BA, M.Phil. (Hong Kong Baptist University); Ph.D. (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)
Professor, Department of History, CUHK
** On Sabbatical leave in Term 1 of 2024-25. **
I earned my doctorate degree in humanities in the field of history from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2001. Before joining the History Department of Chinese University in 2017, I was Associate Professor of History at Lingnan University of Hong Kong.
I am interested in the negotiation between tradition and modernity in 20th-century China and colonial Hong Kong, and the conflicts that arose from this negotiation. I pay particular attention to the various ways in which Western ideas were localised in Chinese society and how common people negotiated modernity in their daily lives. My work has been published in journals such as Modern China, Modern Asian Studies, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Bulletin of the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica and Journal of Chinese Religions, among others.
My first book, entitled Negotiating Religion in Modern China: State and Common People in Guangzhou, 1900-1937 (2011), investigates the religious changes stimulated by China’s quest for modernity, especially the attempts made by the Republican government to eradicate the ‘superstitious’ beliefs and behavior of common people according to the modern imperative of ‘anti-superstition’.
With specific reference to oxen in Republican China, my current research project explores the entry of animals into China’s modernist and nationalist discourses, and their significance to everyday lives, food culture, national politics, as well as China’s trading and diplomatic relations with Japan.
Books Authored
Books Co-authored and Co-Edited
Journal Articles
Book Chapters
Year | Research Project |
---|---|
2020-2022 | Colonizers and the Beasts: The Place of Animals in British Colonial Governance in Hong Kong, 1842-1941 (HK$150,600) Project Investigator, General Research Fund, 2019/20 |
2016-2019 | Animals, Modernity and Nation-building: Oxen in Republican China (HK$454,000) Project Investigator, General Research Fund, 2015/16 |
2012-2015 | Modern Body, Modern State: A History of Swimming in 20th Century China ($296,686) Project Investigator, General Research Fund, 2011/12 |