Centre for Cultural Studies, CUHK

Centre for Cultural Studies, CUHK Centre for Cultural Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

The Centre for Cultural Studies (CCS) was established in August 2014 by the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) within the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies (CRS). The aim of the Centre is to serve as a platform for the promotion of research activities in the field of cultural studies.The missions of the Centre are as follows:

- to actively participate and play a leading role, at local, regional, and international levels, in academic exchanges and intellectual conversations on issues relating to the field of cultural studies;
- to consolidate research strength and expertise by stages within the department, faculty, university, and Hong Kong;
- to achieve research excellence in Hong Kong and the region by establishing collaborative links and projects with national and international research institutions.

“Crossing Island Worlds”- Critical Island Studies Colloquium 2026Islands have typically been marginalized by urban cente...
28/09/2026

“Crossing Island Worlds”- Critical Island Studies Colloquium 2026

Islands have typically been marginalized by urban centers and national capitals in their projects of capitalist development through violent, hierarchical relations of colonialism, extractivism, and militarism. Island and Archipelagic Studies have sought to explore alternative, experimental frameworks for resurfacing and mobilizing these peripheral lifeworlds.

This "Crossing Island Worlds" Colloquium aims to explore the dialogue between Hong Kong and the archipelagic Asia through the perspective of critical island studies. As a historically significant port city, Hong Kong serves not only as a gateway between the East and the West, but also as a hub connecting the South and the South. It has a deep affinity and connection with cities in Southeast Asia. It provides us with a unique platform to explore the archipelagic connections among port cities and maritime communities in Hong Kong, the Greater China region, Southeast Asia, East Asia, and Island Asia. The Critical Island Studies (CIS) consortium provided a reference for the research framework of this symposium. Inaugurated in 2019, the CIS consortium comprises universities in the Philippines, Indonesia, Taiwan, Macau, and South Korea. Challenging dominant modes of Eurocentric knowledge production from the Global North, CIS has engaged with the theoretical and symbolic resonances of water bodies such as islands, archipelagos, oceans, and seas as diverse, comparative, and transdisciplinary modes of meaning-making, which would unravel the borders between science and nature, labor and co-production, human and non-human.

The Hong Kong colloquium aims to explore how these pluralistic interrelations between archipelagos and oceans are reimagined and enacted through emergent, marginalized, or lost vernacular epistemologies. We hope to return to the port cities, maritime communities and island networks of Asia itself, to examine the mutual infiltration in the historical trade, religious and cultural exchanges that were woven by Chinese, Indian and Arab merchants and missionaries. Instead of merely Singapore, Manila, or Jakarta, however, the colloquium is interested in trans-local and transversal relations among Bali, Cebu, Penang, Lamma Island, Cheung Chau, Ambon, Tsing Yi, Irian Jaya, Sulu, Timor-Leste, and Pulau Ubin.

This colloquium also coincides with the launch of The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)’s new BA in Public Humanities program, and it will be jointly held with the Hong Kong’s biannual Inter-Island Festival. We hope to create a platform for the exchange of knowledge and creativity among scholars, teachers, curators, artists and practitioners. Through cross-border dialogues, we aim to re-activate the critical potential of island thinking towards contemporary politics, ecology and imagination, and open up a dialectical space belonging to the ocean.

HK Organizing Team
Elmo Gonzaga (CUHK)
Joseph Li (CUHK)
Chieng Wei Shieng (CUHK)
Huang Shan (CUHK)
Leung Po-shan, Anthony (Island Studies Network,HK)

CIS Steering Committee
Maria Luisa Torres Reyes (University Santos Tomas Manila)
Alex Taek-Gwang Lee (Kyung Hee University)
Vincenz Serrano (Ateneo de Manila University)

November 19-20, 2026
LT2 (G/F), Yasumoto International Academic Park, CUHK

November 21, 2026
Cultural Tour to Mui Wo and Peng Chau

Registration: https://cloud.itsc.cuhk.edu.hk/webform/view.php?id=13731291

Co-organisers: B.A. in Public Humanities Programme, M.A.in Intercultural Studies Programme, Centre for Cultural Studies, Department of Cultural and Religious Studies, Faculty of Arts, New Asia College, CUHK; Island Studies Network (HK); Critical Island Studie; Inter-Island Festival and Islanders

Enquiry: [email protected]
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Dialogues in Research: Extractivism and the Global Data Center BoomAs Artificial Intelligence threatens to radically res...
25/09/2026

Dialogues in Research: Extractivism and the Global Data Center Boom

As Artificial Intelligence threatens to radically reshape the global economy, the rapid expansion of data centers around the world demonstrates that AI’s future depends on material infrastructures and extractive industries. This event examines the global growth of AI data centers fueling the AI race. Drawing from new and ongoing fieldwork in Africa and the U.S.-Mexico border, this session explores East Asian firms’ participation in developing AI supply chains, the environmental impact of data infrastructure and local communities’ responses to the global data center boom.

