The Department of Philosophy will organize the "Roundtable on Brook Ziporyn’s Translation of the Daodejing" on 6 October 2023 (Fri). Prof. Brook Ziporyn’s translation of Laozi’s Daodejing is the newest in a long line of such works. Known for his now-classic translation of the Zhuangzi, Ziporyn’s rendering of the Daodejing both shows his mastery of the Chinese language and Daoist philosophy, and how the two are intertwined. Of particular note, and the secondary focus of this workshop, is Ziporyn’s supplemental online essay in which he analyzes the Daodejing’s normative structure. The two poles of conventional valuations, as Ziporyn calls them, involve things or states that are either “valued and sought” or “disvalued and avoided” yet the Daodejing inverts their presumed hierarchy, favoring the disvalued while shunning the valued. In addition to discussing Ziporyn’s translation, this roundtable will also explore the reasons for and consequences of this inversion of values.
Speaker
Prof. Brook Ziporyn
Prof. Alan K. L. Chan
Prof. Qingjie Wang
Prof. Lai Shi-san
Prof. Cheng Chung-yi
Prof. Chris Fraser
Prof. Fabian Heubel
The long history of the relationship between Russia and China has been in the news a lot lately, but contemporary concerns often obscure its true nature. Spies and Scholars looks at Russian espionage in eighteenth-century China, its history, methods, and what it was supposed to accomplish. It also examines how Russo-Chinese relations fit into a broader global context, especially Russia's long imperial rivalry with Great Britain. As we'll see, to understand Russia's aspirations to world power, it's essential to understand how it produced and consumed different kinds of knowledge.
Speaker
Prof. Gregory AFINOGENOV
Department of History, Georgetown University
ZOOM Meeting ID: 990 8868 4183;
Meeting link: https://cuhk.zoom.us/j/99088684183
How can historians write about media and popular culture in a way that captures both the production and reception sides of the relationship? Decades or centuries after their initial publication, library and archive collections of media offer an incomplete picture of both the people involved in production and the ways in which audiences reacted to and interpreted them.
This talk examines the history of manga (Japanese comics) in the twentieth century, paying attention to the triangular relationship between creators, production or publication staff, and audiences or fans. Drawing on my research process and detailing the sources I used to recover both the material reality of old media ranging from newspapers and magazines to radio, film and television, and zines, and the ways in which audiences responded to them, this talk introduces various unconventional sources for historians to explore and argues that we must seek to understand popular media in context to fully understand their impact.
Speaker
Dr. Andrea HORBINSKI
Independent Writer and Historian
ZOOM Meeting ID: 990 8868 4183;
Meeting link: https://cuhk.zoom.us/j/99088684183
This talk emphasizes the significance of locally tailored digital skills development for humanities scholars. While technology is global, its application varies based on factors like language, research culture, and history. These variations can create centres of excellence but may leave some scholars without access to beneficial approaches. To excel, scholars must take charge of their skills development, ensuring that local digital skills provision aligns with their specific needs. Institutions should also adapt their curriculum to meet changing demands. By embracing these principles, scholars can bridge gaps, leverage technology effectively, and contribute to the advancement of knowledge in their fields.
Speaker
Prof. Adam Crymble
Associate Professor of Digital Humanities in the Department of Information Studies, University College London
Dr Adam Crymble is an Associate Professor of Digital Humanities at University College London in the United Kingdom.. He is a founding editor of the award-winning Programming Historian, a multilingual suite of publications that offer more than 200 free digital skills tutorials in English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese. His research looks at how digital approaches to scholarship can help us to better understand the history of migration. His most recent book, Technology and the Historian (2021), looks at how the discipline of history has evolved in the digital era, and the challenges and opportunities that have presented.
The “International Conference on Chinese Translation History” series organized by the Research Centre for Translation, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, explores Chinese translation history within the bigger framework of world civilization and human thought. It aims to lay groundwork for new models, methods, and perspectives in this innovative interdisciplinary branch of learning through detailed case studies. Since 2015, the conference series have been held every two years, with a different central theme for every conference. “Power” is the keyword of the fourth conference, with the intention to reveal the intricate nature and far-reaching effects of translation in Chinese translation history through individual case studies.
