Pending approval

SYLLABUSES FOR THE DEGREE OF

BACHELOR OF ARTS

(N.B. 1. These syllabuses should be read in conjunction with the BA degree regulations.
2. On application to the various departments, undergraduates may obtain further details of
courses and lists of books recommended for further study.)

CHINESE LANGUAGE ENHANCEMENT

CART9001. Practical Chinese for Arts Students (6 credits)

This course is designed to enhance the students’ competence in the use of Chinese in the workplace. It
helps students to master the techniques of writing different types of practical writings such as emails,
business letters, brochures, leaflets, reports and proposals. There are drilling practices to familiarize the
students with simplified Chinese characters frequently used in the workplace context.
This course will be offered in the second semester of the third year.
Assessment: 40% professional writing practices, 10% tutorial discussions, 50% examination.

Note: Candidates who have not studied the Chinese language during their secondary education or
who have not attained the requisite level of competence in the Chinese language to take
CART9001 may apply for exemption and take a credit-bearing Cantonese or Putonghua
language course offered by the School of Chinese (especially for international and exchange
students), or take an elective course in lieu.

CUND9002. Practical Chinese and Hong Kong society (6 credits)

This course is specifically designed for the students from the Mainland. With Putonghua as the medium
of instruction, it aims to underscore the characteristic styles and formats of practical Chinese writings
in the workplace context in Hong Kong. Topics addressing the rhetorical strategies for reader-oriented
professional writings are included to strengthen the students’ command of the language. In the “Chinese
Characters” component, drilling practices provide ample opportunity for the students to learn to convert
simplified characters into their traditional forms. The evolution of Cantonese and the lexical and
phonetic systems of this dialect will be explored. The local history and culture of Hong Kong will also
be considered. On-site visits are organized to deepen the students’ understanding of local traditions and,
more importantly, to enhance their ability to appreciate and accept cultural and regional differences.
Assessment: 50% coursework, 50% examination.

CUND9003. Cantonese for non-Cantonese speaking students (6 credits)

Through a comparative analysis of Putonghua and Cantonese, this course enables students to learn the
characteristics of Hong Kong Chinese, to discover the differences in vocabulary and expression between
the Cantonese dialect and Mandarin, to strengthen their communication skills in everyday life, and to
have a proper understanding of the culture, traditions and people in Hong Kong.
Assessment: 60% coursework, 40% examination.
 2

ENGLISH LANGUAGE ENHANCEMENT

CAES1000. Core University English (6 credits)

The Core University English (CUE) course aims to enhance first-year students’ academic English
language proficiency in the university context. CUE focuses on developing students’ academic English
language skills for the Common Core Curriculum. These include the language skills needed to
understand and produce spoken and written academic texts, express academic ideas and concepts clearly
and in a well-structured manner and search for and use academic sources of information in their writing
and speaking. Four online-learning modules through the Moodle platform on academic speaking,
academic grammar, academic vocabulary, citation and referencing skills and avoiding plagiarism will
be offered to students to support their English learning. This course will help students to participate
more effectively in their first-year university studies in English, thereby enriching their first-year
experience.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

English-in-the-Discipline (ED) Courses

BA students may take any of the following courses to satisfy the ED requirement. The course
descriptions indicate for which majors each course is most appropriate. More than one course may be
suitable for your major.

CAES9201. Academic English: Countries and Cultures (6 credits)

This course aims to help students develop the English language skills they need to succeed in their
major. The course is open to all BA students, but is most relevant to the needs of students majoring in,
or intending to major in, American Studies, Chinese History and Culture, Chinese Language and
Literature, China Studies, Comparative Literature, European Studies, Fine Arts, Gender Studies, Global
Creative Industries, Hong Kong Studies, Japanese Studies, Korean Studies, a modern language, and
Music. The primary aim of CAES9201 is to enable students to read texts on cultures, history and
politics, and to use a range of rhetorical features to produce persuasive disciplinary essays. The course
has a substantial secondary focus on the development of disciplinary speaking and listening skills.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CAES9202. Academic English: Literary Studies (6 credits)

This course aims to help students develop the English language skills they need to succeed in their
major. The course is open to all BA students, but is most relevant to the needs of students majoring in,
or intending to major in, Comparative Literature, English Studies, Fine Arts, and Translation. The
primary aim of CAES9202 is to enable students to read English fiction and literary criticism, and to use
a range of rhetorical features to produce persuasive disciplinary essays. The course has a substantial
secondary focus on the development of disciplinary speaking and listening skills.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CAES9203. Academic English: Philosophy and the History of Ideas (6 credits)

This course aims to help students develop the English language skills they need to succeed in their
major. The course is open to all BA students, but is most relevant to the needs of students majoring in,
or intending to major in, Philosophy; students of other majors such as Comparative Literature, Chinese
History and Culture, Fine Arts and Gender Studies will find the history of ideas element of the course
 3

useful. The primary aim of CAES9203 is to enable students to read texts on philosophy and the
development of influential, critical ideas (e.g. Marxism, liberalism, critical theory), and to use a range
of analytical and rhetorical techniques to produce persuasive disciplinary essays. The course has a
substantial secondary focus on the development of disciplinary speaking and listening skills.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CAES9204. Academic English: History (6 credits)

This course aims to help students develop the English language skills they need to succeed in their
major. The course is open to all BA students, but is most relevant to the needs of students majoring in,
or intending to major in, American Studies, Chinese History and Culture, China Studies, European
Studies, Fine Arts, Gender Studies, History, Hong Kong Studies, Japanese Studies, Korean Studies, or
Music. The primary aim of CAES9204 is to enable students to read history texts, and to use a range of
rhetorical features to produce persuasive disciplinary essays. The course has a substantial secondary
focus on the development of disciplinary speaking and listening skills.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CAES9205. Academic English: Language Studies (6 credits)

This course aims to help students develop the English language skills they need to succeed in their
major. The course is open to all BA students, but is most relevant to the needs of students majoring in,
or intending to major in, Chinese Language and Literature, English Studies, General Linguistics,
Language and Communication, a modern language, and Translation. The primary aim of CAES9205 is
to enable students to read linguistics and translation texts, and to use a range of rhetorical features to
produce persuasive disciplinary essays. The course has a substantial secondary focus on the
development of disciplinary speaking and listening skills.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CAES9206. Academic English: Creative and Visual Arts (6 credits)

This course aims to help students develop the English language skills they need to succeed in their
major. The course is open to all BA students, but is most relevant to the needs of students majoring in,
or intending to major in, Comparative Literature, Fine Arts, Gender Studies, Global Creative Industries,
and Music. The primary aim of CAES9206 is to enable students to read texts on creative and visual
arts, and to use a range of rhetorical features to produce persuasive disciplinary essays. The course has
a substantial secondary focus on the development of disciplinary speaking and listening skills.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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MAJORS AND MINORS OFFERED BY THE FACULTY OF ARTS

School/Centre Major Minor

School of Chinese –
Chinese History and Culture  
Chinese Language and Literature  
Translation  
School of English –
English Studies  
Language and Communication  
School of Humanities –
Comparative Literature  
Fine Arts  
Gender Studies  
General Linguistics  
History  
Music  
Philosophy  
School of Modern Languages and Cultures –
African Studies 
American Studies  
Arabic 
China Studies (Arts Stream)  
European Studies  
French  
German  
Global Creative Industries  
Greek* 
Hong Kong Studies  
Italian  
Japanese Culture 
Japanese Language 
Japanese Studies 
Korean Studies  
Portuguese 
Spanish  
Swedish 
Thai 
Centre of Buddhist Studies –
Buddhist Studies 

* The programme is temporarily suspended in 2020-21.

 5

SCHOOL OF CHINESE

The School of Chinese offers courses in Chinese language, literature, history, and culture as well as
translation which appeal to those with a particular interest in the study of Chinese and the literary and
cultural interaction with the modern world. Courses are normally taught in Chinese. Students following
these courses will develop a great language and analytical ability combined with a breadth of knowledge
of and cultural and literary approaches in Chinese studies.

In addition, the School contributes to the teaching of the double degree programme of the BA&BEd
(LangEd-Chin) and offers courses to foreign students (refer to Courses for Foreign Students).

Three majors and minors are offered in which students are required to take the prerequisite course(s) in
the specified programme below. In addition, they should also take a certain number of introductory
courses in the first two years and advanced courses in subsequent years.
Students can choose to major or minor in the following programmes:
(i) Chinese Language and Literature
(ii) Chinese History and Culture
(iii) Translation

ASSESSMENT

Each course will be examined by a written paper of not more than 2-hour duration except those courses
which are assessed by 100% coursework.

Not all the courses listed below will be offered every year. Students should refer to the course handbook
for a list of courses on offer each year. The course components for the majors and the minors are as
follows:

Chinese Language and Literature

Major (72 credits)

(A) Prerequisite courses: (12 credits)
(B) Introductory courses: (12 credits)
(C) Advanced courses: (42 credits)
(D) Capstone experience course (6 credits): This is a graduation requirement applicable to majors
which can be fulfilled by taking a course listed under “Capstone experience courses”. It is
designed to allow students to advance their analytical thinking by permitting the application of
disciplinary knowledge and principles learned in their earlier years of studies.

