csgchku Upcoming Events

Racial Fictions: Conversation with Dr. Lynda Ng

Speaker: Lynda Ng, Lecturer in World Literature, University of Melbourne

Moderator: Daniel Elam, Associate Professor, Comparative Literature, HKU

Date: Wednesday, September 30, 2026
Time: 11:30am – 2:30pm Hong Kong Time
Venue: Faculty Lounge (Room 430), 4/F, Run Run Shaw Tower, The University of Hong Kong

Registration link: https://hkuems1.hku.hk/hkuems/ec_hdetail.aspx?guest=Y&ueid=109699

Please join us for an informal lunch seminar with Dr. Lynda Ng (University of Melbourne) as she discusses her recent work on racialising fictions in world literature. Lunch will be provided for all registered participants.

Having witnessed the end-point of eugenics in the violent, state-sanctioned genocide of Nazi Germany, it is impossible to discuss racial categories today without the knowledge that racialization is a dehumanising process that can lead to devastating consequences. Yet in spite of a willingness to acknowledge that race is a social construction, it often continues to be treated in everyday life as a real categorical difference. We will explore the modern dynamic between whiteness and racialization, highlighting a relationship between the studied objectivity of the scientific gaze and the supposed neutrality or non-racialised identity of whiteness. The way in which race functions as a technology of control becomes evident through the analysis of two key novels: “Passing” (1929) by Harlem Renaissance writer Nella Larsen and “The White Girl” (2019) by Australian First Nations author Tony Birch. With their depiction of racial passing, both novels challenge received ideas about race and skin colour, exposing the face as an important site where the sumptuary codes of race play out. We will consider the racial masks that people wear and the relational implications of ancestry on people’s faces.

Dr. Lynda Ng is a Lecturer in World Literature (including Australian literature) at the University of Melbourne. She is the editor of Indigenous Transnationalism: Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria (2018) and her research interests lie in the fields of postcolonialism, neoliberalism and literatures of the Global South.  She is currently completing a project on Chinese diasporic writing.

*Please note that this lunchtime seminar will centre around a recent paper by Dr. Lynda Ng. Participants are encouraged to read the article in advance to prepare for the discussion. The reading material will be emailed to you upon successful registration.

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csgchku Upcoming Events

《超風》: 電影放映及映後談 Cyclone: Screening and Post-Screening Talk

Event Details

Date: Wednesday, September 30, 2026
Screening: 5:00-7:00 pm (In Chinese with Chinese and English subtitles)

Post-Screening Talk: 7:00-8:00 pm (in Cantonese and Mandarin)
Venue: Rayson Huang Theatre, HKU

Registration link: https://hkuems1.hku.hk/hkuems/ec_hdetail.aspx?ueid=109525

All HKU staff and students are welcome. Registration requires HKU Portal ID.

*Please note that this film is restricted to persons aged 18 or above (ID check at entrance).

About the Film

Named after Cyclone Mei, the unfairly maligned tragic figure in Louis Cha’s martial arts novels, Cyclone works as a sex worker in Hong Kong to save up for gender-affirming surgery. But the more her identity is denied by the world and those around her, the more her desires begin to diminish. Anchored by a powerful performance by Liu Yuqiao as the eponymous protagonist, Philip Yung’s transgender drama is a poignant and empathetic tale of a lost soul searching for a place of belonging.

About the Director

Philip Yung (翁子光) is a Hong Kong film director, screenwriter, and critic. He won the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Screenplay for Port of Call (2015) and was named Best Director at the 31st Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards for Papa (2024).

Speakers & Guests

Director: Philip Yung 翁子光

Leading actress: Liu Yuqiao 劉語喬

Screenwriter and supporting director: Thomas Leung 梁永豪 and Carmen Hau 侯嘉雯

Co-writer and intimacy coordinator: Annabelle Li 李嘉怡

Moderator: Alvin Wong, Comparative Literature, HKU

Discussant: Roland Cheng, Comparative Literature, HKU

For updates on future events hosted by the Center for the Study of Globalization and Cultures, please visit https://www.csgc.hku.hk/

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Black Girl from Pyongyang: In Search of My Identity

Speaker: Monica Macias, London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London

Moderator: Daniel Elam, Associate Professor, Comparative Literature, HKU

Date: Tuesday, September 15, 2026
Time: 5:00 pm Hong Kong Time
New Venue: Room 436, 4/F, Run Run Shaw Tower, The University of Hong Kong

The extraordinary true story of a West African girl’s upbringing in North Korea under the guardianship of President Kim Il Sung.

