The Department of Comparative Literature at the University of Hong Kong, in partnership with the Global Emergent Media Lab at Concordia University, Canada, and the M+ Museum, Hong Kong, present:

VIDEO/ART/TV
May 27 and 28, 2026 at the University of Hong Kong
May 29, 2026 at M+ Museum

This conference resituates video aesthetics within distinct regional geographies of Asia and the Pacific. It examines the role played by changing technologies and infrastructures (such as broadcast, cable, satellite television, the internet, smartphone applications, streaming platforms, gaming, etc.) in shaping the experience, forms, and politics of video art in this part of the world. We start from Asia and the Pacific in order to unsettle sedimented ideas about video art that take the North Atlantic as their primary point of reference and to complicate the standard historical account shaped within this context. While there is a need to study the moving image in Asian art in this canonical sense, it is also clear that relocating video art demands a more foundational reconsideration of its formation, parameters, and intermediations. Thus our formulation “video/art/TV” signals a defamiliarized understanding of the category, with a view to expanding into other under-considered histories and practices of making, distributing, and displaying video art. By bringing together historical contributions that illuminate earlier video forms and formats with investigations of the dynamic and inventive video practices of the present moment, the conference frames an overarching perspective on the evolving constellation of video/art/television.

May 27 (Wed) and May 28 (Thu)
Time: 10:00 am to 3:30 pm
Registration venue: Room 3.04, 3/F, Run Run Shaw Tower, The University of Hong Kong
Click here for a map to the venue.
All are welcome. Registration is required.
https://hkuems1.hku.hk/hkuems/ec_hdetail.aspx?guest=Y&ueid=106600

May 29 (Fri)
Time: 10:30 am to 11:45 am
M+ Museum
All are welcome. No registration required.

Conference Programme

MAY 27 (WEDNESDAY) – CPD3.04 HKU

10:00  Coffee & Welcoming Remarks by Co-organizers

10:30–11:45  Panel 1
Clarissa Chikiamco (National Gallery of Singapore): “Art at the Nearest Television Screen and the Most Comfortable Armchair: Attempts at a Wider Circulation of Philippine Video Art in the 1980s”
Iuliia Glushneva (McGill University): “Video Err-Asia: Mapping the Televisual Artworlds of Socialism”  
Riar Rizaldi (Artist and filmmaker): “Fever Discs: VCDs, Perversion, and the Afterimage of Reformasi”          
Joshua Neves (Concordia University): “On Ubiquity: Form and Platform in Lu Yang’s Doku Series”

BREAK

14:00–15:15 Panel 2 
Jihoi Lee (National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), Korea): “Watch and Chill, Beyond Access”
Shaoling Ma (Cornell University): “Southeast Asian Art Video Pedagogies in the Age of MOOCs”         
Marie Martraire (Concordia University): “Transpacific Dialogues: Stories of Digital Navigation”

MAY 28 (THURSDAY) – CPD3.04 HKU

10:15–11:45  Panel 3
David Teh (National University of Singapore): “Convergence and Crossover: Towards a Regional History of Southeast Asian Video/Art”      
Koichiro Osaka (National University of Singapore): “Video Installation: Asian Art Show Fukuoka, 1994”          
Jean Ma (University of Hong Kong): “Computing Found Footage in the Video Work of Ho Tzu Nyen”    
Toby Wu (Harvard University): “Siting Transnational Video Art across the Global Contemporary”

BREAK

14:00–15:15 Panel 4
Delaney Chieyen Holton (Stanford University): “On the Queerness of Hong Kong Video”          
Shweta Kishore (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University): “Video within Video: Repurposing, Collaboration and Performance in Camp’s ‘From Gulf to Gulf to Gulf’”      
Philippa Lovatt (University of St. Andrews): “Video Art in Post-Đổi Mói Vietnam”

MAY 29 (FRIDAY) – M+ Museum

10:30–11:45  Panel 5
May Adadol Ingawanij (University of Westminster): “Vanguardism as Residue and as Heritage in Southeast Asian Contemporary Artist Cinema”
Michelle Cho (University of Toronto): “K-Video: Art, Screens, and Secondary Liveness”
Ishita Tiwary (Concordia University): “From VIEW to Afterlives: Art, Experimentation, and Collaboration in India”

Conference Organizing Committee:
Marie Martraire, Concordia University
Joshua Neves, Concordia University
Jean Ma, University of Hong Kong

This conference is co-sponsored by the HKU Faculty of Arts & Department of Comparative Literature, the Center for the Study of Globalization and Cultures (CSGC), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Canada), and The Global Emergent Media Lab, and is supported by the Louis Cha Fund for Chinese Studies and East/West Studies.