Minor (36 credits)

(A) Prerequisite course: (6 credits)
(B) Introductory courses: (12 credits)
(C) Advanced courses: (18 credits)
No Capstone experience course is required.

(A) Prerequisite courses

Students intending to major in Chinese Language and Literature should complete two prerequisites, one
from each of the following Chinese Language and Chinese Literature prerequisite courses whereas
minors are to complete any one of the prerequisite courses.
 6

Chinese Language Prerequisites

CHIN1116. General introduction to modern Chinese language (6 credits)

This course provides students with a fundamental understanding of modern Chinese, with emphasis on
the study of characters, pronunciations, and grammar. Students are expected to firmly grasp the general
principles of modern Chinese language.
Assessment: 50% coursework, 50% examination.

CHIN1117. General Introduction to classical Chinese language (6 credits)

This course provides a comprehensive introduction to the linguistic features of classical Chinese, laying
special emphasis on the lexical and grammatical aspects. Aside from fundamental theoretical principles,
the course will also foster students’ perceptual knowledge towards the language through reading
representative texts from different periods of time. By completing the course, students are expected to
attain a higher level of competence in classical text reading.
Assessment: 50% coursework, 50% examination.

CHIN1123. The story of Mandarin (6 credits)

This course will introduce students to the history and origin of the historical form of Mandarin—
Guanhua and examine the nature of Guanhua and Mandarin, as well as the relationship and mutual
influence between, Guanhua, Mandarin, Putonghua and the Chinese dialects from the perspective of
Sociolinguistics.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN1127. Introduction to Chinese linguistics (6 credits)

This course makes an introduction to Chinese linguistics through an analysis of Chinese language facts.
The origin, characteristics, operation rules and mechanisms of Chinese are thoroughly introduced so
that students’ understanding of Chinese linguistics can be raised from the perceptual cognition to the
rational cognition. By completing the course, students will also be able to utilize the research skills and
methods to analyze some Chinese facts by obtaining a profound understanding of Chinese linguistics.
Assessment: 60% coursework, 40% examination.

Chinese Literature Prerequisites

CHIN1103. Introduction to standard works in modern Chinese literature (6 credits)

The historical development of modern and contemporary Chinese literature is comprehensively

introduced. The standard works and selected texts of represented writers including Lu Xun, Wu Shi,
Zhang Ailing, and Bai Xianyong will be studied and appreciated through different perspectives.
Assessment: 40% coursework, 60% examination.

CHIN1118. Introduction to classical Chinese literature (6 credits)

This is a fundamental study of classical Chinese literature. It gives a general survey of the literary
development from pre-Qin to the Qing Dynasty and introduces significant writers, including their roles
in the literary development and representative works. There are also discussions on the characteristics
 7

of various literary genres like prose, poetry and fiction in particular dynasties or periods as well as
relevant readings on selected writings. The course is aimed at enriching students’ knowledge and
developing their interest and ability in comprehending, analyzing, appreciating and commenting on
discussed literary topics or issues.
Assessment: 50% coursework, 50% examination.

CHIN1119. Introduction to literary studies (6 credits)

This course introduces students to basic concepts and themes of literature. Through a general survey of
key concepts of literature, this course focuses on promoting students' abilities in comprehending,
analyzing and commenting on Chinese literary works. Students will learn how to define and identify a
range of interpretative approaches in the critical reading on literary texts (i.e. poems, novels, dramas,
etc.). After taking this course, students will gain an analytical ability of reading literary text and nurture
further intellectual curiosity in literature and literary studies.
Assessment: 40% coursework, 60% examination.

CHIN1121. Introduction to contemporary Chinese literature (6 credits)

This course introduces students to the overall development of contemporary Chinese literature since the
1950s, including Hong Kong, Taiwanese and Malaysian Chinese literature, through representative
writers and their works in various forms. The selected works will be critically discussed through 20th
century literary and critical theories, as well as closely examined with regard to the social, cultural and
historical issues and literary movements/schools in contemporary China.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN1126. Introduction to classical Chinese popular literature (6 credits)

Popular literature was a great impetus for the development of literature in traditional China. By
investigating various genres of popular literature with an emphasis on their historical developments,
literary values and social significance, we will revisit the definition and boundary of the so-called
"lowbrow literature" as well as its dialectical relationship with "highbrow literature." The genres to be
examined in this course include folksongs, bianwen (transformation texts), fiction, opera, oral-
performance, etc.
Assessment: 50% coursework, 50% examination.

(B) Introductory courses

CHIN1103. Introduction to standard works in modern Chinese literature (6 credits)

The historical development of modern and contemporary Chinese literature is comprehensively

introduced. The standard works and selected texts of represented writers including Lu Xun, Wu Shi,
Zhang Ailing, and Bai Xianyong will be studied and appreciated through different perspectives.
Assessment: 40% coursework, 60% examination.

CHIN1107. Creative writing (6 credits)

This course aims to foster interest in the great works of modern Chinese literature and to help students
develop and sharpen their writing skills. It examines how writers and readers interact with literary
 8

works in general, and considers how meanings and effects are generated in modern poems, prose, and
fiction in particular.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN1109. Introduction to Chinese women’s literature (6 credits)

This course explores the historical development of Chinese women’s literature from the Qin-Han period
to contemporary China. The impact of various political, social, intellectual factors as well as the western
trends and thoughts on women’s literature are also investigated. The course provides students with an
opportunity to study and appreciate women’s literature in its various forms and styles through the
examination of texts written by the most representative and best known women writers.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN1115. Study of the Confucian canons and modern society (6 credits)

Confucian canons enjoyed a high status in ancient Chinese society. This course provides students with
a fundamental understanding of the classical Confucian canons, and the relationship between canonical
studies and modern society. Students are expected to recognize the modern values of the study of the
Confucian classics.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN1116. General introduction to modern Chinese language (6 credits)

This course provides students with a fundamental understanding of modern Chinese, with emphasis on
the study of characters, pronunciations, and grammar. Students are expected to firmly grasp the general
principles of modern Chinese language.
Assessment: 50% coursework, 50% examination.

CHIN1117. General introduction to classical Chinese language (6 credits)

This course provides a comprehensive introduction to the linguistic features of classical Chinese, laying
special emphasis on the lexical and grammatical aspects. Aside from fundamental theoretical principles,
the course will also foster students’ perceptual knowledge towards the language through reading
representative texts from different periods of time. By completing the course, students are expected to
attain a higher level of competence in classical text reading.
Assessment: 50% coursework, 50% examination.

CHIN1118. Introduction to classical Chinese literature (6 credits)

This is a fundamental study of classical Chinese literature. It gives a general survey of the literary
development from pre-Qin to the Qing Dynasty and introduces significant writers, including their roles
in the literary development and representative works. There are also discussions on the characteristics
of various literary genres like prose, poetry and fiction in particular dynasties or periods as well as
relevant readings on selected writings. The course is aimed at enriching students’ knowledge and
developing their interest and ability in comprehending, analyzing, appreciating and commenting on
discussed literary topics or issues.
Assessment: 50% coursework, 50% examination.
 9

CHIN1119. Introduction to literary studies (6 credits)

This course introduces students to basic concepts and themes of literature. Through a general survey of
key concepts of literature, this course focuses on promoting students' abilities in comprehending,
analyzing and commenting on Chinese literary works. Students will learn how to define and identify a
range of interpretative approaches in the critical reading on literary texts (i.e. poems, novels, dramas,
etc.). After taking this course, students will gain an analytical ability of reading literary text and nurture
further intellectual curiosity in literature and literary studies.
Assessment: 40% coursework, 60% examination.

CHIN1120. Global approaches to Chinese literature (6 credits)

European and American scholars have played a key role in interpreting Chinese culture for a global
audience. While their work has been grounded in Chinese scholarship, they have also offered original
insights and new perspectives. This course aims to introduce key monuments of Chinese literature as
they have been translated and interpreted globally, from the Confucian classics up to Story of the Stone.
Special topics may include comparison between Chinese and Western literary genres, the importance
of material culture, and comparative aesthetics.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN1121. Introduction to contemporary Chinese literature (6 credits)

This course introduces students to the overall development of contemporary Chinese literature since the
1950s, including Hong Kong, Taiwanese and Malaysian Chinese literature, through representative
writers and their works in various forms. The selected works will be critically discussed through 20th
century literary and critical theories, as well as closely examined with regard to the social, cultural and
historical issues and literary movements/schools in contemporary China.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN1122. Chinese literature in the twentieth century (6 credits)

This course aims to provide students with a deep understanding on the study of Chinese literature around
the world in the 20th century. A broad range of key writers, literary works and issues will be introduced
and analyzed. By the end of the course, students will be able to achieve multiple perspectives and
profound understanding of Chinese literature around the world in the 20th century.
Assessment: 40% coursework, 60% examination.