Date: October 30, 2026 (Fri)
Time: 15:30-17:30
Venue: HYS G05 (G/F), Hui Yeung Shing Building, CUHK
Registration: https://cloud.itsc.cuhk.edu.hk/webform/view.php?id=13741919

🌟 Exclusive to registrants: All registrants will receive a curated reading list, which will be distributed along with the event registration confirmation email.

Speakers:
Prof. Miao Lu (Lingnan University)
Title: Building the Tropical Cloud: The Energy Politics of Data Centers in Ghana

Dr. Gabriel Antonio Solis (CUHK)
Title: Foxconn in the Desert: Taiwanese Investment, AI Infrastructure and Colonial Futures in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands

Discussant: Prof. TENG Shao-Hung Tim (CUHK)

Moderator: Prof. CHEUNG Shoan Yin (CUHK)

About the speakers:
Miao Lu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Cultural Studies, Lingnan University, Hong Kong. She works at the intersection of critical media studies, science and technology studies, and Africa-China studies. She is the author of The Transsion Approach: Translating Chinese Mobile Technology in Africa (University of Illinois Press, 2025). She is currently working on a new research project, entitled Tropical Data Centers: Media, Heat, and Energy Politics in Afro-Asia.

Gabriel Antonio Solis a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Cultural Studies and is a historian of capitalism, labor and borders, focusing on the history of the global factory in East Asia and the U.S.-Mexico Border. Gabriel received his PhD in History at Columbia University, where he wrote his dissertation on the entangled history of the first export-processing zones in Taiwan and Mexico. He is originally from the El Paso-Ciudad Juárez border and frequently writes about border history, culture and politics for public-facing journals.

Organiser: Centre for Cultural Studies, Department of Cultural and Religious Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Enquiry: [email protected]

【ZOOM TALK】Casual Assemblies: Doing Public Sociality with Revolutionary Songs in Beijing's Parks — A Book Talk by Lisa R...
23/09/2026

【ZOOM TALK】
Casual Assemblies: Doing Public Sociality with Revolutionary Songs in Beijing's Parks — A Book Talk by Lisa Richaud

The talk draws on a recently published monograph. Over the past 30 years, China's public parks have been turned into stages for amateur performances of socialist anthems by self-organized retirees who lived through the Mao era (1949–1976).
Challenging previous interpretations in terms of political expression or nostalgia, Casual Assemblies explores the seeming paradox of displaying political messages in the heart of the capital city while framing these gatherings as fun or self-entertainment – merely wan’r, in the language of parkgoers. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Beijing, this book takes these claims to nonseriousness seriously. For at stake in these gatherings is the possibility of being nonliteral and reclaiming the sensuous pleasures of performing old tunes from “politics” (zhengzhi). This book theorizes casualness as a mode of engagement predicated upon the irrelevance of the correspondence between action and referential meaning. Through the making-casual of a cultural form once supposed to produce revolutionary commitment, parkgoers enact new experiences of being-in-public, togetherness, and shifting relationships to the Maoist past.
This book will be of value to readers with a keen interest in China, scholars and students in anthropology and Asian Studies, as well as travelers who have witnessed these phenomena firsthand.
The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com , has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 International license.

📅Date: 3 Nov 2026
⏰ime: 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM (HKT) / 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM (CET)
💻Platform: Zoom
🗣️Language: English
🔗Registration: https://cloud.itsc.cuhk.edu.hk/webform/view.php?id=13742013
✉️ Enquiries: [email protected]

Speaker: Prof. Lisa Richaud (Anthropology), KU Leuven
Moderator: Prof. Joseph Li (Public Humanities Programme), The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Speaker's Bio:
Lisa Richaud is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at KU Leuven. Her publications include Casual Assemblies (Routledge, 2026) as well as “The Political Work of Negative Affects: A View from Post-Reform China”, a guest edited special section of HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 2021). Based on ethnographic fieldwork in urban China, her writings have explored the sociality of public spaces, affective experiences of urban life among rural migrants, as well as different ways in which "ordinary" citizens have engaged with propagandistic forms and discourses - from playful, homonymic appropriations of slogans in online expression to casual re-enactments of revolutionary songs. Particularly interested in investigating the subtle forms of agency and world-building dimensions inherent to detachment, she is currently developing a new research project on the refusal of work and the forms of post-resignation lives, and how the state responds to such "willful" experiences of rest beyond moral condemnation or repression.

