Professor
David M. PomfretHead of the School of Humanities, Faculty of Arts, HKU
BA, PhD Nottingham
Research Projects | Publications | Courses | RPG Supervisions | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Professor David M. Pomfret's research specialisations are in British and French history, histories of
Childhood and Youth, and the transnational and comparative history of modern
Europe and its empires. His recent work engages with British and French
cultures of colonialism through the lens of childhood and youth and utilises a
comparative and transnational approach. Focusing upon histories of children,
their agency, and how concepts of childhood traveled this research has
illuminated how metropolitan and colonial discourses and practices intersected
and interacted. His work engages an interdisciplinary audience of scholars and
students working on empire(s), specialists working in British or French
imperialism, regional (Asian) colonial studies, and the interdisciplinary field
of the history of childhood and youth.
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Current Research Projects
Currently, Professor Pomfret is working on a RGC GRF project examining trans-colonial cultures of youth in Asia from the late 19th to the mid 20th century. European society in colonial places was often strikingly young. What implications did this have? The project examines the difference that age made to colonialism and imperialism in Europe's empires. Using a trans-colonial and comparative approach looking across empires it reveals how the cultures of youth flourishing in empire places in East and Southeast Asia affected the broad course of European history. The project shows how the youthfulness became a principal criterion for membership of foreign society 'Out East,' and powerfully informed the way 'Europeans' and others saw themselves; how the demographic youthfulness of foreign societies from Saigon to Shanghai posed a multitute of challenges to governments; and how it defined the cultures and institutions of colonialism in places such as Hong Kong, Hanoi, Saigon, and Singapore. This project contributes to an important new research agenda tracing the global genealogies of youth cultural practice and it reveals how youth mobility connected empire worlds.
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Publications
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Teaching and Courses Taught
Professor Pomfret has received The University of Hong Kong's Outstanding Teacher Award, and the University Grants Committee's Teaching Excellence Award, the highest award for teaching at tertiary level in the HKSAR.
Research Postgraduate Supervisions
Professor Pomfret has supervised numerous postgraduate students, two of whom won the Outstanding Thesis Prize, and would welcome the opportunity to supervise research in the following areas: history of Britain, France, histories of childhood, youth and the family, urban history, transnational/trans-colonial history, and imperial and colonial history, especially in Asia and South East Asia.
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