DEPT OF COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
| Researcher : Cheung EMK |
| Project Title: | Fruit Chan's films, "independent" filmmaking, and creative industries |
| Investigator(s): | Cheung EMK, Chan S.C.K. |
| Department: | Comparative Literature |
| Source(s) of Funding: | Seed Funding Programme for Basic Research |
| Start Date: | 02/2004 |
| Completion Date: | 07/2005 |
| Abstract: |
| To explore how the interaction of political, industrial, institutional, and cultural factors shape the production and circulation of Hong Kong filmmaker Fruit Chan's films; to explore how the thematics, poetics, and aesthetics of Chan's films in turn shape the ways the terrains of "independent" and "mainstream" cinemas are re-defined, casting crucial implications on the role of creative industries in the cultural policy-making of Hong Kong. |
| Project Title: | Fruit Chan's films and independent filmmaking in Hong Kong |
| Investigator(s): | Cheung EMK |
| Department: | Comparative Literature |
| Source(s) of Funding: | Merit Award for RGC CERG Funded Projects |
| Start Date: | 09/2005 |
| Abstract: |
| N/A |
| Project Title: | Fruit Chan's films and independent filmmaking in Hong Kong |
| Investigator(s): | Cheung EMK |
| Department: | Comparative Literature |
| Source(s) of Funding: | Competitive Earmarked Research Grants (CERG) |
| Start Date: | 09/2005 |
| Abstract: |
| To seek a culturally-specific definition of independent filmmaking in the context of contemporary global flows. Fruit Chan, one of the most renowned independent filmmakers in Hong Kong, is chosen as the focal point of this analysis so as to examine how the interaction of political industrial, institutional, and cultural factors shape the emergence and circulation of independent films nowadays. This project engages in a comparative study of his works with other Hong Kong filmmakers both from the independent and the mainstream cinemas, to shed light on a better understanding of the larger scenario of contemporary film culture. This research takes an interdisciplinary approach to the study of Fruit Chan and his relation with the cinema, using a wide range of data obtained from in-depth interviews and studies of institutional histories of both local and overseas. This study will examine the notion of "independence" with regard to artistic and cultural productions, and contend that the independent cinema in Hong Kong cannot be understood as a simple totality and in simple opposition to the mainstream cinema. The thematic concerns and visual styles of Chan's films will be deciphered to understand how they in turn shape the ways the terrains of independent and mainstream cinemas are redefined. It also proposed that Chan's constant interest in Hong Kong's changing circumstances (e.g. the 1997 handover and globalization) and issues about social marginality have inspired other filmmakers and enabled the global art-house circulation of his films, shaping the transnational nature of the cinema. |
| List of Research Outputs |
| Cheung E.M.K., Reading Everlasting Regret: The Urban Vantage Point in Literature and Film (in Chinese), East Asian Culture and Modern Literature in Chinese . Hong Kong, Centre of Humanities Research, Lingnan University, 2006, 286-294. |
| Cheung E.M.K., The Shanghai 'Scenes' in Stanley Kwan's Films: From Center Stage to Everlasting Regret, Film Symposium: The Film Scene: Cinema, the Arts and Social Change, organized by the Department of Comparative Literature, Department of Music and the Centre of Asian Studies, April 21-22, 2006. Hong Kong, The University of Hong Kong. |
| Cheung E.M.K., The Spectial City in Hong Kong Cinema, The City: A Festival of Knowledge, Congress 2006, May 28-30 2006. Toronto, Canada, Canadian Comparative Literature Association, 2006. |
| Cheung E.M.K., 香港人出埃及記:炎夏中的海市蜃樓, 號外, Hong Kong, City Howwhy Limited, 2005, 347 (2005): 210-211. |
| Cheung E.M.K., 四十年的苦戀, 明報, Hong Kong, 2005, D04. |
| Cheung E.M.K., 別矣，伊莎貝拉！, 明報, Hong Kong, 2006, D06. |
| Cheung E.M.K., 上下求索、星火燎原（代序）, 電影花火, 香港, 香港教育統籌局和香港大學比較文學糸, 2005, 3-6. |
| Cheung E.M.K., 我們為何硏習電影, 電影花火, 香港, 香港教育統籌局和香港大學比較文學糸, 2005, 13-21. |
| Researcher : Elbeshlawy AFMK |
| List of Research Outputs |