Co-presented by Centre for Cultural Studies, B.A. in Public Humanities Programme, Research Institute for the Humanities

CUSU+ Public Talk - Exhibition-making in the Singapore Botanic GardensWe are delighted to invite you to the CUSU+ Public...
17/09/2026

CUSU+ Public Talk - Exhibition-making in the Singapore Botanic Gardens

We are delighted to invite you to the CUSU+ Public Talk featuring Kimberly Ann Marie Chan, Manager for Events & Exhibitions at the Singapore Botanic Gardens.

Date: 14 October 2026 (Wed)
Time: 3:30pm – 5:00pm
Venue: Digital Scholarship Lab, G/F, University Library, CUHK
Language: English

This sharing explores exhibition-making in the Singapore Botanic Gardens, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, through an overview of its distinct exhibition spaces and the exhibition development process from concept to installation. Drawing on case studies and reflections on the role of a curator/exhibitions manager, it considers practical and sustainability considerations shaping current practice and the future direction of exhibitions.

Please register HERE to secure your spot.

For full program details, please visit: https://cusu2026.hkapa.edu/en/programme/exhibition-making-in-the-singapore-botanic-gardens/
We look forward to seeing you at CUHK campus

CU:SU2026 Pre-Event: Sharing Culture & Sustainability Practices Across BordersWe are delighted to invite you to an onlin...
17/09/2026

CU:SU2026 Pre-Event: Sharing Culture & Sustainability Practices Across Borders

We are delighted to invite you to an online pre-event session for the upcoming Hong Kong Culture and Sustainability Conference 2026 (CU:SU2026) – Alliance for Action. The session opens with Creative Climate providing an update on their work in Australia including their pilot 'insetting' program PLANTING. International participants are invited to share updates on their climate focused work as part of a community of practice committed to arts, culture, and the environment. For international participants who won't be in Hong Kong for CU:SU2026 it will be an opportunity to meet online and connect.

Date: 9 October 2026 (Fri)
Time: 9:00-10:30am HK / 12:00pm-1:30pm AEDT
Venue: Online via ZOOM
Language: English

Please register HERE to secure your spot. The Zoom link will be sent to registered participants prior to the event.

For details of CU:SU2026, please refer to: https://cusu2026.hkapa.edu/en/

We look forward to seeing you online!

“Urban Forestry and Public Humanities in Hong Kong” is an immersive, hands-on program designed for CUHK students to expl...
17/09/2026

“Urban Forestry and Public Humanities in Hong Kong” is an immersive, hands-on program designed for CUHK students to explore the vital role trees play in cooling our streets, cleaning our air, and boosting community well-being. Led by scholars, experts, and artists, you will gain knowledge about our trees and the role they play in our urban and rural environment and ecosystem. You will also learn to develop an aesthetic relationship with our trees by watching them, listening to them, and capturing them in artistic ways. Whether you like trees or community building, you will leave with the tools and knowledge needed to promote urban nature.

Registration is open to all full-time CUHK students, with a quota of 20. Those participants who have completed all activities will be offered a Certificate of Participation - Workshop in Urban Forestry.

Schedule:
OCT 16 (12:00–5:00 PM) — Briefing, Lectures & Tree Walk
LATE OCT to MID NOV — Hands-on Workshops (Small-group)
MID NOV — Exhibition

Registration: https://cloud.itsc.cuhk.edu.hk/webform/view.php?id=13741899

Speakers:
Vincci Mak (Landscape Architecture, HKU)
Ken So (The Conservancy Association)
Sherman Lam (photographer)
Jimmy Ho (CRS, CUHK)
Pang Laikwan (CRS, CUHK)

Important Notes:
1.Priority will be given to students of BA in Public Humanities, Cultural Studies and Cultural Management Programme.
2.Places are limited and will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.
3.Students must present their own valid student ID card for verification.