CHIN1123. The story of Mandarin (6 credits)

This course will introduce students to the history and origin of the historical form of Mandarin—
Guanhua and examine the nature of Guanhua and Mandarin, as well as the relationship and mutual
influence between, Guanhua, Mandarin, Putonghua and the Chinese dialects from the perspective of
Sociolinguistics.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN1124. Chinese dialects and sociolinguistics (6 credits)

The course will introduce the basic issues and methodology in the research of the modern Chinese
dialects. The focus will be on how comparative description is used to uncover clues to dialect
 10

relationship and historical development, and on the sociolinguistic implications of the dialects in
relationship to each other and to modern standard Mandarin. Special attention will also be paid to
questions of how social history, geography, and population movement affect dialect history. Spoken
Chinese has been characterized by great diversity for most of China's history. This course will use the
diversity of the modern Chinese dialects as a lens through which to view and understand the diversity
of the Chinese languages in earlier times.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN1125. Trends of modern Chinese literary thoughts (6 credits)

This course will introduce students to the history of modern Chinese literature by focusing on some of
its major trends over the time span of a century. It will be organized around such topics as the genesis
of modern Chinese New Literature 新文學, the inner tensions between modernity and tradition, the
literary and the political, the individual and the collective, the aesthetic and the ethical; the transition
from literary revolution to revolutionary literature; literature under socialist China and after the Cultural
Revolution. One of its focuses is to show the non-linear landscapes of modern Chinese romanticism,
realism and modernism and so on. The goal of this course is for students to gain an overall understanding
of the development of modern Chinese literary trends, identify the most core issues, and appreciate its
cultural importance, complexity and problematics.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN1126. Introduction to classical Chinese popular literature (6 credits)

Popular literature was a great impetus for the development of literature in traditional China. By
investigating various genres of popular literature with an emphasis on their historical developments,
literary values and social significance, we will revisit the definition and boundary of the so-called
"lowbrow literature" as well as its dialectical relationship with "highbrow literature." The genres to be
examined in this course include folksongs, bianwen (transformation texts), fiction, opera, oral-
performance, etc.
Assessment: 50% coursework, 50% examination.

CHIN1127. Introduction to Chinese linguistics (6 credits)

This course makes an introduction to Chinese linguistics through an analysis of Chinese language facts.
The origin, characteristics, operation rules and mechanisms of Chinese are thoroughly introduced so
that students’ understanding of Chinese linguistics can be raised from the perceptual cognition to the
rational cognition. By completing the course, students will also be able to utilize the research skills and
methods to analyze some Chinese facts by obtaining a profound understanding of Chinese linguistics.
Assessment: 60% coursework, 40% examination.

CHIN2121. Prose up to the nineteenth century (6 credits)

This course acquaints students with important writers and works of the Chinese classical prose from the
pre-Qin till the end of the Qing periods. It emphasizes two areas of learning: First, a general landscape
of the development of prose writing including its major theories and trends; and, second, close reading
of selected texts, with particular attention to the styles, structures, images, and uses of rhetorical devices.
Assessment: 40% coursework, 60% examination.
 11

CHIN2123. Shi poetry up to the nineteenth century (6 credits)

This course covers the body of classical shi poetry, its characteristic techniques, and major practitioners
from Western Han to late Qing (nineteenth century). Diverse methods will be employed, such as
historical, biographical, and hermeneutical criticism. Broad thematic concerns are also presented,
including “Gender and identity”, “Humanizing Nature”, and “Creativity versus Imitation”.
Assessment: 40% coursework, 60% examination.

CHIN2125. Ci poetry up to the nineteenth century (6 credits)

This course provides a general survey of the ci poetry from its beginning in the Tang period to the Qing
period, with special emphasis on the Song period, which is considered the golden age in the history of
this literary genre. Students taking this course are expected to gain a sound knowledge of the
development of the ci poetry from the eighth century to the nineteenth century. Its various forms and
styles are examined through specimens taken from the most representative as well as best known authors.
Assessment: 40% coursework, 60% examination.

CHIN2127. Classical Chinese fiction (6 credits)

Based on an overview of the development of Chinese classical fiction from the Wei-Jin period to the
late Qing, participants in this course will explore the defining characteristics, forms, and genres of
traditional Chinese fictional narrative. Key examples from Tang chuanqi (short tales), Song and Yuan
huaben (short stories), and the classical and vernacular fiction of the Ming and Qing dynasties will be
studied with the aim of deepening understanding and appreciation of these forms. Attention will also
be given to problems of editions, bibliographical and reference resources, as well as recent Chinese and
foreign language advances in scholarship.
Assessment: 40% coursework, 60% examination.

(C) Advanced courses

CHIN2122. Prose: selected writers (6 credits)

Aimed at developing students’ ability to interpret and appreciate traditional Chinese sanwen (free
essays), this course will focus on the sanwen of Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan from the Tang dynasty, as
well as Su Shi from the Song. In order to strengthen students’ appreciation of the role of this form in
the development of Chinese culture and literature we will: 1) discuss and analyze the literary
achievements of Han, Liu, and Su and the significance of the judgment that with Han Yu “literary
standards were reinstated after eight dynasties of decline” both in terms of Tang-Song writing and the
writing of later periods, 2) engage in a systematic reading of their representative sanwen works, 3)
consider recent approaches to their place in Chinese literary history.
Assessment: 40% coursework, 60% examination.

CHIN2124. Shi poetry: selected writers (6 credits)

This course provides a detailed study of the shi poetry of one or two of the following: Cao Zhi, Tao
Qian, Xie Lingyun, Wang Wei, Li Bai, Du Fu, Han Yu, Li Shangyin, Su Shi, and Huang Tingjian.
Students taking this course are expected to demonstrate a sound knowledge of the shi poetry covered
and a general ability to describe and analyze poetic styles in the examination.
Assessment: 40% coursework, 60% examination.
 12

CHIN2126. Ci poetry: selected writers (6 credits)

This course provides a detailed study of the ci poetry of one or two of the following: Liu Yong, Su Shi,
Zhou Bangyan, Xin Qiji, and Jiang Kui - the Five Great Masters of the ci poetry of the Song period.
The course will consider the individual achievements and influences of the poets; their contemporaries
will also be discussed.
Assessment: 45% coursework, 55% examination.

CHIN2130. Modern Chinese literature (1917-1949): fiction (6 credits)

This course is a study of modern Chinese fiction from 1917 to 1949. The historical development of
modern Chinese fiction will be introduced and the impacts of western literary trends or thoughts on
fiction writers will also be explored. In addition, representative short stories and novels of different
schools will be appreciated and studied in depth.
Assessment: 40% coursework, 60% examination.

CHIN2132. Contemporary Chinese literature (since 1949): fiction (6 credits)

This course is a study of contemporary Chinese fiction in Mainland China since 1949. The historical
development of contemporary Chinese fiction will be introduced and the influential factors such as
political ideology or economic policy that interfered with the creation of fiction will also be illustrated.
In addition, representative fictional works which were published before or after the Cultural Revolution
will be deeply discussed.
Assessment: 40% coursework, 60% examination.

CHIN2136. Classical Chinese literary criticism (6 credits)

This course provides a general survey of classical Chinese literary criticism.

Assessment: 40% coursework, 60% examination.

CHIN2138. Chinese etymology (6 credits)

This course introduces students to some of the essential features of the Chinese characters, the principles
underlying their construction, and the evolution of many of these characters.
Assessment: 50% coursework, 50% examination.

CHIN2139. Chinese phonology (6 credits)

This course provides a detailed study of Chinese phonology. Topics covered include introduction to
general phonetics, history of Chinese phonology, nature of Qieyun (切韻), rhyme books and rhyme
tables, and the reconstruction of Middle Chinese. The focus of this course is on Middle Chinese, but
phonology of Old Chinese and Old Mandarin will also be introduced. Students are expected to gain a
sound knowledge of various methods used in historical phonology and understand the rules governing
sound changes from Middle Chinese to Modern Mandarin and Cantonese.
Assessment: 40% coursework, 60% examination.
 13

CHIN2145. Chinese theatre during the Yuan, Ming, and Qing periods (6 credits)

This course introduces to students the most important times in the development of pre-modern Chinese
theatre, namely, the Yuan, Ming, and Qing periods. It surveys the rich theatrical traditions flourishing
during these times, including: the Yuan variety plays and Southern plays; the Ming and Qing chuanqi
plays; and the Qing regional popular theatre. It also guides students in reading/viewing and interpreting
the most well-known scenes from the plays -- as both texts and stage performances.
Assessment: 50% coursework, 50% examination.

