Curriculum
and Learning Environment, with a
Special
Focus on
East-West Studies (18 November
2004)
The workshop,
co-organised by LEWI and IIBD, was held at our
University on Thursday, 18 November 2004. It was
coincided with the third biennial joint board
meeting of the two institutes, as a workshop on
topics of interest to all members would be held
alongside the board meeting for the benefit of
participating members. The workshop addressed
the topic of internationalising the curriculum
and learning environment from an
intellectual-philosophical perspective as well
as a practitioner’s point of view.
Jonathan Adler, Professor of Philosophy
at Brooklyn College and the Graduate School,
City University of New York and President of the
Association for Philosophy of
Education, gave a keynote speech on
“Cross-Cultural Education, Open-Mindedness, and
Time”. Adler argued that open-mindedness is an
important goal for liberal-arts education, as it
encourages the diversity of ideas and the
appreciation of one’s fallibility and limits.
Cross-cultural studies further draws the
attention to assumptions about one’s own culture
normally just taken for granted, and promotes
the research on differences between Eastern and
Western thought. Adler’s speech was responded by
a panel of experts in comparative education,
cross-cultural studies and philosophy of
education: Bernard Luk, Vice President
(Academic), The Hong Kong Institute of
Education; Eva Man, Head of
Humanities Programme, HKBU; and
Roger Cheng, Senior Instructor, Faculty
of Education, The Chinese University of Hong
Kong.
In the afternoon, another
keynote speaker, HannekeTeekens, Director of the Department of
International Relations at NUFFIC,
delivered a speech on “East West: At Home the
Best?”, which focused on the concepts of self,
strange, foreign and otherness in academic
learning and the post-modern paradox of cultural
sameness and difference at the same time.
Teekens discussed the institutional setting, the
aims of the curriculum and the
classroom setting and the desired learning
outcomes, and she argued that an “ideal
lecturer” should know how to create conditions
which allow students to learn from each other,
rather than developing a “monochrome class
culture”. After Teekens’s speech, a synopsis of
the questionnaires received was presented by
Mariette Diderich, one of the
workshop co-chairs. Participants of the workshop
were then divided into three groups by region
(North America & Europe, China, Hong Kong
& Southeast Asia) to discuss their
institutional as well as personal experience in
an East-West studies curriculum and an
Asian-Western learning environment.
Over fifty people have
participated in the workshop, and among the
participants, twenty-five were from LEWI and
IIBD member institutions.
The workshop was successful in
formulating a list of recommendations and
actions on internationalising the curriculum,
with a special focus on East-West studies.
Through the sharing session, and participants
gained new knowledge and sensibility which would
help them function competently in today’s
globalised, interdependent world.
Third Joint Board
Meeting of LEWI &
IIBD
(19
November
2004)
The day after the workshop,
members of LEWI & IIBD gathered for the
third joint board meeting. The one-day meeting,
held at our University’s Council
Chamber, was attended by over thirty
representatives from the two institutes and
HKBU. At the morning session of the meeting,
members discussed the joint board business and
LEWI business, and IIBD business was discussed
in the afternoon session. Important decisions
were made at the meeting, including the election
of the Executive Committee for 2004-2006, the
date of the next joint board meeting and
workshop, and the date and topic of the next
annual conference. The Executive Committee also
met in the evenings before and after the board
meeting. Detailed minutes of the meeting are
being prepared by the secretariat and will be
available to members soon.
Our institute would like to
take this opportunity to congratulate again the
newly elected Executive Committee for 2004-2006:
Australiasia Bloc:
Keimyung University, South
Korea
North America Bloc:
Baylor University, USA
United Kingdom & Europe
Bloc: University of
Strathclyde, United Kingdom
China & Hong Kong Bloc:
Shanghai Jiaotong University,
China
LEWI Visitorship –
Professor He
Ping
Professor He Ping, Professor of
History at Sichuan
University, was LEWI’s visiting scholar
from October to December 2004 under the
Visitorship Programme. Professor He is an expert
in world history, Chinese ideology and
cross-cultural studies. After receiving his PhD
from Oxford University in the
1990s, he has been an active researcher in
modern history and cultural studies. He has
significant contributions to cross-cultural
collaborative research with faculty from
Oxford University,
Middlesex University,
Tam Kang University, and
The Chinese University of Hong
Kong.
Professor He participated in
the 2002 International Workshop on East-West
Studies organised by LEWI and IIBD and had shed
light on the concept and meaning of East-West
studies during the Workshop. He has also
contributed to the workshop proceedings,
entitled East-West Studies: Now and
Beyond, which was published in February
2004. During his visit to LEWI, Professor He
worked closely with Professor Chan Kwok
Bun, Director of LEWI, on articulating
the concept of cultural hybridity from both
eastern and western perspectives. They are
planning to co-author a paper for publication in
the LEWI Working Paper Series.