In 1979, aged only seven, Monica Macias was sent from West Africa to the unfamiliar surroundings of North Korea by her father, the President of Equatorial Guinea, to be educated under the guardianship of his ally, Kim Il Sung. Within months, her father was executed in a military coup; her mother became unreachable. Effectively orphaned, she and two siblings had to make their life in Pyongyang. At military boarding school, Monica learned to mix with older children, speak fluent Korean and handle weapons on training exercises. Reaching adulthood, she went in search of her roots. Spending time in Madrid, Malabo, New York, Seoul and finally London, at every step she had to reckon with others’ perceptions of her adoptive homeland. Optimistic yet unflinching, Monica’s astonishing and unique story challenges us to see the world through different eyes.

Monica Macias is the daughter of Francisco Macias, the first president of Equatorial Guinea following its independence from colonial Spanish rule. She has lived in several countries around the world and now resides in south London. Black Girl from Pyongyang is her first book to be published in English, and she will be the subject of a forthcoming documentary film. For further details on her work, visit https://monicamaciasauthor.com/

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Modernism, Popular Literature, and the Left: The Intersection of Eileen Chang and Postwar Taiwanese Literature

現代主義、通俗文藝與左翼：張愛玲與戰後台灣文學的交織

分享嘉賓 Speaker: Prof. LIN Pei-yin 林姵吟 教授 (School of Chinese, HKU)

主持人 Moderator: Prof. Nicole HUANG 黃心村 教授 (Department of Comparative Literature, HKU)

日期時間 Date & Time: September 29, 2026 (Tue) 16:30-18:00pm (HKT)
語言 Language: Mandarin 國語/普通話
地點 Venue: CRT-4.36, 4/F, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU
講座模式 Delivery Mode: Face-to-face & Online (via Zoom)
報名 Registration: https://hku.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eap1BUFaU8hum0K

摘要 Abstract:
1999年，張愛玲的《半生緣》入選台灣《聯合報》副刊和文建會合辦的「台灣文學經典三十」名單，引發了張是否可被視為台灣作家的討論。目前台灣學界多將張視為「祖師奶奶」，探討台灣言情女作家對其小說風格上的承繼。本講採文學社會學視角，考察張愛玲與台灣文學具怎樣的淵源，使其被納入台灣文學範疇。首先追溯1957年夏志清於其兄夏濟安主編的《文學雜誌》上的兩篇評論，將張引入台灣背後的美援文學機制，接著探討1966年經宋淇引薦，已赴美的張愛玲的《怨女》開始於《皇冠》雜誌連載，奠定了張在台灣作為皇冠「招牌」與通俗作家的崛起。最後論及唐文標在1976年專書《張愛玲雜碎》流露的左翼傾向及其編纂張氏早期佚文的努力。結語指出張愛玲在戰後台灣文壇包括現代主義、通俗文藝，與左翼文學的多重交織，而這些面向恰反映出戰後台灣文學的三大重要板塊。

In 1999, Eileen Chang’ novel Half a Lifelong Romance was selected for the“30 Classics of Taiwanese Literature” list, jointly organized by the literary supplement of Taiwan’s United Daily News and the Council for Cultural Affairs. This sparked a debate over whether Chang could be considered a Taiwanese writer. Currently, Taiwanese academia tends to regard Chang as a pioneering figure, exploring how Taiwanese female romance novelists have inherited her stylistic legacy. This talk adopts a sociological perspective on literature to explore the connection between Eileen Chang and Taiwanese literature that led to her inclusion in the realm of Taiwanese literature. It begins by tracing C. T. Hsia’s two 1957 essays on Chang in Literary Magazine, edited by his brother T. A. Hsia, which elucidates the U.S. aid-funded literary mechanism that brought Chang’s work to Taiwan. The discussion then turns to 1966, when, through Stephen Soong’s recommendation, Chang—who had already relocated to the United States—began serializing “The Rouge of the North” in Crown magazine, cementing her rise in Taiwan as Crown’s “flagship” author and a writer of popular fiction. Finally, it investigates the leftist tendencies underpinning Tang Wenbiao’s 1976 monograph Eileen Chang Chop Suey and his efforts to compile Chang’s lost early writings. The conclusion points out that Chang’s work was intricately interwoven with modernism, popular literature, and leftism in the postwar Taiwanese literary scene, and that these facets precisely reflect the three important strands of postwar Taiwanese literature.