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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張愛玲傳：時代的度量

分享嘉賓Speaker:  Prof. Karen S. Kingsbury 金凱筠 教授 (Chatham University)

與談人 Discussant: Mr. Silvano Zheng  鄭遠濤 先生

主持人 Moderators: 
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 Date: May 21, 2026 (Thu)
時間 Time: 4:00 pm Hong Kong Time
地點 Venue: Room 436, 4/F, Run Run Shaw Tower, HKU
語言 Language: English and Chinese
授課模式 Delivery Mode:  Face-to-face & On Zoom
報名 Registration: https://hkuems1.hku.hk/hkuems/ec_hdetail.aspx?guest=Y&ueid=106505

摘要 Abstract: 
Decisions made, details discovered, a sense of the path that lies ahead: this talk sketches out a bilingual, co-written biographical project on the ever-elusive, unceasingly celebrated Eileen Chang. Why have we—Silvano Yuantao Zheng and myself—dared to do this? What are we aiming for? How has our experience as translators of Chang informed our vision and approach? Although given in English, the talk aims to connect the interests of monolingual Anglophone readers with those of Chang’s firm fanbase in Hong Kong.

當寫作決定與新發掘的細節各就各位，前進的路徑便已若隱若現：本講座將為一個二人合著、中英雙語出版的張愛玲傳記計劃勾勒輪廓。對這位魅力無窮而性情難以參透的作家，為何我與鄭遠濤膽敢執筆書寫其一生？寫作目標何在？而我倆為英文、中文讀者翻譯張著的親身體驗，又如何影響了各自的人物觀照與研究角度？儘管講座將以英文為主要語言進行，主講人有意打通英文單語讀者和香港等地資深張迷的不同興趣。

講者簡介 About the Speaker:
Karen S. Kingsbury has translated three volumes of Eileen Chang’s fiction and essays into English. Half a Lifelong Romance (2014) was published in the Penguin Modern Classics series, while two other volumes—Love in a Fallen City (2006) and Time Tunnel (2025; co-translated with Zhang Jie)—were published by New York Review Books. Time Tunnel was recently shortlisted and received an honorable mention for the prestigious 2025 Baifeng Schell Book Prize, which is awarded annually by the China Books Review. Kingsbury teaches at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, where she is Professor of Humanities and Asian Studies.

金凱筠已出版三部張愛玲作品的英譯本。《半生緣》（2014）收錄於企鵝現代經典叢書；另有兩部作品——《傾城之戀》（2006）與《時間隧道》（2025；與張潔合譯）——由紐約書評社出版。《時間隧道》一書進入China Books Review 2025年度卓越文學作品獎決選名單並獲特別點評的榮譽。金任教於美國賓州匹茲堡查塔姆大學，是人文科學和東亞研究教授。

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/

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Speaker: Zoe Meng Jiang, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Comparative Literature, HKU

Moderator: Jean Ma, Mr. and Mrs. Hung Hing-Ying Professor in the Arts, Department of Comparative Literature, HKU

Date: Tuesday, May 12, 2026
Time: 4:00 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=106449

This talk examines early reform-era video watching in China—a semi-public, quasi-legal practice that became a dominant form of cultural consumption and social activity. Video cassettes decentralized audiovisual reproduction and consumption, generating a reality beyond state intentions. Their proliferation fostered a new homosociality: male spectators identifying not with nationalism but a transnational Confucian brotherhood, sustained by Hong Kong action films. The state’s shifting tolerance of video halls marks the inauguration of a mode of post-socialist rule in which spatial forms of organization matter as much as the ideology of cultural content.

Zoe Meng Jiang is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of Hong Kong. She researches media theory and history, social practice, gender and feminism, and moving-image arts. Her recent and forthcoming publications appear in the Oxford Handbook of Chinese Digital Media, Journal of Chinese Cinemas, Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, Art Asia Pacific, The Brooklyn Rail, and Artforum China, among others.

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

Follow us on:
– Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/csgc.hku
– Instagram: @csgc.hku

1. If you are taking the MTR to HKU Station, please proceed to Exit C1 and take the lifts to “The University of Hong Kong.” When you arrive at the Centennial Campus (G/F), walk along the street towards the Run Run Shaw Tower and enter the building (Red Route). Please take the lift to the 3/F and you will see the room CPD 3.04 on your left.

2. If you are taking a bus/ minibus (routes listed below), get off at the bus stop at the West Gate in front of Haking Wong Building on Pokfulam Road. Walk towards the HKU MTR Station and proceed to Exit A2. Walk along the Upper University Street towards the Centennial campus and head towards Run Run Shaw Tower as above.

District Bus Route No. Green Minibus Route No.:
Admiralty 23, 37A, 40, 40M, 90B 10, 31
Central 30X, 4X, 46X, 40M, 90B, 37A, 4 22, 22S, 55
Kowloon 970, 970X

3. If you are coming by taxi, please use the drop-off point at West Gate in front of Haking Wong Building on Pokfulam Road and follow the above route.

