Virtus et Gratia (the 5th Series) – the 3rd Public Seminar
Living Well in Troubled Times: The 2022 Hong Kong Philosophy Series. 3rd Lecture: Intellectual Life in Dark Times
We think of education as a way we find our way in the world, to careers that are meaningful, lucrative, or secure. Dr. Zena Hitz, Tutor at St. John’s College, will look at some historical autobiographical accounts of the life of the mind as lived under extreme difficulty, and argue that education should provide us with resources to console us in dark times as well as to launch us onto success.
Conference on The Philosophy of Mythology in the Continental Tradition (Online)
Action Techniques and Anthroptechnics : Or: what Bruce Lee choreography can teach us about reality
The half-century-long public debate about how good a fighter Bruce Lee ‘really was’ may seem both culturally passé and intellectually irrelevant to the study of action cinema today. However, this talk argues that within the debris of the popular debate about Bruce Lee’s ‘real’ fighting abilities there remain some important issues, that can enrich our understanding both of action fight choreography in its relation to ‘real’ fighting, and also of ‘real’ fighting in its relation to choreography. In this way, the talk argues that exploring the concept and construction of ‘reality’ in and around Bruce Lee’s execution of combat techniques, we can also deepen our understanding of the place of (action) film in the (real) world.
The talk does this, first, by showing the instability and untenability of many naïve or crude concepts of the real, which often rely on binaries such as physical-reality vs. unreal-representation. In such schemas, Bruce Lee’s action choreographies are essentially ‘unreal’ (because spectacular), and this exists in implicit contrast to a non- or extra-filmic world of combat training which are ‘real’.
Even Bruce Lee himself would on occasion invoke such a contrast, drawing distinctions between flashy cinematic techniques (for entertainment) and ‘simple and direct’ techniques for effective combat use.
Acknowledging the tenacious hold of the real/unreal distinction not only in Bruce Lee’s approach to martial arts but also in widespread discussions of the subject of ‘real’ versus ‘cinematic’ fight choreography, this talk will zone in on the way these differences manifest (or don’t) at the level of technique.
It will analyse Lee’s execution of specific combat techniques both within a formal film context (his choreographed fight scenes) and a non-film or informally-filmed context (such as in his own writing and in occasions where he was filmed performing techniques as an instructor).
In doing so, this analysis will cast light on the characteristics of Bruce Lee’s technique – both cinematic and non-cinematic – searching for the oft-declared differences between the ‘reel’ and the ‘real’, and reflecting on occasions of identicality or identity across realms.
The aim of the talk is to strengthen the ground for deeper cultural studies of the putative cinematic/non-cinematic distinction. This distinction that takes many forms, one of which is the putative binary between representation and lived reality.
The talk will be underpinned by Ben Spatz’s theorisation of ‘technique’ as a primary category of culture and pedagogy, and it will also constitute a significant critical engagement with Peter Sloterdijk’s philosophical celebrations of ‘anthropotechnics’.
Speaker
Professor Paul Bowman
Deputy Head of School, Professor of Cultural Studies
School of Journalism, Media and Culture
Cardiff University, UK
Beautiful Harmony: The Rationale and Power of the Qing Imperial Packaging
Speaker
Dr. Joyce CHOU, Ying-ching, Postdoctoral Fellow, Art Museum CUHK
To be held virtually via Zoom
ZOOM meeting ID: 913 2308 0481
Passcode: 904206
Celebrating the Year of the Tiger
The Art Museum of The Chinese University of Hong Kong celebrates the Year of the Tiger with a selection of tiger-related artefacts from the collection of the museum and Huai Hai Tang. Featuring paintings, calligraphies, seals, and ceramics, the exhibition demonstrates the apotropaic nature of the fierce feline and the worship they enjoyed in traditional Chinese culture. Often depicted alongside deities and Luohan monks, tigers served as witnesses to the magical powers of immortals. Their different artistic representations also reflect cultural exchanges over time.
"Celebrating the Year of the Tiger" has been launched at our Google Arts and Culture page. During the museum’s closure, join us online to appreciate tiger artefacts of different historical periods when celebrating the new year to come!
Enquiry
3943 7416/ artmuseum@cuhk.edu.hk
Hours and Visitors Guidelines:
http://www.artmuseum.cuhk.edu.hk/en/visit/opening/
Artistic Crosscurrents from Guangdong: Selected Painting and Calligraphy from Late Qing to Republican China (Collection of the Art Museum, The Chinese University of Hong Kong)
"Artistic Crosscurrents from Guangdong" is a continuation of the exhibition "Artistic Confluence in Guangdong". It tells the region’s development of connoisseurship, calligraphy, and painting during turbulent times, and activities and contributions of Guangdong elites in cities including Guangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong in late Qing to Republican era. The exhibition showcases a host of distinctive paintings, calligraphy, seals and rubbings, capturing the essence of Guangdong arts and culture.
Masterpieces by renowned artists such as Ju Chao, Ju Lian, Gao Jianfu, Gao Qifeng, and Chen Shuren of the Lingnan School of Painting, as well as Zhao Haogong, Lu Zhenhuan, Yao Lixiu, Li Yanshan, and Huang Bore of the National Painting Research Society, are featured in the exhibition. Calligraphic works by significant scholars and politicians like Chen Li, Li Wentien, Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, Sun Yat-sen, Hu Hanmin, and Ye Gongchuo are also on display. Rubbings of paramount artistic and historical value together with the Sheng Xuanhuai Archive, offer new insights into the history and culture of Guangdong.
Enquiry
39437416/ artmuseum@cuhk.edu.hk
Hours and Visitors Guidelines:
http://www.artmuseum.cuhk.edu.hk/en/visit/opening/
RIH webinar series: Found Corpora: What, Why, How?
“Found corpora” are simply corpora previously compiled by someone else that you can make use of, instead of creating your own. In this talk I will present the rationale for using such found corpora as a Digital Humanities tool, despite certain drawbacks, along with some advice as to how to go about getting started. I will mainly use examples from my own research into keywords in Anglo-Chinese history, particularly feng shui, face, filial piety, and guanxi, as a starting point for the discussion, looking at a variety of corpora in both English and Chinese: Early English Books Online, Eighteenth-Century Collections Online, the Internet Archive, ProQuest Historical Newspapers, JSTOR, Worldcat, Google Books, 人民日報 (People’s Daily), Apabi Reader, 中國近現代思想史全文檢索數據庫 (Indexed Corpus of Materials Relating to the History of Chinese Late Imperial and Modern Thought), and the National Library’s Old Hong Kong Newspapers Database.
Speaker
Professor James St. André
Associate Professor, Department of Translation, CUHK
Director, Centre for Translation Technology, CUHK