Co-organisers: B.A. in Public Humanities Programme, Centre for Cultural Studies, Department of Cultural and Religious Studies, CUHK
Enquiry: [email protected]
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MIT GHI Master Class by Laikwan Pang, internationally renowned scholar of modern Chinese culture, politics, and intellec...
16/09/2026

MIT GHI Master Class by Laikwan Pang, internationally renowned scholar of modern Chinese culture, politics, and intellectual history

MIT Global Humanities Master Class
Title: A Short History of the Cantophone
Friday, October 2, 2026, 2:30 – 4:30 pm (ET)
Location: E51-095, MIT
Hybrid event

Abstract:
This talk traces how Cantonese-speaking people and their language moved through and beyond China during the late Qing and early Republican periods. It situates these journeys within a new geopolitical and technological environment shaped by Western imperialism, Chinese nationalism, and individual enterprise. Following Cantonese to Shanghai and Guangxi, across the South China Sea to British Malaya, and across the Pacific to Hawaii and the United States, the article examines its encounters with local languages and communities. It also traces students studying in Japan to consider how Cantonese changed as it traveled abroad and returned to China, and how it participated in some of the era’s most important political events. This account offers a materialist history of language that illuminates the complex relationships among mobility, power, and identity.

Main Speaker:
Laikwan Pang is Choh-Ming Li Professor of Cultural and Religious Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research encompasses modern and contemporary Chinese culture and politics, Hong Kong culture, cinema and visual arts, and critical theory. Her books include One and All: The Logic of Chinese Sovereignty and The Appearing Demos: Hong Kong During and After the Umbrella Movement.

Discussant:
Wing Chung Ng is Professor and Chair of History at the University of Texas at San Antonio. A cultural and social historian specializing in Chinese migration and traditional Chinese opera, he is the author of The Chinese in Vancouver, 1945–80: The Pursuit of Identity and Power and The Rise of Cantonese Opera.

Hosts:
Tristan Brown (MIT) and Or Porath (Harvard University and Tel Aviv University)

RSVP (for all participants):
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdMbir9_GKS2JH8n1ktIOAl5FMIrtjrwLjZiJh9rDRSY3RbMQ/viewform?pli=1

For online participation, please also register via Zoom:
https://mit.zoom.us/meeting/register/Lmmxdm8xQTymcDXRCBrb4g?utm_source=chatgpt.com #/registration
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Our Centre co-organised the International Screening of the Independent Media Collective AsiaVisions’ Migrante (1987) on ...
14/09/2026

Our Centre co-organised the International Screening of the Independent Media Collective AsiaVisions’ Migrante (1987) on September 11, 2026, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Bethune House.

The event was organised by the MA in Intercultural Studies Programme and the Centre for Cultural Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, in partnership with the National Commission of Culture and the Arts, Concerned Artists of the Philippines, Mission for Migrant Workers, Bethune House, and Migrante HK.

The screening featured the first international public exhibition of the digitized, English-subtitled version of Migrante, a documentary produced by the independent media collective AsiaVisions on the experiences of Filipino domestic workers in Hong Kong during the 1980s.

Speakers shared perspectives on the film’s historical significance, its archival process, and issues related to migrant domestic workers. The talk was moderated by Prof. Elmo Gonzaga, CUHK.

We thank all speakers, partners, and participants for their support and participation.

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The second Hong Kong Culture and Sustainability Conference, CU:SU2026, will take place on 12-13 October 2026. The confer...
10/09/2026

The second Hong Kong Culture and Sustainability Conference, CU:SU2026, will take place on 12-13 October 2026. The conference has eight curated panels alongside a series of workshops and related events under CU:SU Plus umbrella. The theme of CU:SU 2026 is “Alliance for Action”, and this edition focuses on how ideas move into actions through international alliances and cross-disciplinary collaboration, responding to the broader needs of sustainable development through culture.

Professor Benny Lim (CUHK) continues to support this conference as co-convenor alongside Louis Yu (Hong Kong Culture and Sustainability Centre) and Professor Anna CY Chan (HKAPA). They are also co-editing a volume on ‘Culture and Sustainability in East and Southeast Asia’, which will be published by Springer Nature in the coming months.

Details of the conference: https://cusu2026.hkapa.edu/en/
Tickets: https://cusu2026.hkapa.edu/en/participation/

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Room 212, Leung Kau Kui Building, The Chinese University Of Hong Kong, Shatin, N. T
Hong Kong

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+85239431255

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