Recapping the World History Seminar “A Victorian Ecumene: Amateurs and Objects of Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century Asia” on 29 September 2025

Prof. CHAN Ying-kit from the National University of Singapore was invited to give an online talk entitled “A Victorian Ecumene: Amateurs and Objects of Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century Asia.” Prof. CHAN examined the intertwined roles of amateurs and professionals in shaping natural history and scientific knowledge in nineteenth-century Asia, with particular attention to China and India. As “go-betweens,” amateurs collected, transported, and interpreted objects, thereby materially sustaining scientific practice and linking distant nodes of a globalizing world.

A central theme of Prof. CHAN’s talk was the Victorian museum as a site of epistemic transformation. Museums encouraged untrained observers to believe that objects themselves could tell stories, thereby facilitating a movement away from formerly text-based epistemologies toward object-based ones. However, the lack of indigenous participation in amateur collecting reflected and reinforced the asymmetries of colonial power. By highlighting these dynamics, Prof. CHAN underscored how the production of scientific knowledge was simultaneously global and uneven. He concluded by urging a more nuanced, transnational history of science in Asia, paying attention to the shifting boundaries between amateur and professional, colonizer and colonized, and text and object.

 

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Recapping the Academic Seminar “The Image of Hu Shi as China's Ambassador during the War of Resistance” on 2 October 2025

Prof. OUYANG Zhesheng of the Department of History, Peking University delivered a lecture entitled “The Image of Hu Shi as China’s Ambassador during the War of Resistance.” This lecture was timely as this year marks the 80th anniversary of the victory in the global anti-fascist war. Prof. OUYANG argued that the Republic of China government was concerned about Hu Shi’s liberal tendencies. However, with the outbreak of the War of Resistance against Japanese Invasion, Chiang Kai-shek, considering Hu Shi’s educational background, connections, and international image in the United States, appointed Hu Shi as China’s ambassador to the U.S., replacing the veteran diplomat Wang Zhengting. This was an extremely farsighted decision.

Hu Shi lived up to this trust by tirelessly touring to give speeches, organizing fundraising activities, and maintaining close contacts in American political, business, and academic circles. He compared China’s difficult, heroic, and just war to the American War of Independence, portraying China as a democratic government similar to the U.S. and Britain. He described Japan as a despotic regime allied with Nazi Germany and called on the U.S. to end its isolationist policy by supporting China, or at least imposing economic sanctions on Japan and prohibiting exports of strategic materials to Japan.

Hu Shi gained widespread support throughout American political and social circles. The New York Times and the Washington Times became his strong supporters, consistently reporting favorably and extensively on his words and actions in the United States. Japan was very wary of Hu Shi’s propaganda abilities and mobilized a team of three—a literary expert (Tsurumi Yusuke), an economic expert (Ishii Kikujirō), and a debate expert (Matsuoka Yosuke)—to counter Hu Shi’s influence.

Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor was an unintended boast to Hu Shi’s diplomatic efforts. With the U.S. formally declaring war on Japan, and China being invited into the global anti-fascist alliance, Hu Shi finally accomplished his mission.

 

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World History Seminar (2025-26)

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

 

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New Book Talk

Organizers: Centre for Chinese History, Department of History, CUHK; Department of History, Lingnan University

 

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Online Information Seminar for the M.A. Programme in Comparative and Public History cum Academic Talk

To be conducted in Putonghua.
Please click here for online registration. For enquiries, please call at 3943 8659.

 

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CUHK History Day 2025

Please click here for details and online registration.
For enquiries, please call at 3943 7117.

 

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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.