Venue:
14 & 15 December - LT3, 5, 6, 7
16 December - LT2, 5, 6, 7
“New Asia Lectures on Confucianism” is generously sponsored by the Moonchu Foundation. The 9th New Asia Lectures on Confucianism will be held in October 2023, and it is our honor to have invited Professor YU Wanli to be our speaker. Professor Yu is the Chair Professor, Ma Yifu Academy of Zhejiang University.
Speaker
Professor YU Wanli
Chair Professor, Ma Yifu Academy of Zhejiang University
1st Lecture
- Topic: “Tracing the Source: Confucian Classics the Book of Poetry and the Analects”
- Moderator: Professor CHEUNG Kam Siu, Department of Chinese Language and Literature, CUHK
- Date: 4 October 2023 (Wednesday)
- Time: 6:30pm – 8:00pm
- Venue: Sir Run Run Shaw Hall, CUHK
(This lecture will be held at the College Bi-weekly Assembly)
2nd Lecture
- Topic: “Confucius’s Joy and Concern: Seen from Confucian Classics”
- Moderator: Professor CHENG Chung Yi, Department of Philosophy, CUHK
- Date: 7 October 2023 (Saturday)
- Time: 3:00pm – 5:00pm
- Venue: Function Room AC2, 4/F, Administration Building, Hong Kong Cultural Centre, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon
3rd Lecture
- Topic: “Stone Classics in Han and Wei Dynasties: Similarities and Differences between New Text School and Old Text School”
- Moderator: Professor David Chai, Department of Philosophy, CUHK
- Date: 9 October 2023 (Monday)
- Time: 4:30pm – 6:15pm
- Venue: Cho Yiu Conference Hall, G/F, University Administration Building, CUHK
(This Lecture is jointly organized by New Asia College and Department of Philosophy, CUHK)
Computational text analysis has enabled researchers to explore literary questions on a large-scale using methods like topic modelling, stylometry, and word vectors. These approaches uncover thematic and topical patterns in extensive collections of texts, offering insights that traditional methods cannot achieve. However, the impact of digital humanities on literary analysis has been limited due to the disconnect between large-scale questions and the broader field. Recent advancements in natural language processing (NLP) now allow for detailed analysis at the sentence level, tracking character descriptions and actions. This shift presents an opportunity for digital humanists and traditional literary scholars to collaborate more closely. The analysis is dependent on the language of the text and the explicit encoding of markers like politeness, gender, and time.. The talk will discuss the use of tools like spaCy and David Bamman's BookNLP to bridge the gap between computational and traditional literary studies. Additionally, it will touch upon the evolving landscape of copyright law and fair dealing in Hong Kong and the US, considering their impact on accessing texts for analysis.
Speaker
Quinn Dombrowski,
Academic Technology Specialist in Literatures, Cultures, and Languages, Center for Interdisciplinary Digital Research,
Stanford University
Quinn Dombrowski is the Academic Technology Specialist in the Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages, and in the Library, at Stanford University. Prior to coming to Stanford in 2018, Quinn’s many DH adventures included supporting the high-performance computing cluster at UC Berkeley, running the DiRT tool directory with support from the Mellon Foundation, writing books on Drupal for Humanists and University of Chicago library graffiti, and working on the program staff of Project Bamboo, a failed digital humanities cyberinfrastructure initiative. Quinn has a BA/MA in Slavic Linguistics from the University of Chicago, and an MLIS from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Since coming to Stanford, Quinn has supported numerous non-English DH projects, taught courses on non-English DH, started a Textile Makerspace, developed a tabletop roleplaying game to teach DH project management, explored trends in multilingual Harry Potter fanfic, and started the Data-Sitters Club, a feminist DH pedagogy and research group focused on Ann M. Martin’s 90’s girls series “The Baby-Sitters Club”. Quinn is currently co-VP of the Association for Computers and the Humanities along with Roopika Risam, and advocates for better support for DH in languages other than English.
oin us for an engaging seminar on the close reading of Augustine's anti-Pelagian work, De spiritu et littera (57-60). The seminar will focus on the Latin text (CSEL 60, 215,16--221,4 Urba/Zycha), with an English translation provided in advance. Postgraduate students and senior undergraduate students are invited to participate. Limited seats available, so register now!
