiastic about creative writing. She obtained the prestigious “Unitas Award for New Novelists” in Taiwan in 2002. Her new novel A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments 02.21 was published in Taiwan in 2021.
This event is held as part of the New Directions in Eileen Chang Studies Lecture Series | 張愛玲研究新方向講座系列 Co-hosted by School of Chinese and Department of Comparative Literature, HKU Co-sponsored by Louis Cha Fund for Chinese studies & East/West studies in the Faculty & Center for the Study of Globalization and Cultures (CSGC)
For updates on future events hosted by the Center for the Study of Globalization and Cultures, please visit https://www.csgc.hku.hk/
