Speaker:
Tamara Chin, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature, Brown University
Moderator:
Daniel Elam, Assistant Professor, Department of Comparative Literature, HKU
Date: Thursday, March 26, 2026
Time: 4:00 pm Hong Kong Time
Venue: Faculty Lounge (Room 430), 4/F, Run Run Shaw Tower, HKU
The study of language contact lacked prestige in traditional Philology. In China and Europe, philologists partitioned the past into distinct national languages. This talk asks how historical interactions across languages became a recognized modern research object. It revisits the discovery in Dunhuang of a multilingual cave library of ancient texts, and examines the post-Opium War and Cold War politics through which linguistic experts made language contact meaningful.
Tamara Chin is an associate professor of comparative literature at Brown University and author of Savage Exchange: Han Imperialism, Chinese Literary Style, and the Economic Imagination (Harvard 2014; trans. 野蛮交换：汉帝国的扩张、文学风格与经济想象 forthcoming); and The Silk Road Idea: Ancient Contact in the Modern Human Sciences, 1870-1970 (forthcoming 2026).
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