CHIN2146. The “sickly beauties”: gender and illness in late imperial China (6 credits)

This course looks into a cultural ideal that continued to hold the Chinese imagination across the late
imperial times, namely, the “sickly beauty” or the bing meiren 病美人. It introduces students to
interdisciplinary approaches to understanding the construction of this ideal in the full contexts of its
time - in particular, how the conceptualizations of gender and of illness converged in late imperial China.
It aims, in this way, to help students become aware of important cultural mentalities and literary trends
that shaped people’s perceptions of gender and of their gendered selves during this time.
A variety of literary and cultural texts from this period, including poetry, fiction, biji writings, theatrical
performances, paintings, and medical treatises, will be employed to illustrate the discussion. A
comparative perspective – e.g. how discourses of gender and illness converged in Victorian England -
will also enrich the discussion when necessary.
Assessment: 50% coursework, 50% examination.

CHIN2147. Reading of classical Chinese texts (6 credits)

This course provides a close study of one or more of the following classical texts: Shijing 詩經, Chuci
楚辭, Zuozhuan 左傳, Zhuangzi 莊子, Zhaoming Wenxuan 昭明文選 etc., engaging various techniques
of scholarship and criticism.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2149. Chinese language from social perspectives (6 credits)

This course focuses on the study of the use of Chinese language from social perspectives, with particular
reference to Mainland China and Hong Kong. The linguistic phenomena, characteristics, and
development are examined. It enables students to understand the relationship between language and
society, and the linguistic and social factors affecting the use of Chinese language as a communicative
tool in society.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2151. Gender and sexuality in Ming and Qing fiction (6 credits)

Sexuality and gender are inevitably bound up with the world of fictional narrative and they thus provide
a valuable entry into the interpretation of traditional fiction and its relation to social history. Reading
and analysis will focus on selections from six novels from the Ming and Qing and their comparison will
form the basis for discussion of six themes related to gender and sexuality in late imperial Chinese
society. Students will be required to address three of the themes in three essays each consisting of
approximately 2000 Chinese characters and developing an original analysis.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
 14

CHIN2152. Literature, modernity and nation in twentieth-century China (6 credits)

This course offers a general introduction for students to the literary history of China from the late Qing
and Republican periods, to the current state of Chinese literature. It will be conducted chronologically
and organized according to certain themes. After looking at general issues, certain literary thoughts and
the works of selected writers will then be examined. Breaking the traditional 1949 division, the students
will be introduced to the literature produced in the second half of the twentieth century, and the
important scholarship in the field of modern Chinese literature.
Assessment: 60% coursework, 40% examination.

CHIN2153. Sinophone literature and film (6 credits)

As a result of Chinese diaspora and increasing global cultural interactions, scholars have proposed
various analytical frameworks to remap the current field of Chinese-language literature and film. The
concept of “sinophone” is such an attempt which celebrates the diverse expressions of “chineseness”
and underscores the local particularities in which each Chinese-language or film is produced. This
course offers students an opportunity to study selected sinophone literary works (by writers residing
primarily in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the west) and films, and to explore and challenge existing notions
of nationalism, cultural identity, and linguistic authenticity.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2154. Taiwan literature from the Japanese colonial period to the 1990s (6 credits)

The first half of the twentieth century was a time of unprecedented upheaval and change in Taiwan;
after Japan’s colonial rule, the Nationalist government took over, beginning the period of martial law
(1949-1987) as well as a series of re-Sinification projects to enhance its political legitimacy. Following
the Nationalist Party’s localization and the lifting of martial law, the society underwent a rapid
transformation and literary writing in Taiwan exhibited unprecedented vitality and diversity in the
1980s and 1990s. This course provides an introduction to the literature from Taiwan in the twentieth
century. It covers both the Japanese colonial and the post-war periods, with a focus on short stories and
novels. The dynamics between politics (particularly the colonial control, the Nationalist government’s
policies, and the recent indigenization discourse) and literature through reading a variety of selected
texts will be explored.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2155. Topical studies of Sinophone literature (6 credits)

This course will introduce students to some of the most critical issues in the study of Sinophone
literature—Sinitic-language or Huayu literature from around the world. Organized around such topics
as conceptions of Chineseness, race and ethnic relations, cultural translation, multilingualism, diaspora
and transnationalism, and politics of identity, we will read select Sinophone literary works from Asia
(Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore), Europe (France and England), and the United States.
The goal of this class is for students to gain understanding of Sinophone literature while learning about
some of the most critical issues in literary studies.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
 15

CHIN2156. Topical studies of literary theory (6 credits)

This course will introduce students to major issues and debates in literary theory from China to the
West. Topics to be covered include Marxism and literature, postcolonial theory, feminism, modernism
versus realism, transnationalism, and world literature.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2157. Topical studies of ethnic minority literature from China (6 credits)

By official count, Chinese population consists of fifty-six ethnic groups, but the study of Chinese
literature is dominated by the study of literary texts written by Han writers. Many minority nationality
writers, such as Tibetans, Uyghurs, Mongolians, the Miao, and the Manchu, have all written very
important works of literature. This course will explore some of the major texts of ethnic minority
literature from China and consider such issues as bilingualism, ethnicity, otherness, and empire.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2159. Chinese documentation (6 credits)

This course provides a comprehensive introduction to Chinese documentation, including formation and
forms of Chinese documents, bibliography (mulu xue 目錄學), edition studies(banben xue 版本學) and
textual criticism(jiaokan xue 校勘學). It examines the formation, nature, spread and evolution of ancient
texts to illustrate the key issues in Chinese documentation. In order to enhance students’ research
capability in Chinese studies, this course also emphasizes the relationship of Chinese documentation to
other research areas such as philology, literature and ancient thought studies.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2162. Cantonese linguistics (6 credits)

This course provides students with a fundamental understanding of the phonological, morphological
and syntactic structures of Cantonese. The linguistic differences between Cantonese and Modern
Standard Chinese will be examined. Students are expected to utilize relevant reference books and
materials for further independent study.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2164. The Analects and Chinese culture (6 credits)

The Analects, or Lunyu 論語, is the representative work of Confucianism and has a tremendous
influence on the development of Chinese culture. This course will study the text from a broad range of
perspectives. It will first examine the philological and historical issues related to the text, such as its
style and structure, time of compilation, transmission, and major commentaries. Moreover, through a
detailed study of the original text, students will be introduced to the life of Confucius and the essence
of his teachings. Given the wide range of subjects covered in the Analects, this course will further
investigate its relationship to traditional Chinese culture as well as its value to modern Chinese society.
Assessment: 50% coursework, 50% examination.

CHIN2168. Modern Chinese grammar (6 credits)

This course offers a comprehensive study on the morphology and syntax of Modern Chinese language.
The characteristics and development of Modern Chinese grammar are also discussed. The course is
 16

aimed at promoting students’ understanding of the structural rules and relationships in Modern Chinese
as well as their abilities in applying their grammatical knowledge to make analyses and comments on
grammatical errors and significant grammatical issues.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2169. Modern Chinese rhetoric (6 credits)

This course offers a study on the principles, devices, expressive effects and development of rhetoric in
Modern Chinese. In addition to an intensive study on various types of figures of speech, topics like
sonic rhetoric, rhetoric of words, sentences and paragraphs, style and rhetoric, and rhetoric in daily life
are discussed with concrete examples. The course is aimed at enriching student’s rhetorical knowledge,
enabling them to analyze and comment critically on significant rhetorical issues, and promoting their
abilities in the appreciation and application of different rhetorical devices.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2170. Study of Zuo Zhuan (6 credits)

This course provides students with a fundamental understanding of Zuo Zhuan's authorship, style,
nature, literary features as well as its relationship with the Spring and Autumn Annals (Chunqiu) and
other classics of the Confucian canon.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2171. Women's autobiographical writing in late Imperial China (6 credits)

This course examines the varied textual forms and genres in which women engaged to produce
autobiographical writings during the flourishing of women's literary culture in the Ming and Qing
periods in the context of theories on and approaches to the study of life narratives.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2172. Hong Kong literature (6 credits)

This course introduces students to the development of Hong Kong Literature from the 1920s through
representative writers and their works in various genres. The selected works will be closely examined
in relation to their cultural and historical contexts. The cultural production and literary connections
between Hong Kong, Mainland China and the world will also be highlighted to increase the student’s
awareness of Hong Kong’s unique cultural fluidity and hybridity.
Assessment: 50% coursework, 50% examination.
Non-permissible combination with HKGS2014

CHIN2173. Topical studies of classical Chinese fiction (6 credits)

This course aims at providing students with a detailed study on one or more selected works of the
classical Chinese fiction. A broad range of key issues under specific topics will be introduced. By
completing the course, students will obtain a profound understanding of the selected works from
different perspectives. They will also be able to utilize their research skills and methods to analyze and
interpret some major texts in classical Chinese fiction.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
 17

CHIN2174. Literature in Late Qing and Early Republican China (6 credits)

Focusing on literary works since 1840s, this course examines new changes of classical-style literature
in the turbulent late Qing and early Republican era. Influenced by Western ideology and culture,
Chinese literature during this period has experienced fierce conflicts between new ideas and literary
forms. This course selects representative authors and works within different genres, such as poetry,
prose and fiction as case studies, in order to evaluate the significance of literary reforms during late
Qing and early Republican period. Based on recent research outputs and approaches, students will learn
to rethink the value of classical style in the transformation of Chinese literature.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2175. Historical-Comparative Linguistics and Chinese Dialectology (6 credits)