| Elbeshlawy A.F.M.K., America in D.H. Lawrence's Imagination, Comparative Literature Department Research Seminar, HKU, 14th February 2006 . Hong Kong, 2006. |
| Elbeshlawy A.F.M.K., America in the Discourse of Exceptionalism, Comparative Literature Department Research Seminar, HKU, 21st February 2006 . Hong Kong, 2006. |
| Elbeshlawy A.F.M.K., Dogville: How the European Subject Invents a Desexualized America, Comparative Literature Department Research Seminar, HKU, 15th November 2005 . Hong Kong, 2005. |
| Elbeshlawy A.F.M.K., The Prayer of Lady Macbeth, Symposium on The Film Scene: Cinema, the Arts, and Social Change, 21st and 22nd April 2006. . Hong Kong, The University of Hong Kong, 2006. |
| Elbeshlawy A.F.M.K., Zulaikha - a psychoanalytic approach to a literary and cultural construct , Fe/Male Bodies. Hong Kong, Kubrick, 2005, Debut issue: 96-107. |
| Researcher : Ha MOY |
| Project Title: | Reading women in colonial francophone indochinese fiction |
| Investigator(s): | Ha MOY |
| Department: | History |
| Source(s) of Funding: | Small Project Funding |
| Start Date: | 11/2004 |
| Completion Date: | 10/2006 |
| Abstract: |
| To articulate an alternative theoretical and critical apparatus that could take into account the cross-cultural and ideological specificities of colonial writings; to undertake a rereading of these narratives that will re-inscribe the female voice in the texts; to bring out the multiplicity of female colonial experience through a heteroglossic cross-reading of fictional and archival narratives about colonial women. |
| List of Research Outputs |
| Researcher : Marchetti G |
| List of Research Outputs |
| Marchetti G., Bollyworld:Popular Indian Cinema through a Transnational Lens , pp. 222-224, Asian Journal of Communication. Routledge, 2006, Vol. 16, No. 2: 222-224. |
| Marchetti G., COME DRINK WITH ME—If You Dare: Golden Swallow, King Hu, and the Cold War, The Film Scene: Cinema, the Arts, and Social Change, April 21, 2006.. Hong Kong, The University of Hong Kong, 2006. |
| Marchetti G., Correspondent in Hong Kong, 2004-present, Hong Kong CineMagic, French-based Web site devoted to Hong Kong cinema, http://www.hkcinemagic.com/en/main. asp?lid=53. . France, 2005. |
| Marchetti G., Editorial Board Member, 2002-2006, Popular Communication. 2005. |
| Marchetti G., Editorial Team under the direction of Colin Day, 2005-present, New Hong Kong Cinema series. Hong Kong, Hong Kong University Press, 2005. |
| Marchetti G., From Tian'anmen to Times Square: Transnational China and the Chinese Diaspora on Global Screens, 1989-1997. Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 2006, 302pp. |
| Marchetti G., Guests at the WEDDING BANQUET: The Cinema of the Chinese Diaspora and the Rise of the American Independents, In: Chris Holmlund and Justin Wyatt, Contemporary American Independent Film: From the Margins to the Mainstream. London, Routledge, 2005, 211-225. |
| Marchetti G., Lingnan Foundation Grant, 2004-present, America and Transnationalism Interdisciplinary Project . Guangzhou, PRC, Zhong Shan University, 2005. |
| Marchetti G., Martial Arts—North and South: Liu Chia-Liang's Vision of Hung Gar in Shaw Brothers Films, The Centenary of Chinese Cinema: Influence of the Shaw Brothers, January 12, 2006.. Hong Kong, Hong Kong Baptist University, 2006. |
| Marchetti G., Staff Editor, 1984-present, Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media. 2005. |
| Marchetti G., Using Film and Video to Teach about Asians and Asian Americans Across the Curriculum, In: Carole Gerster with Laura W. Zlogar , Teaching Ethnic Diversity with Film: Essays and Resources for Educators in History, Social Studies, Literature and Film Studies . Jefferson, NC, McFarland and Company, Inc, 2006, 41-57. |
| Researcher : Sabine MA |
| Project Title: | Nuns on screen: the changing face of modern women religious in post World War II film |
| Investigator(s): | Sabine MA |
| Department: | Comparative Literature |
| Source(s) of Funding: | Competitive Earmarked Research Grants (CERG) |
| Start Date: | 01/2005 |
| Abstract: |