講者簡介 About the Speaker:
林姵吟  香港大學中文學院副教授，主要講授現代中國文學與文化課程。加入港大前，她曾任教於新加坡國立大學，劍橋大學，以及倫敦大學亞非學院。她於2015至2016年擔任哈佛燕京學者，2020年擔任萊頓大學台灣研究講座教授，並於2026年夏季擔任慕尼黑大學訪問學者。她著有 Colonial Taiwan: Negotiating Identities and Modernity through Literature (2017) 及《台灣文學中的性別與族裔：從日治到當代》（2021），並合編有六部專書，最新一本為 An Unlikely Trajectory: Literary and Cultural Leftism in Taiwan（2026）。

LIN Pei-yin is currently Associate Professor in the School of Chinese, HKU, where she teaches courses on modern Chinese literature and culture. Prior to HKU, she has taught at the National University of Singapore, University of Cambridge, and SOAS. She was a Harvard Yenching Visiting Scholar in 2015-2016, Chair of Taiwan Studies in Leiden University in 2020, and a visiting scholar at the University of Munich in the summer of 2026. She has authored two monographs, Colonial Taiwan: Negotiating Identities and Modernity through Literature (2017) and Gender and Ethnicity in Taiwanese Literature: Japanese Colonial Era to Present Day (2021) and co-edited six books, with An Unlikely Trajectory: Literary and Cultural Leftism in Taiwan (2026) being the most recent one.

Notice:
1) The seminar will be conducted primarily in face-to-face mode. Those who cannot attend the seminar in-person can apply for online participation (via Zoom) with justification.
2) All those who would like to attend the seminar are required to register online (https://hku.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eap1BUFaU8hum0K) on a first-come, first-served basis.
3) A confirmation email will be sent to the registrants’ email addresses and participants have to show the screenshot or print-out version of the email for entry to the seminar venue.
4) Walk-in or latecomers will not be given entry to the seminar venue unless situation allows.

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)

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Montreal, My Beautiful (2025) A Conversation with Director Xiaodan He

Moderator: Alvin Wong, Associate Professor, Comparative Literature, HKU

Date: Monday, September 7, 2026
Screening: 4:00-6:00 pm Hong Kong Time (In French and Mandarin with English subtitles)
Conversation (in English): 6:00-6:45 pm Hong Kong Time
Venue: Room 436, 4/F, Run Run Shaw Tower, The University of Hong Kong
Please note that this film is restricted to persons aged 18 or above.

Feng Xia, a 53-year-old Chinese immigrant and mother living in Montreal, has spent her life shaped by duty — to her family, her culture, and a loveless marriage. But when she meets Camille, a spirited young Québécoise, a long-buried desire is awakened. In the balmy and joyful Montreal summer, Feng Xia takes the radical step of choosing herself — embarking on a journey of forbidden love and long-overdue self-discovery. Her awakening becomes a profound reckoning with identity, exile, and the steep cost of liberation.

Xiaodan He (和晓丹) is a Chinese-Canadian filmmaker of Naxi heritage. She studied film production at the Beijing Film Academy from 1993 to 1997 and subsequently worked at the Yunnan Ethnic Film Studio. After immigrating to Montreal, Canada, in 2002 and studying screenwriting at the Université du Québec, she has dedicated herself to filmmaking. Her body of work encompasses both documentaries and feature films, with a creative focus on women-centric narratives. She was the first Chinese immigrant filmmaker to receive Canadian government funding for a feature film. Her first feature, A Touch of Spring (2018), was selected to represent Canada at the Cannes Film Festival and won He the Best Emerging Director Award at the Asian American International Film Festival in New York. Montréal, My Beautiful was awarded the WIFF Prize in Canadian Film at the 2025 Windsor International Film Festival, and Joan Chen (陳沖) won Outstanding Lead Performance in a Canadian Film at the 2026 Toronto Film Critics Association Awards for her performance in the film.

For updates on future events hosted by the Center for the Study of Globalization and Cultures, please visit https://www.csgc.hku.hk/

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