The course will provide a solid foundation and background in the descriptive and theoretical linguistic
(including phonetic and phonological) issues that are relevant to in-depth application of comparative
historical linguistics to the study of Chinese dialect history of the middle and late periods. The focus is
on how the linguistic history is comparatively reflected in Mandarin, Wú and Cantonese, with particular
emphasis on how the study of historical comparative methodology can be used in understanding
historical forms of Chinese. Topics to be covered include the formation and development of early
phonological knowledge in China, modern historical-comparative linguistic methodology, common
dialect phonology, and the history of the pronunciation of Chinese in the Chinese dialects in general.
The course will survey traditional Chinese descriptive methods reflected in texts of the Yuán through
Qīng periods. Students will learn how the diverse historical forms of Chinese that underlie these texts
are, or are not, reflected in the present-day Chinese languages and how those features are, or are not,
reflected in Mandarin, Wú and Cantonese.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2176. Chinese Children's Literature (6 credits)

Children’s literature is the literature for children, which is expected to encourage young reader’s
cognitive, linguistic and psychological development; it might as well to possess a didactic purpose in
response to the society’s high hopes for children. Such expectations have a profound effect on the genre,
writing style, narration, character development and aesthetic style of children’s literature, making it
very different from adult’s literature. Although China has a long tradition of elucidating the uninitiated
by learning primers, children’s literature only emerged during the May Forth Movement (the period
during 1915–1921), when the intellects “rediscovered” and “redefined” childhood. In this course,
Children’s literature from various periods of time and different regions in China will be analysed and
their relationship with social environment will be explored. The course will also discuss some key
questions in Chinese children’s literature, for example, are children “little adults”? Does Chinese
children’s literature even exist? How do writers express children’s innocence and happiness in literature?
Must children’s literature be educational? Is children’s literature able to expose the dark side of
humanity? Students are expected to learn the significance of children’s literature through fiction for the
youngsters.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2177. Chinese Lexicology (6 credits)

This course aims at providing students with a detailed study of Chinese lexicology. A broad range of
key issues under specific topics such as the origin, structure, composition, classification, development
and change of Chinese lexical system will be introduced. By completing the course, students will obtain
a profound understanding of modern Chinese lexicology as well as ancient Chinese lexicology. They
 18

will also be able to utilize their research skills and methods to analyze and interpret some major topics
in Chinese lexicology.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2178. Topical studies of modern Chinese literature (6 credits)

This course offers students an overview of the literary works of one or more writers in modern
Chinese literature. It examines a variety of issues related to a specific topic from a wide range of
perspectives. By the end of the course, students will not only acquire the ability of close reading on
modern Chinese literary works, but also learn literary criticism, as well as develop a comprehensive
understanding of the history of modern Chinese literature.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2179. Topical studies of classical Chinese popular literature (6 credits)

This course examines one or two genres in classical Chinese popular literature, like classical drama,
folksongs, and oral-performance etc., with a focus on the seminal works or major writers in the genres
we study. Through a close reading of the texts and an intensive engagement with specific topics, this
course will guide students to identify the literary, artistic and cultural values of the selected works.
Students are expected to enhance their analytical skills and enlarge their academic horizons in classical
Chinese popular literature.
Assessment: 50% coursework, 50% examination.

CHIN2180. Topical studies of classical Chinese literature (6 credits)

This course aims at providing students with a detailed study on some selected works of the classical
Chinese literary works. A broad range of key issues under specific topics will be introduced. By
completing the course, students will obtain a profound understanding of the selected works from
different perspectives. They will also be able to utilize their research skills and methods to analyze and
interpret some major texts in classical Chinese literary works.
Assessment: 40% coursework, 60% examination.

CHIN2190. Field trip on Chinese language, literature, and culture (6 credits)

This is an experiential learning course which provides students with the valuable experience of
exploring and investigating Chinese language, literature, and culture outside Hong Kong. Unlike
traditional classroom learning, students of this course will participate in a field trip to a major city
such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou for two to three weeks aiming to understand and analyse
the diverse issues relating to the local use of language, literary development, and cultural heritage.
Associated with lectures introducing the key theoretical concepts and methodologies, students will
conduct field research through activities like visiting former residences of writers and scholars,
significant literary locations, museums and historical sites, libraries and archives, and undertaking
linguistic interviews. By examining the first-hand sources, students will present their empirical
findings in group discussions, reports, and a research paper. Location and the major theme of the field
trip may vary in different academic years and will be jointly determined by the School of Chinese and
the co-host university.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
 19

(D) Capstone experience course

CHIN4101. Topical research in Chinese language and literature (capstone experience) (6

credits)

This is a capstone course intended to be offered to the Chinese language and literature majors in their
fourth year of studies. It focuses on an integration and application of knowledge and skills that students
have acquired in their earlier years of studies. There is no formal lecture or tutorial but students are
required to undertake and complete a topical research in the field of Chinese language and literature
under the supervision of their advisers.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHINESE HISTORY AND CULTURE

Major (72 credits)

(A) Prerequisite course: (6 credits)
(B) Introductory courses: (18 credits)
(C) Advanced courses: (42 credits)
(D) Capstone experience course (6 credits): This is a graduation requirement applicable to majors
which can be fulfilled by taking a course listed under “Capstone experience courses”. It is
designed to allow students to advance their analytical thinking by permitting the application of
disciplinary knowledge and principles learned in their earlier years of studies.

Students majoring in Chinese History and Culture may take HIST2003, HIST2004 and HIST2018
to fulfill the credit requirements.

Minor (36 credits)

(A) Prerequisite course: (6 credits)
(B) Introductory courses: (12 credits)
(C) Advanced courses: (18 credits)
No Capstone experience course is required.

(A) Prerequisite course: any course with a prefix CHIN12XX.

(B) Introductory courses

CHIN1201. Topical studies of Chinese history (6 credits)

The course explores a set of interrelated topics on several major aspects in pre-modern Chinese history,
including politics, society, thought, and religion. It provides students with comprehensive knowledge
of the key institutions, events, and figures within a broader historical context. Through in-depth analysis
and discussion, fundamental methods in reading and criticism of different types of historical sources
will also be introduced. In addition, the course goes beyond the limits of mainstream historiography
and leads students to examine some important non-Chinese factors that have contributed to the
transformation of Chinese society over time.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN1202. Introduction to the study of Chinese history (6 credits)

This is a foundation course in the development of Chinese history and historiography.

Assessment: 100% coursework.
 20

CHIN1203. Chinese history and culture in the twentieth century (6 credits)

The course gives a brief survey of the transformation and reformation of Chinese history and examines
the major cultural changes since 1900.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN1205. Chinese history: a general survey (6 credits)

This course introduces Chinese political, social, and economic history from early times to the present
century. Its purpose is to enlighten students about the development of autarchy by the imperial dynasties
ruling China and to explore the methods of rule and the development of the education system that were
to produce despotism in China.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN1206. Introduction to Chinese thought (6 credits)

This course provides a broad overview of traditional Chinese thought. The emphasis will be on the
teachings of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, but other schools of thought such as Mohism and
Legalism will also be taught. Students will be introduced to the foundations of Chinese thought and
will critically analyze its essential features. The relevance of traditional Chinese thought to the modern
world will also be discussed.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN1207. Traditional Chinese culture (6 credits)

This course introduces the general characteristics of traditional Chinese culture giving special emphasis
to the theory that man, being an integral part of nature, is in harmony with nature. It also explores some
important aspects of traditional Chinese culture including science and technology in ancient China, the
leisure activities of Chinese intellectuals, and the influence of Buddhism and Christianity on Chinese
culture.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN1211. Economic and social development in China (6 credits)

Agriculture is important to the economic and social development of Imperial China and a decline in
agricultural growth and its land policies may be regarded detrimental to the social and economic
stability in China. However, a number of other factors are closely related to these changes. Among
them are the increase of domestic and international trading activities on silk, tea, keramic, and porcelain
starting from the 5th century onwards. Besides, the rise of light industries, which is largely
underestimated by historians, also contributed to the growth of economy in Imperial China. The purpose
of this course is to study the various forces leading to the social and economic changes in China and the
effects of these changes.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
 21

CHIN1212. History of imperial China (6 credits)

This is an introductory course for students to have a fundamental knowledge in traditional Chinese
history. The course will give a brief account of the rise and fall of Chinese dynasties and the political
crises that are cataclysmic to the empires. It covers the period from ancient to late Imperial China. The
main theme will focus on the characteristic portrayals of Chinese emperors as well as the political
influences of eunuchs, empresses, and their family members, etc.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN1213. Folklore and modern Chinese culture (6 credits)