| To examine how nuns are respresented in mainstream, and mainly English language, film since the Second World War and what cultural myths of gender and religion shape their cinematic projection; to study the underlying institutional and sexual politics of their filmic representation, and consider how the images and stereotypes projected on screen compare to the diverse and often substantial roles that nuns actually played in the development of modern society, and the changes, in turn, that modern secular society produced in nuns' lives and religious community. |
| Project Title: | Nuns on screen: the changing face of modern women religious in post World War II film |
| Investigator(s): | Sabine MA |
| Department: | Comparative Literature |
| Source(s) of Funding: | Merit Award for RGC CERG Funded Projects |
| Start Date: | 01/2005 |
| Abstract: |
| N/A |
| List of Research Outputs |
| Researcher : Swirski P |
| Project Title: | Mining the mindfield: literary narratives as thought experiments |
| Investigator(s): | Swirski P |
| Department: | Comparative Literature |
| Source(s) of Funding: | Competitive Earmarked Research Grants (CERG) |
| Start Date: | 08/2004 |
| Completion Date: | 07/2006 |
| Abstract: |
| To provide a detailed account of the mode of cognition typical to literary narratives and the type of research common in philosophy and the sciences. |
| Project Title: | Browbeaten into pulp: American popular literature |
| Investigator(s): | Swirski P |
| Department: | Comparative Literature |
| Source(s) of Funding: | Seed Funding Programme for Basic Research |
| Start Date: | 01/2005 |
| Completion Date: | 12/2005 |
| Abstract: |
| Throughout the period of its cultural domination in the 20th century, popular fiction in America has met with indictments of its alleged ill-effects on readers, highbrow literature, on culture in general and even on American society large. Given that genre fiction continues to dominate the nations’ cultural and literary life, the time is ripe to examine popular literature as a literary phenomenon rather than as a cultural nuisance. My objective in this research project is to survey and analyze the socio-aesthetic evidence accumulated over the course of the last century in order to put forward a detailed picture of the ways in which highbrow and genre literatures influence and interpenetrate each other. All available data indicates that most of the canonical recriminations against American popular fiction (and, by extension, popular fiction in other cultures and nations) stem from ill-founded misconceptions about its nature and aesthetic attributes. Cross-examining statistical and argumentative findings by means of illustrations from popular and canonical works, I will conclude with an analysis of novels by Raymond Chandler and Walker Percy in the lights of the general theses advanced by means of this research. The investigation of the relation between American mainstream (highbrow) and popular (lowbrow) fiction is significant in at least three contexts. First of all, a review of available statistical and sociological evidence, including community and leisure studies, will allow me to contest key myths still prevailing in literary and cultural discourse, among them the demise of reading and the commercialization of the literary system attributed to modern paperback publishing. As these and other misconceptions have been used to underwrite any number of aesthetic critiques of popular fiction, refuting them will go a long way towards a better understanding of literary culture today. Second, through a systematic analysis of the socio-aesthetic critiques of popular fiction, I will re-evaluate their merits and challenge their core assumptions by a reductio or an extensive documentation of “inbred” analogues in highbrow fiction. As part of an implicit push for a greater literary democracy, this part of my project will refine the methodological tools for studying and teaching popular fiction. Third, my research will culminate with a detailed study of select investigative mysteries by Chandler and Percy, both in terms of their mediation between the high and the popular in American culture, and their contributions to twentieth-century literature. |
| Project Title: | Mining the mindfield: literary narratives as thought experiments |
| Investigator(s): | Swirski P |
| Department: | Comparative Literature |
| Source(s) of Funding: | Merit Award for RGC CERG Funded Projects |
| Start Date: | 01/2005 |
| Abstract: |
| N/A |
