Congratulations to our Teaching Staff Awarded Research Fund

We would like to extend our congratulations to Prof. CHEUNG Hiu Yu Jack on securing a grant from the PROCORE – France/Hong Kong Joint Research Scheme 2022-23 for his research on “The Process of Selecting Items as Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) in Hong Kong, its Impact on Local Communities and the Definition of ICH in a Comparative Perspective”. The scheme is introduced by the Research Grants Council and the Consulate General of France in Hong Kong to promote research collaboration between Hong Kong and France [Details …].

Recapping the Academic Seminar “The Return of Chen Ching Lin: Chinese Deserters and Chinatowns in Wartime India” conducted by Prof. CAO Yin on 27 March 2023

Prof. CAO Yin from the Department of History, Tsinghua University was invited by the Department of History to deliver a talk entitled “The Return of Chen Ching Lin: Chinese Deserters and Chinatowns in Wartime India” on 27 March 2023. This talk aims to illustrate the experience of Chinese deserters in India during the Second World War. Prof. CAO began with the arrest of a Chinese man named Chen Ching Lin by the Calcutta police and the subsequent confusion over his identity. There was another Chen Ching Lin with the same registration certificate number left British India a month after he was put in custody in Calcutta. The speaker explained how the Chinese Expeditionary Force was formed and sent to Burma, but ended up in Ramgarh, India. He offered a rich description of the deserters, including their motivations to leave the armies and their activities in major cities like Calcutta and Bombay. Tracing the footprints of Chen Ching Lin in India between 1943 and 1946, Prof. Cao narrated an intriguing story supported by official reports and correspondence from various archives in the United Kingdom, India, and Taiwan. He argued that the Chinese Nationalist Government’s attempt to discipline overseas Chinese communities in wartime India provoked British anxieties over national security. Their reactions had significant implications on post-war India-China relations. After the talk, students and teaching staff actively engaged in the Q&A session. Many attendees recognised that there is a potential of further research into the marginalised social groups in modern Chinese and Indian histories.

Recapping the World History Seminar “It’s About Time! (And Other Reasons Not to Forget the Craft of Early Medieval Chronography)” conducted by Prof. Jesse TORGERSON on 30 March 2023

Prof. Jesse TORGERSON from the College of Letters, Wesleyan University, was invited by the Centre for Comparative and Public History to deliver a lecture entitled “It’s About Time! (And Other Reasons Not to Forget the Craft of Early Medieval Chronography)” on 30 March 2023. Through an analysis of Phileas Fogg’s circumnavigation in Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days, the speaker explored the role of the chronographer in constructing historical narratives at the outset. Utilizing periodization as a framework for analysis, he examined the socially-constructed nature of historical time and the implications for comparative history. Drawing on sources in Greek and Latin, he offered several thought-provoking examples of how new histories are constructed through the manipulation of chronological accounts. Methodologically, he employed etymology as a means of examining the stories told and untold in the cultures of Europe and the Mediterranean during the ancient and medieval periods. The speaker concluded by emphasizing the importance of a critical examination of historical time and the need to avoid taking the shared universal time for granted. By studying how new histories were composed from new chronologies in the past, historians can learn lessons about how to craft new histories in the present.

World History Seminar (2022-23)

Organisers: Centre for Comparative and Public History, Department of History, CUHK
Enquiry: 3943 8541

Workshops for the First-Year RPg Students 2022-23

For enquiry, please call 3943 7448.

60th Anniversary Lecture Series of Department of History, CUHK

Exhibition

For teachers and students who have information to share with the Department, please email your articles in both Chinese and English to chanfiona@cuhk.edu.hk by 4:00pm every Monday.