Seminars by Resident
Graduate Scholarship
Recipients
26 November 2004 – Seminar by
Wang Lanping, PhD Candidate, Institute
of Dunhuang Studies, Lanzhou University
and RGS Recipient (February – May &
September – November 2004)
Wang’s seminar focused on the
new perspectives of studies in the spread of
Christianity in China during the Tang Dynasty.
Nestorianism, an early Christian sect from
Persia, first entered China during the early
Tang Dynasty. It was active in China for about
200 years until AD 845, when Emperor Tang
Wu-tsung persecuted Buddhism and other sects in
China. Wang’s study is an investigation of the
cultural interaction between the Nestorians and
the Chinese in Tang Dynasty. Wang argues that
culture is a dynamic unity of the values and
institutions by which people live, and therefore
the Nestorians’ doctrine was both hybridised and
localised after interacting with the
predominantly Confucian Chinese culture. Chaired
by Dr Lauren Pfister, Wang’s
field supervisor at HKBU, fifteen students and
faculty from the Department of Religion
and Philosophy attended his seminar,
and Wang had a lively discussion with his
audience after his presentation.
8 December 2004 – Seminars
by Chen Jiong, Master’s Degree
Candidate, School of Humanities and Social
Sciences, Tsinghua University and RGS
Recipient (September 2004 – February 2005) and
Lenno Munnikes, Master’s Degree
Candidate, Faculty of Social and Behavioural
Sciences, Universiteit van Amsterdam
and RGS Recipient (September – December 2004)
Chen’s research is related to
the Taiwan Relations Act of the United
States Congress and its influence on the
cross-strait relations. At her seminar, Chen
presented the statistics of the voting patterns
of the US Congress on bills related to Taiwan
issues since the early 1990s. Analysis showed
that regardless of their political affiliations,
US Congressmen are generally supportive of bills
related to Taiwan issues. According to Chen’s
study, over 98% of the bills related to Taiwan
issues were passed, and a majority of the bills
(69%) received unanimous support from the two
political parties (Democratic and Republican).
This shows that the US Congress’s attitude
towards Taiwan has been quite supportive, and
this is vital to the future development of the
cross-strait relations.
Munnikes’s seminar was about
his research conducted in Hong Kong and
Guangzhou during the past four months. His
research topic is the social and cultural
aspects of food. According to Munnikes, Hong
Kong, a post-modern cosmopolitan city where East
meets West, has provided him with a perfect
place to learn about the fusion of different
food cultures. His study attempts to instill a
vision on the significance of studying food
cultures in social sciences, and to demonstrate
that food is not only part of our social
activities, but also a representation of our
identities in post-modern societies.
Chen’s and Munnikes’s seminars,
chaired by their field supervisors
(Professor Herbert Yee and
Dr Ng Chun Bong), attracted
students and faculty in government and
international relations, communications and
anthropology, from our University as well as
other local institutions.
Recent Visits by
Member
Institutions
Visit by
Jilin University (3 November
2004)
A delegation of ten faculty
members from business, economics, law, Northeast
Asian studies, social sciences and
administration at Jilin
University visited HKBU on 3 November
2004. They visited the School of
Business and Department of
Government and International Studies,
and also visited the LEWI office. The visitors
met with Professor Chan Kwok Bun,
Director of LEWI, and our staff
introduced various programmes of the institute
to them.
Visit by Tsinghua
University (6 November
2004)
Professor Xing Yue
from the Institute of
International Studies, Tsinghua
University, visited LEWI on 6 November
2004. Professor Xing was in Hong Kong for a
conference, and she met with her student,
Chen Jiong, who is currently an
RGS student at LEWI. Professor Xing also had a
discussion with the staff at LEWI about the RGS
programme.
Visit by University of
Western Sydney (23 November 2004)
Mr John Philips,
Chancellor and Professor Janice
Reid, Vice-Chancellor & University
President, University of Western
Sydney, visited our University on 23
November 2004. During their half-day visit, they
met with Professor Ng Ching Fai,
President & Vice-Chancellor, HKBU,
and had a tour of the laboratories and medicine
center of the School of Chinese
Medicine.
Visit by Ohio
University (13 December 2004)
Professor Thomas A. Shostak,
Dean, Lifelong Learning, Ohio
University, was in Hong Kong for the
graduation ceremony of the Ohio University
programmes at the School of Continuing
Education (SCE), HKBU. Besides meeting
with SCE colleagues, Professor Shostak also had
the opportunity to meet with Professor
Herbert H. Tsang, Academic
Vice-President, Professor Chan
Kwok Bun, Director of LEWI, and
Ms Wendy Chan, Director of
International Office.
Collaborations with
HKBU
Faculty
Our institute has always been
working closely with HKBU faculty in
collaborative research projects, joint
conferences/seminars and research programmes.
Over the past few months, LEWI had the honour of
collaborating with faculty from the School of
Communication in two major academic events:
Persistence of Vision versus
Design Entropy, opening ceremony of
exhibition cum seminar by Mr
Henry
Steiner; and the International
Conference on Epidemics and Transborder
Violence: Communication and Globalization under
a Different Light.
