To celebrate the 20th anniversary of our MA in Philosophy Programme, a series of book sharing event titled “MA 20周年慶：齊來讀哲學” will be held from March to October 2024. The 3rd book reading session will be led by Dr. Lo Kit-hung, Senior Lecturer, Department of Philosophy, CUHK. The purpose of the event is to promote reading of philosophy books and the MA programme to the general public. Dr. Lo will introduce and share the book for 45 minutes, 3 alumni in the reading group will share the book for 10-15 minutes each, the rest of time will be Q&A for the participants/general public.

Speaker
Dr. Lo Kit-hung
Senior Lecturer, Department of Philosophy, CUHK

Coming from Italy, Dr. Marino has ventured into the Orient. His PhD thesis, Chinese Whispers: Albert de Pouvourville, René Guénon, and Traditionalism's Hidden “Chinese Roots”, has earned him the Young Scholars Thesis Award 2023. This innovative research examines the influence of Chinese and Vietnamese religious ideas on the works of the European esoteric thinkers Albert de Pouvourville and René Guénon. A section of his thesis has been recently published as a stand-alone article, “Albert de Pouvourville’s Occultisme Colonial”, in the international journal Numen: International Review for the History of Religions.

Professor Li Chen, Interim Chair of the Faculty Publicity and Outreach Committee, commenced the event with a warm welcome, encouraging all participants, especially the programme mentees, to cultivate their learning interests and passions.

We would like to express our sincere thanks to Mr. Roy Tsang (Part-time Instructor) and Year 3 student, Chung Yan Ting from the Department of Chinese Language and Literature, for their enriching Chinese writing workshop. Their sharing of knowledge and personal experiences was truly enlightening.

Furthermore, we extend our heartfelt appreciation to Mr. Andy O'Gorman (Lecturer, English Language Teaching Unit) for his engaging English writing workshop. His incorporation of online activities significantly enhanced the learning experience for all participants.

The Faculty extends its deep appreciation to everyone who contributed to making this event a memorable success. We remain committed to inspiring and nurturing the next generation of learners.

This scholarship encourages undergraduate students to develop in the Greater Bay Area (GBA), including Hong Kong. Along with a grant of HKD 80,000, awardees will receive mentorship from HSBC executives and connect with financial leaders in the GBA. This offers a unique opportunity to expand both social and professional networks.
 
Meet our scholar
Cici expressed her heartfelt gratitude towards her alma mater, saying, “For the past four years, the inclusive and diverse campus environment at CUHK has consistently encouraged my self-exploration and global understanding. The Department of Chinese Language and Literature not only offers professional courses but also enabled me to leverage my strengths during my exchange at Peking University. I am especially grateful to my teachers for their profound inspiration in guiding my academic pursuits and career planning."

CUHK Arts is dedicated to providing students an inclusive and diverse learning environment, cultivating well-rounded talents with a global perspective.
 

Full Scale of Exchanges

Being the first cohort that was not totally confined by COVID restrictions, the 2023-24 HYI visiting scholars thus fully enjoyed all the academic activities provided by the Harvard Yenching Institute. Starting from September, one or two scholars each week would be assigned to give an 80-minute talk; that scholar’s mentor would give remarks and facilitate the subsequent discussions. “I learned the most from my mentor, Prof. James Robson,” Prof. Wei says, expressing her sincere gratitude for Prof. Robson’s guidance. “We would have regular meetings and discussions due to our common interests in the Daodejing and its translations, which inspired a leap in my research to the next stage.” Her Harvard Yenching Talk, “A Sage Embellished with Elements of “Chinoiserie: The Making of Jesus in the Jesuit Figurist Translations of Chinese Classics,” was a perfect chance for her to showcase her research on the Jesuits Figurists’ translations of the Yijing and the Dao to the academic community of the Boston area, especially to scholars at Harvard.

In addition to the mentorship, Prof. Wei also embraced several academic pursuits, dedicating herself to a diverse range of subjects and disciplines for future interdisciplinary cooperation. She audited classes at Harvard and attended talks held by the Fairbank Center for China Studies and Asia Center at Harvard. Prof. Wei employed an interesting metaphor to describe the abundance of treasures in this re-invigorating ten-month journey: “Harvard University is a veritable forest of treasures, and the Harvard Yenching Institute provides me with the right paths to the right trees.”

The Strong Bonds among the Cohort

Each year Harvard Yenching Institute offers fellowships and monthly stipends to each scholar. HYI visiting scholars are also encouraged to hold workshops and build connections with other scholars in North America. After spirited competition, only six workshop proposals were accepted and sponsored by the HYI. Prof. Wei co-organized the interdisciplinary workshop Encounters of Civilizations in East Asia from the 16th to the 18th Centuries with Ji Young JUNG, Professor of Women's Studies at Ewha Womans University in Korea, and Ran WEI, Associate Professor in the Institute of Foreign Literature, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Other invited participants of this workshop included Koichi HAGIMOTO, Professor of Spanish at Wellesley College, Kwaingmin KIM, Associate Professor of Early Modern China at University of Colorado Boulder, Tomoyasu IIYAMA, Professor in the Faculty of Letters, Arts, and Sciences at Waseda University, Gang SONG, Associate Professor of Chinese History and Culture Programme at Hong Kong University, and Ji LI, Associate Professor of History at Hong Kong University. A strong bond was established during the organizing of the workshop, and that bond continues to hold. “Our genuine and intimate camaraderie had lasting impact; it fueled our passion for future workshops and cooperation.”

