Speaker: Arnika Fuhrmann, Professor, Department of Comparative Literature, HKU
Discussant: Elmo Gonzaga, Associate Professor, Department of Cultural and Religious Studies, CUHK
Moderator: Daniel Elam, Assistant Professor, Department of Comparative Literature, HKU
Date: Tuesday, April 14, 2026
Time: 5:00 pm Hong Kong Time
Venue: Faculty Lounge (Room 430), 4/F, Run Run Shaw Tower, HKU
All are welcome. Registration is required.
https://hkuems1.hku.hk/hkuems/ec_hdetail.aspx?guest=Y&ueid=105970
In the Mood for Texture considers the revival of Chinese pasts and the aesthetics of colonial modernity in contemporary Southeast Asian cultural production, both virtual and material. Examining contemporary Bangkok’s architecture, design, fashion, and nightlife, the book shows how Chinese pasts are redeployed in contemporary film, literature, and hospitality venues to shape present visions of Asia. Attending to the textures of built environments and agentive female subjects, it demonstrates how Southeast Asian imaginations can challenge both domestic and regional narratives of identity and collectivity.
Arnika Fuhrmann is an interdisciplinary scholar of Southeast Asia, working at the intersections of the region’s aesthetic, religious, and political modernities. She is the author of Ghostly Desires: Queer Sexuality and Vernacular Buddhism in Contemporary Thai Cinema (Duke University Press, 2016), Teardrops of Time:Buddhist Aesthetics in the Poetry of Angkarn Kallayanapong (SUNY Press, 2020), and In the Mood for Texture: The Revival of Bangkok as a Chinese City (Duke University Press, 2026).
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