Speaker
Prof. Volker Henning Drecoll
Chair of Church History (Early Church)
Faculty of Protestant Theology
Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen
centre-cs@cuhk.edu.hk or 39438155 (Tel/Signal)
Australia is one of the major immigration nations in the world, with close to one-third of the population reported as being from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) backgrounds. In a multicultural community like Australia, it is not hard to understand the important roles interpreters play in enabling people from CALD communities to access crucial public services. It is also important to understand the role interpreters play and address the unique challenges interpreters face in the community setting compared to business, conference, or political settings. This presentation will provide an overview of opportunities and challenges of community interpreting in Australia, specifically, the role of community interpreters, abiding by the Code of Ethics as set by the Australian Institute of Interpreters and Translators (AUSIT), as well as managing clients’ inappropriate expectations.
Speaker
Ms Xiaoxing (Amy) Wang
Ms Xiaoxing (Amy) Wang is a NAATI Certified Conference Interpreter (Mandarin/English), and NAATI Certified Interpreter (Mandarin/English). NAATI stands for The National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreter in Australia. Amy started her journey as a community interpreter after obtaining a master’s degree in Interpreting and Translation from the University of Western Sydney in 2011. She has been regularly involved in organising and delivering training for both aspiring and practising interpreters and translators since 2015. Being an active member of Australian Institute of Interpreters and Translators (AUSIT), Amy is passionate about elevating the professional image of interpreters and translations as well as educating clients on how to work with interpreters.
Maps of newly conquered territories are poignant examples of ‘contact zones’ (in the sense given to the term by Mary Louise Pratt) where competing legitimacies and legacies “meet, clash, and grapple [in] highly asymmetrical relations of power” (M. L. Pratt, “Arts of the Contact Zone”, p. 34). Partly changed toponyms, dotted borders, doublings of localities, conquerors’ coats of arms or propaganda vignettes are some of the most commonly found materializations of this phenomenon on early modern maps, bearing testimony to the victors’ version of history engaging with or engaged by the counterhistories of actually or allegedly conquered populations.
In this presentation, I offer to explore some of the ways in which these maps of conquest can be mined for information on the perspective of the would-be destroyed adversaries and the traces they leave behind. The examples on which I will base my analysis are derived from the first experience of major English overseas explorations in mid-16th century, as their venture for a north-east passage to China took them to the Russia of Ivan IV. Journeying down the Volga in their enterprises of diplomacy and trade towards the Caspian Sea and Central Asia, the agents of the English Muscovy Company found themselves in the midst of the Tsar’s empire-building projects at the expense of the Tatar populations forcibly assimilated or displaced out of the newly conquered khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan. Reporting as the observing third party from that unstable frontier zone, the English in their textual and visual testimonies record as their main narrative the conquering perspective of the Muscovites methodically razing wooden Tatar towns and mosques to build Russian-style kremlins and churches, while traces of the past are visible at every bend of the river and dutifully noted by them as well.
As archives of both geographical and historical margins of the Muscovite-Tatar interactions, the English agents’ travel narratives and their accompanying maps of the Volga area offer, I will argue, both a fascinating case study of resistance to obliteration, and elements of method for addressing the superimposition of maps and countermaps within a same corpus.
Speaker 講者
Prof. Ladan NIAYESH
Department of English and American Studies
Université Paris Cité
Ladan NIAYESH is Professor of early modern English studies at Université Paris Cité and a member of the LARCA research centre (UMR 8225, CNRS). Her research focuses on 16th- and 17th-century travel writing and travel drama, especially to Muscovy and Persia. Some of her past publications include Three Romances of Eastern Conquest (MUP, 2018) and the collective Eastern Resonances (Routledge, 2019). Among various current projects, she coedits a collective volume on Writing Distant Travels and Linguistic Otherness in Early Modern England, to be published by Brepols in 2023.
ZOOM Meeting ID: 990 8868 4183
Meeting link: https://cuhk.zoom.us/j/99088684183