Work-Life Balance

The strong bond not only grew among the scholars she co-organized the workshop with, but also became stronger among the cohort via various activities organized by the Harvard Yenching Institute. The Institute aims to build a perfect work-life balance for these mid-career scholars. Thus it organized several trips and outings, including visits to Concord, Salem, NYC, Newport, and a ski trip at Mount Washington, all in addition to the packed schedule of presentations and small-scale workshops. Prof. Wei treasures the friendships built during this ten-month journey. “The laughter and insightful conversations we enjoyed on these trips are all moments I would not trade for anything.”

“Fun-filled moments, thought-provoking conversations we had on bright sunny days, under golden sunsets, in presentations, during workshops, over cups of coffee—these led to me turning a new page in my life.”

Prof. Wei strongly encourages the CUHK colleagues to apply for the Harvard-Yenching Visiting Scholars Programme 2025-26. For more details, visit the following website: https://www.harvard-yenching.org/programs/visiting-scholars-program/.

Chi Shing's awarded paper marks his first publication in a regular issue of the international journal The Global Sixties: An Interdisciplinary Journal. This pioneering work contextualizes the history of Hong Kong’s anarchism in the 1970s at a global scale, framing it with the boarder global interactions of Chinese nationalism and New Left internationalism. The article has garnered exceptional attention, becoming the most-read article in the journal for the year 2023. It has also been adopted into an episode in the podcast titled Anarchist Essays.

Professor Tan’s research interests cover Film and Media Studies, Television Studies, Gender and Sexuality to Human Rights. She authored Digital Masquerade: Feminist Rights and Queer Media in China (New York University Press, 2023). Her work on digital media, feminism, queer culture, and documentaries has been featured in top journals like Crime, Media, Culture; Critical Studies in Media Communication; GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies; Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, and the Journal of Chinese Cinemas. She was a Clare Hall Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge (2024), and a Global Fellow at the University of St. Andrews (2023), and a Research Fellow at the University of Amsterdam (2023).
 

We look forward to more groundbreaking and interdisciplinary research from Professor Tan!

Sharing from Professor Leilah Vevaina, Department of Anthropology:
“I am honoured to receive this award as a recognition of many years of research. As an anthropologist who does field research on charity, religion, and law in contemporary India, none of this is possible without so many amazing research interlocutors in India and Hong Kong,” shared Professor Vevaina.

With a research focus on South Asia, Professor Vevaina is also the Director of the South Asia from Asia Initiative at the Research Institute for the Humanities (RIH) at CUHK. The initiative seeks to examine Asian connections from the perspective of Hong Kong, which aligns with Professor Vevaina‘s vision to further her research and to build new affiliations between Hong Kong and South Asia.

Professor Vevaina extended her gratitude to the Anthropology Department, staff and students for their enormous support, which has emboldened her to continue her journey in research.


Sharing from Professor Ian Morley, Department of History:
“As a professor, my top priority is to provide the best education for my students. Yet, good teaching goes hand-in-hand with innovative research. The Faculty of Arts' commitment to supporting its staff with Direct Grants for Research and other awards has been invaluable. Receiving recognition for my contributions to historical study is particularly rewarding,” shared Professor Morley.

Professor Morley’s research focuses on American colonialism in the Philippines, which has opened new ways of understanding the design and meaning of colonial buildings. “I’m grateful to be able to research and produce impactful work that is reshaping views on colonialism and urban design in Philippine society.” He added, “The Research Excellence Award proves how the Faculty’s support helps scholars foster success in Arts and Humanities careers.”

Professor Morley thanked the History Department for their support over the years since joining CUHK, which has boosted his confidence and allowed him to expand his research agenda and break new intellectual ground.

The Faculty and departments remain committed to supporting our faculty and fostering success in their research and academia.

“This project builds on two previous GRF projects and aims to bring together two apparently competing but intricately connected philosophical approaches to theorizing about causal and counterfactual reasoning. The research is expected to have novel implications for prevailing causal inference methods in the sciences and potential applications to generative AI. I am thrilled to learn that the RGC recognized the merits of this project, and I look forward to the fruitful investigations enabled by the generous funding. I am also grateful for the great support given by the Faculty of Arts and the invaluable advice provided by Associate Vice-President Professor Patrick Wong, through the University's Internal Mentorship arrangement,” shared Professor Zhang.

Congratulations to Professor Zhang for achieving outstanding results in the HSSPFS. The Faculty will continue to support scholars in their diversified research endeavors and contribute valuable research to society.

About Humanities and Social Sciences Prestigious Fellowship Scheme (HSSPFS)
Introduced in 2012-2013, the Research Grants Council (RGC) Humanities and Social Sciences Prestigious Fellowship Scheme (HSSPFS) aims at granting extended time-off and supporting funds to outstanding investigators under the disciplines of the Humanities and Social Sciences Panel to enable them to focus on research work and writing.

The GRF aims to supplement the eight UGC-funded universities’ own research support to researchers who have achieved or have the potential to achieve research excellence, while the ECS is intended to nurture junior academics and to prepare them for a career in education and research.

This year, the Faculty is delighted to learn that our young researchers performed particularly well in ECS and wishes them every success in their endeavours to drive innovation in arts and humanities research to contribute to the betterment of society.

Among the awarded projects in the Faculty this year, Assistant Professor Christina Cheung‘s project, which is also her first application, “Motherhood in Turbulent Times – Reconstructing Breastfeeding and Weaning Practices in Medieval and Early Modern Italy using Stable Isotope Analysis”, from the Department of Anthropology, is granted $1.15 million. Prof. Cheung’s project aims to examine the changes in breastfeeding/ weaning practices though times of intense social instability using biochemical methods. Using archaeological populations form Northern Italy as case studies, this study seeks to examine how the notion and practice of “motherhood” has changed in response to larger societal changes, such as invasions, pandemics, and urbanisation.

The Faculty pledges to facilitate the development of individual and collaborative research projects as well as programmes in order to extend their broad impact beyond academia.