03/06/2026
2026 International Postgraduate Comparative Literature Conference
The 2026 International Postgraduate Comparative Literature Conference was held on 26 May 2026 at the University of Hong Kong. Centred on the theme of “Care,” the conference brought together postgraduate researchers from Hong Kong and overseas institutions to exchange ideas and present their latest work in comparative literature and related fields.
A total of 40 papers were presented across 12 panels covering a wide range of topics, including transcultural empathy, colonial mediation, ecological care, urban lives and memory, trauma and collective remembrance, migration and diaspora, visual media, embodied subjectivities, and the ethical dilemmas of modernity. The conference provided a valuable platform for emerging scholars to share their research, receive feedback, and engage in conversations across disciplinary and geographical boundaries. The lively discussions throughout the day reflected the diversity of the papers and the continued relevance of care as a critical framework for comparative literary and cultural studies.
Website:
https://complit.hku.hk/malcs/ipclc/index.html
Please check out the photos of the event!
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#香港大學 #港大 #香港大學文學院 #港大文學院 #比較文學 #文學 #文化研究 #香港
25/05/2026
⭐⭐⭐Recommended MALCS Event⭐⭐⭐
2026 International Postgraduate Comparative Literature Conference (IPCLC 2026)
Conference Theme: “Care in Cross-Cultural Perspectives”
Date: May 26, 2026
Time: 9:00AM – 6:00PM
Venue: CPD Level-3, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU
All are welcome. Please come and join us!
Registration:
https://hku.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3wmmrfyaCDDJrTM
Website:
https://complit.hku.hk/malcs/ipclc/index.html
About IPCLC:
The 2026 International Postgraduate Comparative Literature Conference (IPCLC 2026), hosted by the Master of Arts in Literary and Cultural Studies (MALCS) at The University of Hong Kong (HKU), brings together postgraduate students and emerging scholars from Hong Kong and beyond for a day of cross-cultural conversation. Taking place in person at HKU on 26 May 2026, the conference offers a supportive forum for sharing work in progress, building scholarly networks, and testing new comparative methods across literary, cultural, and media studies. Featuring themed panels, a keynote lecture, and Best Paper Award(s), IPCLC 2026 invites participants to consider how comparison can sharpen our understanding of urgent questions in the humanities.
About this year’s theme:
Centred on “Care in Cross-Cultural Perspectives,” the conference examines care as both an ethical ideal and a contested practice shaped by history, power, and representation. Across languages, genres, and media, care can denote intimacy and obligation, vulnerability and repair, as well as the institutional arrangements and neoliberal techniques of self-optimization that distribute attention unevenly and obscure structural inequalities. Topics include care’s many forms—from ecological concern and urban life to migration, trauma, and the politics of recognition—and that ask how narratives, images, and critical theory make care thinkable and debatable across cultural contexts.
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#香港大學 #港大 #香港大學文學院 #港大文學院 #比較文學 #文學 #文化研究 #香港
20/05/2026
⭐⭐⭐Recommended MALCS Event⭐⭐⭐
2026 International Postgraduate Comparative Literature Conference (IPCLC 2026)
Keynote Title: “Teknalgia: On caring for and about children in a digital world”
Speaker: Professor Amanda Third (PhD)
Date: May 26, 2026
Time: 9:15AM
Venue: CPD-3.04, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU
All are welcome. Please come and join us!
Registration:
https://hku.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3wmmrfyaCDDJrTM
Please Visit Website:
https://complit.hku.hk/malcs/ipclc/index.html
Abstract:
In late 2024, the Australian government legislated restrictions prohibiting children under 16 from having a social media account. In an astounding example of viral policy making, since then, 40+ countries have passed or are considering similar legislation.
Internationally, proponents construct bans as the only plausible way to protect children from the reportedly negative mental health effects associated with social media. That is, a logic of care for children - the object par excellence of caring practices - ostensibly motivates restrictive approaches to the regulation of children’s social media use.
This lecture reflects on what this logic of care, as articulated in Australian popular discourse, reveals about the stakes of contemporary childhood and attendant practices of care. I will argue that this modality of caring about children finds its origins in a tripartite form of grief that attaches to an abstract conception of childhood. Such grief – what I call teknalgia (from the Greek teknon (τέκνον) for ‘child’ and álgos (ἄλγος) meaning pain, grief or distress) – ultimately undermines ambitions to genuinely care for and about the needs, rights and aspirations of living, breathing children. The lecture thus offers an alternative vision of how decision makers might better care for the next generation, in a world mediated by digital technologies.
Biography:
Professor Amanda Third (PhD) is Professorial Research Fellow and Co-Director of the Young and Resilient Research Centre in the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University and Faculty Associate in the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard. An international expert in youth-centred, participatory research, Amanda’s work investigates children's and young people’s cross-platform technology practices. She has led projects in over 80 countries, with partners across corporate, government and not-for-profit sectors, and supported by youth co-researchers, with the aim of channelling youth-centred research into international policy and practice efforts. She also has a deep love for critical theory.
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#香港大學 #港大 #香港大學文學院 #港大文學院 #比較文學 #文學 #文化研究 #香港