Mr Henry Steiner, the “father
of Hong Kong’s graphic design and corporate
identity industry”, was awarded the honorary
degree of Doctor of Social Sciences from our
University, in recognition of his contributions
to the design profession and to Hong Kong’s
education, society and economy in general. To
celebrate the HKBU Honorary Doctorate Recipients
in 2004, the Brilliance of Civilization
was launched in our University in November
2004, as a series of public seminars and
exhibitions. The Office of the President
& Vice-Chancellor, School
of Communication and LEWI had the
honour of co-sponsoring an exhibition to
showcase Mr Steiner’s achievements in Hong Kong
over the past forty years. At the opening
ceremony of the exhibition on 5 November 2004,
Mr Steiner gave a seminar on the “Persistence of
Vision versus Design Entropy”, which was
attended by over one hundred faculty and
students of our University. Mr Steiner’s
exhibition ran from 6 - 13 November 2004.
The International Conference on
Epidemics and Transborder Violence:
Communication and Globalization under a
Different Light, co-organised by Centre
for Media and Communication Research, School of
Communication, HKBU, and Media
Research Institute, University of
Westminster, was held at our University
on 17-18 December 2004. LEWI was invited by the
School of Communication to be one of the
conference sponsors, and Professor CHAN
Kwok Bun, Director of LEWI, was invited
to chair a panel on “(Re)formulating Identities
through Images and Discourses” at the
conference. Over forty scholars from different
regions and local media practitioners gathered
to discuss important questions, such as the
development of media and communication in the
age of globalisation, the threat of war and
terrorism to the management of news and
information, and the reformulation of national
identities through globalised images and
discourses.
LEWI
Publications
Working Paper Series
The LEWI Working Paper Series
is an endeavour of LEWI to foster dialogues
among institutions and scholars in the field of
East-West studies. It was launched in April 2002
and serves as a forum for the speedy and
informal exchange of ideas as scholars and
academic institutions attempt to grapple with
issues of an inter-cultural and global nature.
Thirty papers have been published so far and we
welcome papers in any academic field related to
East-West studies, from authors within and
outside of our LEWI consortium. For further
information, please contact Ms. Jennifer Law at
Recent Publications in the
Series (abstracts are available on our website):
28. WANG Wen,
Lanzhou University, and TING
Wai, Hong Kong Baptist University,
Beyond Identity? Theoretical Dilemma and
Historical Reflection of Constructivism in
International Relations, English/32 Pages,
August 2004.
29. CHAN Kwok Bun,
Hong Kong Baptist University, The
Stranger’s Plight, and Gift, English/17
Pages, September, 2004.
30. Darrell William
DAVIS, University of New South Wales,
Australia, Saving Face: Spectator
and Spectacle in Japanese Theatre and Film,
English/26 Pages, October, 2004.
Looking Ahead in
2005
LEWI Lectures 2005 - The In’s
and Out’s of East-West Translations and
Adaptations
The focus of LEWI Lectures 2005
will be on translations and adaptations.
Professor Jan Walls, Director
of David Lam Centre for International
Communication, Director of Asia-Canada Program,
Simon Fraser University, and Director of North
America-China Research Programme of LEWI; and
Dr Emilie Yeh, Associate
Director of LEWI, will be the coordinators of
the new lecture series to be launched in spring
2005. Three to four lectures on cross-cultural
translations adaptations will be held from
February to May 2005, with invited speakers from
Canada, USA, and Hong Kong. Further details
about the lectures will be available on our
website very soon.
Author's
Corner
Chinese Language Films –
Historiography, Poetics, Politics
Edited by Emilie
Yueh-yu Yeh, Associate Director of David
C Lam Institute for East-West Studies and
Associate Professor of Film Studies, HKBU; and
Sheldon H. Lu, Professor of
Comparative Literature and Film Studies,
University of California, Davis.
Paperback: 413 pages
Publisher: University of Hawai’i
Press (January 2005)
From China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong
to Singapore and Hollywood, from martial arts
films of the early twentieth century to
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon at the turn
of the twenty-first century, Chinese-language
films have opened new doors to the imaging and
construction of national and ethnic identity. This
volume, the most comprehensive work to date on
Chinese film, explores the manifold dimensions of
the subject and highlights areas overlooked in
previous studies. Leading scholars, with their
cross-cultural engagements with individual films,
accomplished with an acute sense of chronology and
history, tackle questions related to
historiography, poetics, aesthetics, genres, and
directorial styles. At the same time, they address
the economics of film production and consumption
as well as the cultural politics of globalization,
identity, subjectivity, nationality, citizenship,
and gender formation as embodied in filmic texts.
This collection of essays offer insightful,
detailed analyses of films by such internationally
renowned directors as Zhang Yimou, Hou
Hsiao-hsien, Ang Lee, Wong Kar-wai, Zhang Yuan,
Jia Zhangke, Tsai Ming-liang, Lin Cheng-sheng,
Jiang Wen, Ann Hui, Sylvia Chang, Wu Nianzhen,
Eric Koo, and others.