This course explores a set of prominent aspects in Chinese folklore, including myths, folktales, folk
songs, folk performances and arts, folk architectures, folk rituals, and festivals, which have in many
ways affected modern Chinese culture and social life. It introduces major theories in folklore, literature,
and cultural criticism to help students reflect on the essential features of Chinese folk culture and its
persistence through the eventful social and political transformations of China during the 20th century.
Students will also take part in relevant experiential learning activities through site visits and field
investigations.
This is an intensive summer course in two to three weeks, offered in collaboration with a partner
institution in Mainland China or Taiwan. All course activities are conducted at the partner institution.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN1214. Chinese and western cultures: a comparative study (6 credits)

This course introduces a critical approach to the comparison of Chinese and Western traditional cultures
in a wide variety of aspects, encompassing the ideas in relation to the origin of the universe, life and
death, human nature, mythology, epistemology, politics, economic activities, ethics, social structure,
relation of two sexes and law. The emphasis dwells on the system of values of the two distinct cultures,
and to what extent environmental factors contribute to the psychological differences. A number of
prominent issues raised by modern scholars will be addressed, including the absence of monotheism,
scientific revolution and epic poetry in historical China. The course discusses in particular the heated
and acrimonious debates on Chinese and Western civilizations in the New Culture Movement as well
as during the 1960s in Taiwan. In view of the rapid globalization in the contemporary world, students
are encouraged to reflect on concepts like multiculturalism and cultural relativism, and the possible
forms of intercultural dialogues.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN1215. History of Religions in Imperial China (6 credits)

The aim of this course is to provide students with comprehensive knowledge on the historical
development of indigenous and foreign religions in China during the imperial era. The sacred texts,
doctrines and leading figures of the major religions concerned are introduced, and the relationships
among religion, society and dynastic rule discussed. Emphasis is placed on training students in the
reading of first-hand Chinese historical sources.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2231. Religious Daoism and popular religions in China (6 credits)

This course gives an overview of the historical development of religious Daoism and Chinese popular
religions and examines the religious practice of Taoist worship and its cultural significance in China
 22

from the early medieval times to the present.

Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2241. History of Chinese civilization (6 credits)

This course examines the development of the concept of Chinese culture in relation to the historical
interactions between the Han ethnicity and its neighboring ethnic groups. Through the examination of
such topics as food, game, clothing, philology, and literature, students will be asked to consider the
influence of cultural exchange on China’s changing political environment from dynasty to dynasty, as
well as to address the question of whether such influences are unilateral (from China proper to its
neighbors) or bilateral.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

(C) Advanced courses

CHIN2220. History of the pre-Qin period (6 credits)

The pre-Qin period is typically known for its prolonged social and political upheaval. This course
explores the political and socio-economic issues that give rise to a series of changes significant for the
period. Students will be trained to identify the underlying causes of political disorder, and to examine
the social and intellectual developments which have a great effect on the imperial history of China from
the Qin dynasty onward. Students are also encouraged to think critically and to develop research skills
in analyzing relevant primary sources.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2221. History of the Qin and Han periods (6 credits)

This course explores important issues reflecting the most significant changes in different aspects
(political, institutional, social, and intellectual, etc.) during the Qin and Han periods. Students are
encouraged to think critically on prevailing views over these issues and are challenged to develop their
own observations and judgments by consulting relevant primary sources.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2222. History of the Wei, Jin and the Northern-and-Southern periods (6 credits)

The Wei, Jin, and the Northern-and-Southern Dynasties are often considered a period of disorder and
fragmentation. However, cultural pluralism is a prevailing characteristic of this period. This course aims
to explore the social, political, intellectual, and institutional organizations of the time and to trace the
fluctuating dynamics of these complex and often puzzling interrelationships.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2223. History of the Sui and Tang periods (6 credits)

This course aims at investigating the shifting political environment and changes in cultural ideologies
during the Sui and the Tang Dynasty.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
 23

CHIN2224. History of the Song and Yuan periods (6 credits)

This course deals with the dynastic histories of China from the tenth century to the fourteenth century.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2225. History of the Ming period (6 credits)

This course explores important issues reflecting the most significant changes in different aspects
(political, institutional, social, and intellectual, etc.) during the Ming period. Students are encouraged
to think critically on prevailing views over these issues and are challenged to develop their own
observations and judgments by consulting relevant sources in Ming history.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2226. History of the Qing period (6 credits)

This course deals with the dynastic history of China from the seventeenth century to the twentieth
century.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2233. History of the Chinese legal system (6 credits)

This course examines the main features and development of the legal systems from ancient time to the
present in China.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2234. History of Chinese political institutions (6 credits)

This course examines the main features and the development of political institutions from ancient time
to the present in China.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2235. Sources and methodology (6 credits)

This course intends to provide a thorough training in research methodology related to the study of
Chinese history. The ideas of noted ancient and contemporary Chinese historians will be drawn on.
Particular emphasis is placed on the use of reference works and information search through internet.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2243. History of Chinese science and civilization (6 credits)

This course aims to investigate the importance of Chinese scientific thought and culture from the pre-
Qin period to the early twentieth century.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
 24

CHIN2245. Examination systems in Chinese history (6 credits)

This course examines the theories and means of selecting men of talent, as well as the development of
the examination systems in China.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2246. Historical writings: texts and styles (6 credits)

This course aims to lead students to develop an in-depth understanding of some of the most
fundamentally important texts in traditional Chinese historical writings. One or more of the following
will be selected for close study in each semester:
(i) Shiji
(ii) Hanshu
(iii) Hou Hanshu
(iv) Sanguozhi
(v) Shitong
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2251. Chinese philosophy I: Confucianism (6 credits)

This course examines the major philosophical texts of the Confucian tradition, particularly those of the
pre-Qin period like the Analects, the Mengzi, and the Xunzi. The key questions and ideas of
Confucianism will be discussed and analyzed so that students can appreciate not only the common
concerns and shared ideas of Confucianism but also different responses to similar questions. Students
will also be encouraged to reflect critically on the validity and significance of Confucian thought.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2252. Chinese philosophy II: Daoism (6 credits)

This course studies the major philosophical texts of the Daoist tradition, with a focus on the Dao De
Jing and the Zhuangzi. Through a detailed exploration of the original texts, students will be led to
appreciate and evaluate the metaphysical, ethical, social, and political ideas of Laozi and Zhuangzi.
Students will also be encouraged to reflect critically on the contemporary relevance of the Daoist
thought.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2253. Chinese philosophy III: Buddhism (6 credits)

This course examines the main streams of Indian Buddhist thought and their development in China.
Students will be introduced to the basic tenets of Buddhism, especially those of the original Buddhism.
The major schools of Mahayana Buddhism and their influence on Chinese Buddhism will be examined.
The three major schools of Chinese Buddhism, Tiantai, Huayan, and Chan, will be studied in more
details to help students gain a firm understanding of Chinese Buddhist philosophy.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2254. Christianity and Chinese culture (6 credits)

The course presents a historical survey on the spread of Christianity in China from the seventh century
to the present day. It analyzes the multi-faceted impacts of Christianity and Western culture on Chinese
 25

society. Special attention will be paid to the diversified evangelical strategies adopted by missionaries
in China, as well as layers of reactions from native (or indigenized) religions. By looking at the complex
role of Christianity in both global and Chinese contexts, the course offers students a refreshing angle to
better understand the dynamics of Chinese religious and cultural life over time.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2255. Chinese intellectual history (Part I) (6 credits)

This course deals with the main intellectual trends in China from the Qin-Han to the Sui-Tang period.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2256. Chinese intellectual history (Part II) (6 credits)

This course deals with the main intellectual trends in China from the Song period to the Qing period.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2259. History of Chinese historiography (6 credits)

This course explores some important issues of historical writing and historiography in traditional China
with reference to the development of historical writing, the organization of historiography institutes,
and the influence of emperors on historiography.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2264. Chinese eroticism (6 credits)

This course examines the rise of eroticism in traditional China. It aims to account for the rapid growth
of eroticism in China. Through an analysis of classic texts and drawings, arts and culture in different
periods, students can gain insights into the development of sexual inequality and the change of female
status in traditional China.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2266. History education and Chinese culture (6 credits)

This course examines the main features and development of history education and its relationship with
Chinese culture from ancient time to the present in China. Special emphasis will be on its relationship
and interrelationship with the development of Chinese culture.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2268. History of China-West cultural exchanges (6 credits)

This course explores China’s encounters with the West from the seventh century to the early twentieth
century. It presents a series of case studies on Sino-Western exchanges in the cultural domain. Major
topics will be discussed through an interdisciplinary approach to bring together several fields in religion,
philosophy, ethics, arts, and sciences. The course also offers a cross-cultural perspective that goes
beyond the limitations of traditional Euro-centric and/or China-centered views.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
 26

CHIN2269. History of the Ming-Qing transition (6 credits)

This course will give an in-depth discussion on the historical arena relating to the development of
traditional Chinese culture during the period of the Ming-Qing transition. It deals with the history of
the Ming-Qing dynastic change in seventeenth-century China, focusing on the political, socio-economic,
and cultural changes as well as the impact these had on the mentality of the Ming-Qing literati and on
Chinese thought more generally.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2272. School education in Chinese history (6 credits)

