The term “Western Civilization” has the power to split people into bitterly opposed camps. Some claim it is the source of all that is good in the world; others that it is the origin of the worst evils faced by contemporary society. But both sides are wrong. Moving beyond good and evil, I will tell two unexpected stories: first, I will explain how today’s conventional view of Western Civilization arose in very particular cultural contexts and was driven by very particular motivations. Second, and more importantly, I will argue that the historical reality is more complicated and much more interesting: the classical tradition understood to underlie Western Civilization is global, more diverse and commingled than people have imagined. It’s not just that subaltern peoples have engaged with the classical tradition; in fact, it’s that subaltern peoples have always been an essential part of shaping that tradition. In a series of brief case studies, I will illustrate the rich diversity of the classical tradition over the past two millennia.

ZOOM Meeting Link: https://cuhk.zoom.us/j/99088684183

During the three years of the COVID-19 pandemic, from 2020 – 23, people in Hong Kong lived with sometimes daily changing quarantine policies, testing requirements, and travel restrictions. In a confusing and often contradicting scape of government press releases and announcements, media coverage, and social media discussions, staying informed became a frustrating task and routine. In these times over 100,000 residents and those who wanted to come to Hong Kong turned towards the HK Quarantine Support Group, a Facebook group to offer crowdsourced support for quarantine in Hong Kong and especially on matters of travel restrictions, testing requirements, hotel bookings, and vaccine documentation. This talk explores how people come to trust strangers and those they never meet in-person; and how they create knowledge collectively. Based on an online ethnography of the HK Support group from 2020 – 2023, I examine various processes of solidarity formation as well as the interactive practices and hierarchies of knowledge production within the group. I show how this online community emerged specifically because of the uncertainty of COVID- policies in Hong Kong and how the group both challenges and reaffirms notions of official expertise.

In this talk, Dr. Khalikova presents the findings of a joint research project that examined India’s media discourse on Coronil- a contentious drug launched as an ayurvedic treatment for COVID-19. The examination of four national English-language newspapers in India shows the lack of depth and critical analysis in the reporting on Coronil, which as considerable socioeconomic and public health implications. Some members of the government, judiciary, and media adopted the rhetoric of populist medical pluralism, embedded in the Hindu nationalist discourse justifying the endorsement of Coronil in terms of the neoliberal economy of ‘choices’ of the Indian people and their ‘need’ for homegrown treatments, thus shifting the blame for the health crisis from the state to the citizens. The green light given to Coronil confounded the government’s scientific communication during the pandemic leading to confusing messaging about the cause and treatments of COVID-19.

Registration link: https://cloud.itsc.cuhk.edu.hk/webform/view.php?id=13686265

Event page: https://rih.cuhk.edu.hk/news-and-events/ayurvedic-pill-india/

April 8 (Mon), 4:30 pm, LG01, Hui Yeung Shing Bldg.
Title: Ordering the Disorderly: Tuning Theories, Science, and Western Learning in Qing China by
Dr. Sheryl Chow

April 10 (Wed), 2:30 pm, 304, Hui Yeung Shing Bldg.
Title: Decolonizing Music Theory: Music Analysis as a Method to Construct Cultural Identity in Disciplinary Methodology
by Dr. Feng, Jun

Event Page

https://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/~music/event-detail/196
https://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/~music/event-detail/197

Online
No registration is required.
Meeting ID: 972 6209 4533
Link: https://cuhk.zoom.us/j/97262094533

Face-to-face
Register by 8 April 2024
Link: https://cloud.itsc.cuhk.edu.hk/webform/view.php?id=13686128

This study delves into the intricacies of sub-extraction from syntactic islands, a topic that has been pivotal in generative grammar since its empirical discovery in the 1960s by Noam Chomsky and John Ross. Islands represent syntactic configurations where certain extractions are deemed illegitimate, such as from complex noun phrases, adjoined phrases, and coordinate structures. Despite changes in the theoretical apparatus over time, the foundational data and empirical generalizations from early studies have remained influential. This work is anchored in the tradition of syntactic study initiated by Ross and further propelled by Huang’s (1982) Condition on Extraction Domain (CED), which posits that the legitimacy of sub-extraction depends on proper government. The study seeks to reinterpret island effects within the recent framework of the Minimalist Program, particularly through the interactions between Transfer and the Labeling Algorithm.
The investigation begins with the Subject Condition, proposing that subjects are typically opaque to sub-extraction due to Immediate Transfer triggered by labeling ambiguity. Exceptions to this condition are attributed to proper label determination that prevents Immediate Transfer. The discussion extends to the Adjunct Condition, where typical adjuncts prohibit sub-extraction, but exceptions occur when syntactic restructuring enables proper labeling, thus allowing extraction. This study also examines the Coordinate Structure Constraint (CSC) and the Element Constraint (EC), suggesting that conjuncts conform to a parallel structure constraint that either permits or restricts extraction based on their structural makeup.
Through an in-depth analysis of subjects, adjuncts, and conjuncts, this work offers a nuanced understanding of island effects, challenging traditional views by demonstrating how exceptions to these constraints can be systematically accounted for. By focusing on the structural properties and the conditions under which sub-extraction is permissible, this study contributes significant insights to the ongoing discourse on syntactic theory within the current framework of the Minimalist Program.

For 20 years my research focused on the neurobiology of language, particularly at the level of individual words. That changed when Audible asked me whether the format of a story affects the way our brains engage with the content. A simple question, but answering it forced me to re-think my approach to language. In this talk I will describe that initial study on audiobooks and how it led to an entirely new line of research investigating the neuroscience of narrative. Stories appear to be uniquely human and they have a powerful, measurable effect on our attention, memory, and emotions. But how can we directly measure engagement with stories? Here I will present several recent studies using a combination of techniques including behavioural, biometric and neuroimaging methods aimed at developing a neurological audience engagement score. I will also discuss ways that this approach can be used in creative development, advertising, and communications and illustrate these with case studies.

One of the least studied types of lexical semantic change involves neutral terms, i.e. lexical items that do not have a strong semantic preference. Yet, natural language use shows that some of the neutral lexical items (such as yingxiang/influence, moyang ‘appearance’, result, etc.) can be either positively or negatively biased without overt qualifiers (e.g. you moyang ‘lit. have appearance, good looking’, as opposed to under the influence). These biases, called amelioration and degradation, respectively, have been accounted for from diverse perspectives, such as psychology and cognition. These accounts, however, are often in conflict and lack empirical support from discourse texts. In this talk, I suggest that a usage-based approach, which appeals to frequency of occurrence as seen in corpora as well as co-text and context factors, can yield useful insights about ways in which meaning - including loaded meaning - emerges from language use and that the manifestations of the dynamic organization of language involve both overt and covert forms.

清朝雲騎尉湯貽汾 (1778－1853) 以母生前作的斷釵二詩繪《吟釵圖》並向社會廣徵題咏。幾年時間徵集七百多首題詠出版為《斷釵吟》。我以婦女題詠為例探討十九世紀初江南婦女如何處理物品、婦德、以及嶺南戰爭之間千絲萬縷的聯繫。

How does the English-language media report China? What are the implications of this for understanding China and for other countries’ policies towards China? Recent years have seen sharp debates around these issues, with many Western journalists critical of the Chinese authorities for constraining their reporting, and the Chinese government regularly condemning Western media coverage. In a recent report published by the Lau China Institute, King’s College London, in partnership with The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Tim Summers addresses some of these questions through analysis of selected British media coverage of China between 2020 and 2023. At this event, Tim will be in conversation with Laurie Pearcey to outline some of the findings, and explore the wider implications for understanding China and its international relations today.