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History in the Making – Mapping History: The Confluence of Archaeology and Cartography in Southwest Asia (Elvan COBB, Hong Kong Baptist University)

Faculty of Arts Lounge (4.30, 4/F Run Run Shaw Tower)

The emergence of archaeology as a scientific pursuit in the nineteenth century significantly altered perceptions of the Ottoman Empire within foreign imaginaries. Cartography, like archaeology, provided a seemingly objective epistemological engagement for foreigners to make sense of Southwest Asia as a place, while also underpinning imperial and colonial ambitions. The epigraphic journeys of American classicist […]

14th Spring History Symposium – Global Encounters: Bodies, Commodities, and Technologies on the Move

The University of Hong Kong

Registration Now Open The modern world has been and is increasingly shaped by cross-border movements. People of various occupations and diverse gender, race, and national identities, in crossing paths beyond borders, have sparked some of the most significant creations and conflicts in history. The web of global movement, however, extends beyond people alone. Business exchanges […]

“Taking life too lightly”: Masculinity, suicide, and gender failure in the Qing (Yvon WANG, University of Toronto)

CPD 3.15

This talk, drawn from my ongoing research, focuses on several examples of male suicide from Qing period legal archives across the 18th & 19th centuries.  Unlike early modern European societies, suicide was not inherently sinful or criminal in China, creating a unique suicidal "necropolitics." Furthermore, in this era, there was unprecedentedly widespread positive state recognition of female suicide for “chastity” as analogy […]

The Hardware of Soft Power: Radio, Decolonisation and the Projection of British Global Influence, c. 1939-1989 (Prof. Simon POTTER, University of Bristol)

Faculty of Arts Lounge (4.30, 4/F Run Run Shaw Tower)

Soft power requires hardware.  Radio can carry cultural content, news, and overt propaganda across national borders, seemingly effortlessly, but this requires substantial investment in infrastructure. Often, finding a place where that infrastructure can be built raises significant geopolitical complications. From the eve of the Second World War, British plans to project UK influence around the […]

Radio and the End of Empire: The BBC & Decolonisation in India (Prof. Chandrika KAUL, University of St. Andrews)

Faculty of Arts Conference Room, 4.36, 4/F Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, University of Hong Kong

Building on my monograph, Reporting the Raj, the British Press and India, the focus here is on radio and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) over the climactic decades 1920s-1940s. It is based on extensive research undertaken for a forthcoming book, Broadcasting the Raj: The BBC and India (OUP 2026). The talk will examine the ways […]

Book Talk: A New Documentary History of Hong Kong, 1945–1997

Faculty of Arts Conference Room, 4.36, 4/F Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, University of Hong Kong

A New Documentary History of Hong Kong, 1945–1997, Edited by Florence Mok and Fung Chi Keung Charles (Hong Kong University Press, 2025) Through analysing newly released archival records and underexplored published sources from London, Hong Kong and other parts of the world, this documentary fills the long-standing void in the existing scholarship by providing a thorough understanding […]

History Pizza Night

Faculty of Arts Lounge (4.30, 4/F Run Run Shaw Tower)

We’re excited to invite you to a casual and fun gathering organized by the Department of History to kick off the new semester! Join us on Monday, September 8, 2025, from 4:30 to 6:00 pm, at the Faculty of Arts Lounge (4.30, 4/F, Run Run Shaw Tower), for an evening of pizza, drinks, and great […]

History in the Making – Americans(?) in Paris: Thomas Paine, Gouverneur Morris, and the Adventures of Nationalized Universalism (Dr. Noah Shusterman, Associate Professor, Chinese University of Hong Kong)

Faculty of Arts Lounge (4.30, 4/F Run Run Shaw Tower)

This talk will examine Thomas Paine’s imprisonment during the French Revolution, and the refusal of the United States Ambassador to France, Gouverneur Morris, to intervene on his behalf. The episode provides a chance to examine the French Revolution – and the Atlantic Revolutions more generally – from both an abstract perspective and a very personal […]

History Talk – Belitung: The Afterlives of a Shipwreck (Dr Natali Pearson, Senior Lecturer, University of Sydney)

Faculty of Arts Lounge (4.30, 4/F Run Run Shaw Tower)

In 1998, the Belitung, a ninth-century western Indian Ocean–style vessel, was discovered in Indonesian waters. Onboard was a full cargo load, likely intended for the Middle Eastern market, of over 60,000 Tang Dynasty (619–907) ceramics, gold, and other precious objects. Today, these objects are on permanent display in Singapore’s Asian Civilisations Museum, where they are […]

Asian Legal History – Extradition and Empire Sovereignty and Subjecthood in Hong Kong (Dr. Ivan Lee, Assistant Professor, National University of Singapore)

9.01, Chen Yu Tung Tower, Law Faculty

In the first book-length study of the imperial history of extradition in Hong Kong, Ivan Lee shows how British judges, lawyers, and officials navigated the nature of extradition, debated its legalities, and distinguished it over time from other modalities of criminal jurisdiction – including deportation, rendition, and trial and punishment under territorial and extraterritorial laws. […]

History in the Making – A History of Aging in Qing China: Self-Representations in Personal Narratives of the Elderly (Dr. Clara Wing-chung Ho, Professor, Hong Kong Baptist University)

Faculty of Arts Lounge (4.30, 4/F Run Run Shaw Tower)

A History of Aging in Qing China examines the history of aging and old age during the Qing dynasty, a pivotal period marked by rapid demographic growth that resulted in the largest elderly population in imperial China. Drawing on previously overlooked first-person accounts from the extensive collections authored by Qing men and women, it offers […]