*It can be difficult to find a car parking space on the HKU campus, so it is advisable to take public transport.

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

Follow us on:
– Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/csgc.hku
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Professor Dan Vukovich (胡德)
The New Global Conjuncture After the Rise of China and the Global South: Problems of Method & Interpretation

Professor Li Haimo (李海默)
The Global South from a Burkean Perspective

Speaker: Ani Maitra, Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies, Colgate University

Moderator: Alvin K. Wong, Assistant Professor, Department of Comparative Literature, HKU

Date: Tuesday, September 10, 2024
Time: 4:00 pm Hong Kong Time
Venue: Room 1069, 10/F, Run Run Shaw Tower, HKU

This talk examines Priya Sen’s film Yeh Freedom Life (2018) as an experimental ethnography of sexual subalternity in contemporary India. The talk focuses on the film’s grounding of female same-sex desire in postcolonial working-class Delhi, specifically its representation of that desire at a critical distance from the discourse of queer rights and identity politics. Completed the same year that the Indian Supreme Court decriminalized homosexuality emphasizing the individual’s “right to privacy,” Sen’s film captures the complex socioeconomic dynamics shaping the lives of its protagonists and reveals the limits of normative distinctions between the public and the private, straight and queer. The talk argues that it is the film’s “non-liberal” representation of the sexual subaltern–a figure that at once inhabits and subverts North Indian Hindu normativity on the fringes of liberal Anglophone activism–that makes it a timely decolonial feminist and queer intervention.

Ani Maitra is an associate professor of film and media studies at Colgate University in Hamilton, NY. His research and teaching fall at the intersections of postcolonial and diaspora studies, gender and sexuality studies, and global media studies. Maitra is the author of Identity, Mediation, and the Cunning of Capital (Northwestern UP, 2020).

Thinking China and Circulation:
Beyond Borders / In Translation / Across Adaptation

Abstract submission: September 1, 2022
Paper submission: October 3, 2022

Dates of Workshop: October 20-22, 2022 (Thu-Sat)
Venue: Zoom

Circulations are at the core of globalization and speak to all fields, periods, and regions. They can be political, economic, cultural, geographical, social, communal, familial, or personal. They may involve the relocation of objects and images; translation, adaptation, and appropriation of texts; or trajectories of individuals. They may be influenced by diverse forms of media. They may be imposed and experienced by individuals, groups, or institutions. They may take place on an equal footing or reinforce power relationships. They may bring about understanding, transformations, creativities, or else misunderstanding, prejudice, and defiance. Circulations also entail a historical process of images, texts, and ideas changing over time.

This historical moment – global pandemic, changing geopolitics, the threat of economic sanctions, and renewed racism against the Chinese diaspora – is a good time to reflect on real-life and virtual circulations in the context of China.

The Department of Comparative Literature and the Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Cultures at the University of Hong Kong invite graduate students working on China and the Sinophone world of the twentieth century to submit paper abstracts on the theme of “CIRCULATION”. We encourage people to interpret the theme in the broadest possible terms. We particularly welcome proposals that discuss circulations in relation to China in/and the world (in any language or across multiple languages). We hope to bring together early-career scholars working across disciplines, including literature, history, philosophy, film and media studies, etc.

Please submit your abstract (up to 250 words) with a working title, and your CV to conf.complit.hku@gmail.com by September 1, 2022. Selected participants will be notified of their acceptance by September 5 and should submit the full paper by October 3. There are no fees to attend the workshop.

The graduate workshop will be held on Zoom October 20-22 HKT. Papers will be circulated in advance among all the participants. Attendees are expected to read the papers of their panel before the workshop and give feedback during the panels. Participants in Hong Kong are welcome for a dinner after the workshop.

Three faculty members will also give advice on each paper during the three-day workshop:

David Der-wei Wang is Edward C. Henderson Professor in Chinese Literature and Comparative Literature at Harvard University. Wang’s specialties are Modern and Contemporary Chinese and Sinophone Literature, Late Qing fiction and drama, and Comparative Literary Theory.

Alvin K. Wong is Assistant Professor in Comparative Literature at the University of Hong Kong. His research spans across the fields of Hong Kong literature and cinema, Chinese literary and cultural studies, Sinophone studies, queer theory, transnational feminism, and the environmental humanities.

Peng Hsiao-yen is research fellow at the Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica. Her publications include Dandyism and Transcultural Modernity: The Dandy, the Flâneur, and the Translator in 1930s Shanghai, Tokyo, and Paris (Routledge, 2010).

If you have any queries, please kindly email Junlin Ma (jlma@connect.hku.hk), Ying Xing (yingxing@connect.hku.hk), or J. Daniel Elam (jdelam@hku.hk).

This conference is organized by Junlin Ma, Ying Xing, and J. Daniel Elam under the auspices of the Department of Comparative Literature and the Centre for the Study of Globalization and Cultures at HKU.