This course examines the main features and development of school education from ancient time to the
present in China. Special emphasis will be on its role for nurturing men of talent in Chinese history.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2273. Socio-economic history of China (6 credits)

Agriculture played a more predominant role than mercantile activities in ancient China especially in
times of war and famine. Merchants used to be important supporters for government in economic
declines but they were at the lowest rank of the traditional caste system and neglected by intellectuals
who largely occupied the upper and the ruling class. Through an investigation of the social and
economic developments of imperial and modern China, this course helps to explore the dynamics of
socio-economic factors in shaping the transformation of the country.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2274. History of material culture (6 credits)

This course is a study of human evolution and cultural history from ancient to modern China. It covers
topics which vary from a general introduction of archaeology and social anthropology to an orientation
of cultural geography that gives rise to a variety of cultural differences in the appreciation of food,
clothing, and architecture. Through an intensive study of the basic necessities of traditional living and
narration on folklore, it examines the interchange of material culture between various ethnic groups in
China and between East and West.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2275. The culture of flower in China (6 credits)

This course provides an overview of flower culture in China. The characteristics of flowers in various
cultural aspects will be examined.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2276. Religions on the Silk Road in ancient times (6 credits)

This course examines the major features and developments of the prominent religions on the Silk Road
from remote antiquity down to the Tang Dynasty, including nature worship, shamanism, Zoroastrianism,
Buddhism, Nestorian Christianity and Manichaeism. The Silk Road connected most of the important
civilizations of Eurasia and constituted essentially the intersection point of the religions from different
areas. What attracts our attention in particular is that most of these religions were indigenized and
changed into new forms in this region. Needless to say, the cultural legacy of the religions on the Silk
 27

Road is incredibly immense and can be seen in the luxurious and splendid Dunhuang treasures, which
comprise a wide variety of grottos, statues, murals, manuscripts, and so on. This prompted the
emergence of the flourishing Dunhuang research throughout the twentieth century. The study of the
religions on the Silk Road not only concerns a deeper understanding of the doctrines of varied religions
worthy of comparison, but also opens the door to us of the crowning spectacle of the cultural exchange
especially among China, India, Central Asia and Western Asia in ancient times.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2277. Islam and Chinese culture (6 credits)

This course presents a historical survey on the dissemination of Islam in China from the Tang Dynasty
down to the present day, and explores in detail the interaction of Islam and Chinese culture. An
enhanced emphasis will rest on a group of the Chinese Muslim scholars (or huiru 回儒) who rose to
prominence during the Ming-Qing Dynasties. Chinese Muslim scholars resembled Christians or Jesuits
in China in the sense that they also demonstrated a continuous effort to harmonize Islamic and
Confucian cultures, writing a substantial number of works on Islam and translating Arabic Qur’an into
Chinese. But what makes a striking difference between the two is that Muslims in China did not actively
promulgate their religion to the Han Chinese, and neither did they seek to attack Neo-Confucianism or
Buddhism for the purpose of justifying the supremacy of their beliefs. The Rites Controversy in
Catholicism, therefore, finds no parallel among the Muslims in China. To summarize, it is widely
recognized that the Muslims have in fact exercised considerable influence in the overall context of
Chinese history in terms of religious culture, economic activities and scientific accomplishments.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2278. Travel and economic development in Chinese history (6 credits)

Travel is an important living activity of human beings. It is closely related to the development of the
economy. This course examines the main features of travel and economic development in Chinese
history. It aims to provide students an in-depth understanding on the relationship between living culture
and economic changes in Chinese history.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2279. Neo-Confucianism in Song-Ming periods and contemporary religions and ethics

(6 credits)

This course provides an overview of the development of Neo-Confucianism in Song and Ming dynasties,
and concurrently encourages students to reflect on and compare the teachings of Neo-Confucianists
concerning metaphysics and morality in conjunction with the prevalent forms of religions and ethics in
the present day. The emphasis is therefore particularly placed on the analysis of the religious as well as
ethical values of Neo-Confucianism in modern perspective, and the discussions of some Western
academics and contemporary Neo-Confucianists will be incorporated accordingly. The course also
discusses the reasons why Neo-Confucianism was able to have reigned in the Chinese intellectual scene
for a prolonged period of some 700 years, and explains how it is pivotal in shaping the thoughts of
Chinese scholars for centuries.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2280. Publishing and culture in Chinese History (6 credits)

This course is a study of publishing culture from ancient to modern China. It enables students to
understand how knowledge was disseminated and its impact to Chinese people’s thinking. As
 28

publishing activities have close relationships with politics, economy and cultural development, it is
worth value to have a clear picture of its development in Chinese history.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2281. Regional development and local societies in South China in the Ming-Qing Period
(6 credits)

The aim of this course is to provide students with solid background knowledge on, and the ability to
explore, regionality and locality in the Jiangnan, Lingnan and southwest regions of South China, as well
as a new understanding of Ming-Qing history from the geographical perspective. The course
emphasizes training in the reading of first-hand Chinese historical sources.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2282. History of early China: Xia, Shang, and Western Zhou Periods in transmitted,
palaeographical, and archaeological sources (6 credits)

Through an examination of transmitted texts, unearthed palaeographical materials (oracle-bone,bronze

and bamboo-strip texts) and archaeological sources, this course introduces the history of Early China,
with the focus on Xia, Shang and Western Zhou periods. The course provides a gist of the formation
and development of early Chinese states and explores social structures and levels of development of
both spiritual and material culture in the period of Early China, one of the Four Great Ancient
Civilisations.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

(D) Capstone experience course

CHIN3221. Thematic study in Chinese history and culture (capstone experience) (6 credits)

This is a capstone course intended for students majoring in Chinese history and culture programme. The
purpose of the course is to provide students with an opportunity to conduct advanced research, typically
investigating a major theme in Chinese history and culture. It is open only to students in their third or
final year of studies, who are expected to have prior knowledge in the subject they wish to research in.
There is no formal lecture but students who undertake this course are expected to meet regularly with
their tutor.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

TRANSLATION

The following are the course components required for the major and the minor:

Major (72 credits)

(A) Prerequisite course: CHIN1311. Introduction to translation (6 credits)
(B) Introductory courses including all List 1 courses (30 credits)
(C) Advanced courses including all List 1 courses: (30 credits)
(D) Capstone experience course: CHIN2320 Long translation project (capstone experience) (6
credits)

Minor (36 credits)

(A) Prerequisite course: CHIN1311. Introduction to translation (6 credits)
(B) Introductory courses in List 1 or 2: (12 credits)
 29

(C) Advanced courses in List 1 or 2: (18 credits)

No capstone experience course is required.

(A) Prerequisite course

Students intending to major in Translation must attain a grade C or above in the first-year prerequisite
course CHIN1311 where a Level 5 or above in both English Language and Chinese Language in the
Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE) Examination is required for admission to the
course. For non-JUPAS applicants, a hard copy of their equivalent qualifications (such as IB Diploma,
AD/HD transcripts) shall be submitted to the Head of School for consideration.

CHIN1311. Introduction to translation (6 credits)

This is an introduction to the skills and theoretical issues of translation, with guided practice in
translating material of daily usage. Coursework assessment will be based on written assignments.
Assessment: 50% coursework, 50% examination.

(B) Introductory courses

List 1 introductory courses

CHIN2336. Interpretation workshop I (6 credits)

This course introduces students to the basic skills required for the three modes of interpreting
(consecutive, simultaneous, and sight translation). It enables students to acquire and develop note-
taking skills for consecutive interpreting and learn about interpreters’ professional ethics. This course
also provides students with a brief history of interpreting and an overview of different interpretation
settings. Training will focus on sight translation and consecutive interpreting between English and
Chinese. This is a workshop-based course supplemented by lectures.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2361. Translation workshop E-C (6 credits)

This seminar course is designed to develop students’ competency in conveying ideas in both Chinese
and English through the studies of translation. Students will not only be taught to analyze the linguistic,
stylistic, and cultural features of the source text, but also challenged to present innovative solutions for
a variety of translation problems. The acquisition of and familiarization with various idiomatic
expressions in both Chinese and English will be emphasized, with particular attention in English-
Chinese translation.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2362. Translation workshop C-E (6 credits)

This seminar course is designed to develop students’ competency in conveying ideas in both Chinese
and English through the studies of translation. Students will not only be taught to analyze the linguistic,
stylistic, and cultural features of the source text, but also challenged to present innovative solutions for
a variety of translation problems. The acquisition of and familiarization with various idiomatic
expressions in both Chinese and English will be emphasized, with particular attention in Chinese-
English translation.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
 30

List 2 introductory courses

CHIN2333. Culture and translation (6 credits)

This course focuses on the cross-cultural dimension of translation. It examines the most complex
cultural barriers faced by the translator – such as differences in the expression of emotions (for instance
- love, anger, fear), codes of behavior (for instance intimacy, privacy, politeness), values and world
views, notions of gender, aesthetic taste, humour, and forms of symbolism and metaphor. These issues
arising from translation practice will be discussed in light of current theories on culture and translation
from multiple disciplines.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2352. Language contrast and translation I (6 credits)