| Project Title: | Fiction as Social Document: From Literary to Urban Culture |
| Investigator(s): | Swirski P |
| Department: | Comparative Literature |
| Source(s) of Funding: | Small Project Funding |
| Start Date: | 10/2005 |
| Completion Date: | 06/2006 |
| Abstract: |
| In 1800 only 6% of Americans lived in cities; in 2000 more than 80%. The corresponding numbers for many developed Asian countries, including Australia, Japan and Taiwan, are equally staggering. As a center of growth, power, and cultural diversity, the city has always occupied a crucial place in these countries' vision of themselves as nations. “A cruel city, but a lovely one, a savage city, yet it had such tenderness”–this quote from Thomas Wolfe's A Vision of the City is representative of the varied cultural representations of the contemporary urban environment as a place where fortunes and lives are made or lost. Through an examination of literature, architecture, film and popular culture, this study will take a closer look at some of the greatest as well as the “baddest” American, and for comparison Asian, metropolises. It will look for a way to understand the people who live, commute, work, create, govern, commit crime and conduct business in them. In the process it will argue that literary fiction often aspires to, and sometimes succeeds in, becoming an invaluable social document chronicling the transformations affecting modern urban environment, including culture, social and racial relations, economic cycles, and many others. One of my primary case studies will be Evan Hunter, known worldwide as Ed McBain. His bestselling 87th-Precinct cycle of police procedurals has won him unswerving loyalty of generations of readers from the United States to Asia, with sales to prove it: more than 100 million. Over half a century of writing the world’s longest running novelistic series, his fifty-six-volume opus has drawn extravagant praise from just about everyone, including the literary mavens. The New York Times Book Review has a hard time deciding whether his prose is dazzling or only formidable, the normally reticent Guardian dubs him a virtuoso, and Jeff Zalesky sums up the consensus in Publishers Weekly: “McBain is so good he ought to be arrested” (54). True to form, McBain’s heroes are the sparsely-drawn cops who dissect the American way of life as habitually as they process crime scenes. But his principal “character” is as extraordinary as the enigmatic ending of Alfred Hitchcock’s Birds (for which he wrote the screenplay). It is not a person, even though he personifies “her” in every novel. It is a place, a metaphor, and a state of mind. It is the socio-economic habitat overrun by the human species populating America today. It is, as in the eponymous title of his 1998 bestseller, The Big Bad City. With contemporary New York as the representative chronotope, McBain’s the 87th- cycle is an anatomy of the environmental niche overrun by more than 80% of all North Americans. A genre writer, he has the literary flair and sociological vision to belie cultural conservatives for whom popular fiction belongs, in Harold Bloom’s phrase, on the compost heap of popular culture. Reflecting and reflecting on the rugged and drugged myths of the twentieth-century metropolitan frontier, McBain’s police procedurals crossover into the realm of urban procedurals to sit next to The Quaker City, The Jungle, An American Dream, or The Bonfire of the Vanities. Book after book, procedural after procedural, they are crammed with the daily detritus of life in an overpopulated shark tank, reproducing on their pages traffic signs, street signs, topographical maps, business cards, airline schedules, ferry schedules, handwritten notes, personal letters, letters from the editor, address-book pages, passbook entries, phone-book listings, utility bills, telephone bills, credit card bills, personal cheques, prescription drug labels, photographs, advertising photos, stage diagrams, architectural blueprints, modelling portfolios, and tabloid clippings. Acclaimed artists who turn to fictive crime are, of course, common nowadays. No need to invoke Jorge Louis Borges or Umberto Eco, either—in the context, the best example may be Akira Kurosawa whose classic High and Low (1963) is a scene-by-scene adaptation of McBain’s 87th-classic King’s Ransom (1959), with Tokyo subbing as the urban jungle of NYC. Far from an escapist and violence gratifying mass-market product, urban procedurals are a contemporary incarnation of naturalism in American letters, with Dreiser’s Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy at its early apex. While postmodernist aesthetes continue to turn their noses on reality as a simulacrum and on narrative realism as passé, in McBain’s hands popular art metes out narrative justice to problems that beset all city dwellers—four of every five of us. Richard Hofstadter distilled four hundred years of American history to the observation that the United States was born in the country and moved to the city. This point of historiography applies with equal force to some of Asia’s most conurbated nations, such as Japan, Taiwan and Australia. Today violent crime, urban blight, racial strife, chronic unemployment, ghetto housing, gangland streets, snarled traffic, civic graft, red-tape corruption, and dropout education are the reasons why affluent city-dwellers in droves leaves the urbs for the suburbs. But, I argue, for those who want to keep their hands on the pulse of the modern city, literature is often their best bet. And the fact that so many turn to it with a devotion which baffles popular fiction critics is one more reason for according it critical attention and respect. For, just like legal procedurals, even as they entertain, McBain’s urban procedurals inform—and in some cases perhaps even form—the perceptions and values of tens of millions of American and Asian readers. |
| List of Research Outputs |
| Researcher : Tambling JCR |
| Project Title: | Dante and purgatory: writing the history of emotions |
| Investigator(s): | Tambling JCR |
| Department: | Comparative Literature |
| Source(s) of Funding: | Competitive Earmarked Research Grants (CERG) |
| Start Date: | 09/2002 |
| Completion Date: | 08/2005 |
| Abstract: |
| The project involves entensive reading of Dante's Purgatorio (c.1315). The aim of the project is to read how differing emotions are culturally formed. In this sense, the project uses insights from psychoanalysis, and from readings derived from modern cultural studies. The intention is to test their validity in describing the very different historical emotional states which are represented in Dante's text. |
| Project Title: | Writing London: the nineteenth century |
| Investigator(s): | Tambling JCR |
| Department: | Comparative Literature |
| Source(s) of Funding: | Merit Award for RGC CERG Funded Projects |
| Start Date: | 07/2005 |
| Completion Date: | 09/2005 |
| Abstract: |
| N/A |
| List of Research Outputs |
| Researcher : Wong YBN |
| List of Research Outputs |
| Wong Y.B.N., A Different Kind of Friendship-Reading the Homosocial in Johnnie To's Election, The Film Scene: Cinema, Arts and Social Change, April 21-22 2006. Hong Kong, The University of Hong Kong. |
| Wong Y.B.N., From Rose Mary to Rolls Royce: Denise Ho x Wyman Wong. Queerness in Denise Ho's music, Fe/male Bodies. Hong Kong, Kubrick, 2005, 62-68. |
| Wong Y.B.N., The Evolution of Beard, Hymen & City of Sameness, Fe/male Bodies: Bodywise. Hong Kong, Kubrick, 2006, 156-161. |
| Wong Y.B.N., When Ero Lies in the Hand of Wong Kar-Wai, The 27th Annual Meeting of the Southwest Texas Popular Culture and American Popular Culture, February 8 -11 2006. Alburquerque, New Mexico. |
| Wong Y.B.N., Wong Kar-Wai's The Hand, Scope: an online journal of film studies. University of Nottingham, 2006, Issue 4 February 2006. |
| Researcher : Yau KF |
| List of Research Outputs |
| Yau K.F., Ann Hui and the Cinema of the Political, The Film Scene: Cinema, the Arts, and Social Change. 2006. |
| Yau K.F., Imaging Hong Kong: Wong Kar-wai’s 8 Movies and 6 Hong Kongs, 影像香港：王家衛的八部電影和六個香港, Twenty-First Century Bimonthly. 二十一世紀, Hong Kong, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2005, 91: 126-134. |
| Yau K.F., Realist Paradoxes: The Story of the Story of the Stone, Comparative Literature. The United States, The University of Oregon, Eugene, 2005, 57: 2: 117-134. |
| Yau K.F., Zhong 眾: A Semantic History, Stanford Humanities Laboratory. The United States, Stanford Humanities Laboratory, 2005. |