This course will examine and compare the basic linguistic structures of Chinese and English, including
phonology, morphology and syntax, and will apply such knowledge to the practice of translation.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2364. Bilingualism and Law: Perspectives from Translation (6 credits)

This course focuses on the relation between language and law from the perspective of bilingualism. It
looks specifically at the Hong Kong situation, where both English and Chinese are working languages
in the judiciary and where legislation is enacted and published simultaneously in the two languages.
Through close reading of relevant court cases, students will identify the tension between English and
Chinese versions of Hong Kong statutes and the Basic Law, and appreciate how interlingual issues
interact with operations of the law in bilingual and multilingual jurisdictions. Students will acquire skills
that allow them to interpret pieces of legislation from the perspective of linguistics and translation. The
course also offers opportunities for students to try their hand at translating various sorts of legal
documents.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

(C) Advanced courses

List 1 advanced courses

CHIN2351. Translation criticism (6 credits)

Selected translations will be analyzed in terms of specific problems arising from the process of
translation. This course is more concerned with understanding how translated texts work rather than
value judgements, and seeks to define the translator’s method and purpose.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2365. Applied translation studies (6 credits)

This course introduces students to applied theories of translation and equips them with basic
terminology and notions in respect of translation as a linguistic practice. It constructs a narrative of
translation studies that begins in the late 1950s, focusing on three paradigms: the Equivalence paradigm;
the Functionalist paradigm; and the Discourse paradigm.
 31

Assessment: 100% coursework.

List 2 advanced courses

CHIN2331. Choice of words in translation (6 credits)

This course takes a new semantic approach to the analysis of different types of word meaning in a text.
It addresses some key issues of a functional grammar pertaining to translation studies in Hong Kong
and it is specially planned for students who aspire to carve out for themselves a career in administration,
publishing, advertising and journalism.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2332. Translation in Hong Kong society (6 credits)

Translators’ work demands specialised knowledge of the ways translation functions in specific social
contexts. The principal concern of this course is the practical information about the various
circumstances in which translation serves its purpose as a communicative activity, either in the
Government or in the private sector. This course will be assessed on the basis of a written seminar
paper presented orally and participation in discussion.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2339. Translation for administration and business (6 credits)

This course examines the role of translation in Hong Kong’s public administration procedures and
business activities and how it is used for local and international communication. Students will practise
translating papers related to negotiation, administration and the law arising from such contexts, and
explore suitable translation techniques in the process.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2340. Film translation workshop (6 credits)

Film-making today is becoming increasingly international, rendering translation almost indispensable

to the industry. Translating films for dubbing and subtitling requires special skills distinct from those
outside the field. This course concentrates on such skills, emphasizing audio-visual awareness and
cinematic elements such as drama, dialogue, vernacular, and pacing. Critical theories on media and on
cultural production and consumption will be introduced. Students learn through group projects, the
hands-on translation of feature films, and critiques of film translation.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2341. Translating writings on art (6 credits)

This course introduces students to the skills of translating within the field of Chinese and western art
history, art appreciation and art criticism. Chinese and English writings on art will be studied, and
textual analysis and translation strategies concentrating on semantic and communicative aspects will be
discussed. Through the viewing of artworks and practice in sight translation and written translation,
students will acquire bilingual vocabulary and linguistic expressions for describing a range of artworks
and art genres in specific socio-historical, cultural and aesthetic contexts.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
 32

CHIN2342. Interpretation workshop II (6 credits)

This course prepares students for the pursuit of a career in interpreting. Students will be provided with
intensive training in interpreting on a variety of topics and taught the improvisation skills in interpreting.
This course also provides training in the essential skills and techniques for simultaneous interpreting,
including shadowing, rephrasing, abstraction and the cultivation of split attention. This is a workshop-
based course supplemented by lectures.
Prerequisite: CHIN2336. Interpretation Workshop I
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2343. Legal interpreting (6 credits)

This course provides an overview of the legal system of Hong Kong and familiarises students with trial
procedures, characteristics of legal English, common terms pertaining to trial proceedings, as well as
principles and protocols associated with interpreting in the judicial system. Students will practise sight-
translating of legal texts and other court-related documents, and interpreting―consecutively or
simultaneously as appropriate―courtroom speeches, including witness testimony, submissions by
counsel, jury instructions and court judgments. This is a workshop-based course supplemented by
lectures and a court visit to observe court interpreters at work.
Prerequisite: CHIN2342. Interpretation Workshop II
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2344. Short stories: East and West (6 credits)

This course aims to introduce students to the fundamentals of short story composition and the techniques
that are involved in their translation. It also aims to encourage them to pay close attention to the unique
narrative techniques involved in the composition of short stories in both Chinese and English, and to
encourage them to explore ways of re-creating such expositions in their translations.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2345. Syntax-based translation (6 credits)

This is an interdisciplinary, Linguistics-Translation crossover course offered to third year students

majoring in Translation, Linguistics, and Law. As its course title suggests, it aims to help students
acquire two types of skills: (i) to analyze highly complex sentence structures in English and Chinese;
(ii) to translate legal documents from English into Chinese, and vice versa.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2346. From page to stage: A workshop on drama adaptation and translation (6 credits)

The adaptation of literary classics into staged productions can be an extremely rewarding pedagogic
exercise. They not only demand from students an in-depth reading of the original text, but also writing
and analytical skills, an understanding of the basics of drama performance, as well as familiarity with
the principles of translation. Throughout this course, students will not only be trained in the above
areas, but by collaborating with Eduarts Classic Theatre, they will be given the valuable opportunity to
become involved in an actual production of a literary classic.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
 33

CHIN2347. World literature and translation (6 credits)

What is world literature? How does it relate to Chinese literature? How have literary texts responded to
the questions of world literature, or integrated these questions into themselves? And how does
translation fit into the discussion, either in understanding the role translation plays in the development
of world literature, or in figuring out how we should translate with world literature in mind? Through a
series of primary readings of poetry and fiction written in Chinese and other languages, this course will
aim both to expose students to a broad range of significant works of world literature and to deepen
students’ understanding of literature in global circulation. Readings (in Chinese and English) may
include Bei Dao, Zhai Yongming, Xi Chuan, Yu Xiang, Anna Akhmatova, Jorge Luis Borges, Ezra
Pound, Franz Kafka, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Karl Marx, Wang Wei, Du Fu, Wu Cheng’en,
William Faulkner, Gabriel Gabriel García Márquez, Toni Morrison, Mo Yan, Italo Calvino, Dung Kai-
cheung, Xi Xi (Sai Sai), and others.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2348. Bilingual studies in media and popular culture (6 credits)

The course introduces mass media and popular culture in the context of bilingualism and seeks to
deepen students’ understanding of translation as a cross-cultural dialogue. Discussions will focus on a
wide range of popular genres, including film, television, advertisement, magazines, pop music and
internet culture, in the Chinese-speaking world. Through critical readings of the bilingual texts, cultural
issues such as national and gender identities, ideology, globalization and the global circulation of
images and imaginary, and the dynamics between cultural production, media technology, and political
discourses will also be explored.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2356. Language contrast and translation II (6 credits)

This course includes a contrastive study of the Chinese and English languages, and examines their
language styles for special purposes, the emphasis being on the study of rhetoric both as a problem of
translation and as a part of the language skills essential to translators.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2357. Bilingual communication in translation (6 credits)

This course introduces students to functional approaches to written translation, with special emphasis
on text-type theory. It trains students to systematically identify the type and function of written texts
across various genres, and to develop translation strategies in line with the communicative intent of
these texts. Through seminar discussions, students will develop a critical awareness of the dynamic
relation between linguistic choices in translation and textual communication across languages and
cultures.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2358. Journeys to the East: Translation and China in the Literary Imagination of the
West (6 credits)

Translation not only represents the meaning of the statement translated, but represents as well the
culture of the language in which the statement originated. How, then, have translations interacted with
the representation of China on display in other works of Western literature? By reading literary
translations from Chinese into English alongside the tradition of literary imagination of China
 34

(sometimes known as “Orientalism”), this class will examine how translation has engaged with,
confirmed, altered, and shaped the notion of China as understood in the West. Readings are likely to
include Marco Polo, Leibniz, Judith Gautier, James Legge, Ezra Pound, Pearl Buck, Julia Kristeva,
Gary Snyder, and others.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2363. Advanced Translation Workshop C – E (6 credits)

Designed for students who intend to translate into English for the Final Year Project, this course will
further develop students’ expertise in conveying in English ideas first expressed in Chinese. Through
close study, students will not only be further taught to analyze the linguistic, stylistic, and cultural
features of the source text, but also challenged to present innovative solutions for a variety of translation
problems. The course will feature classroom visits and video-conferences with practicing translators of
Chinese poetry and prose. The final project will require team-translating contemporary Chinese prose
fiction into English.
Prerequisite: The successful completion of CHIN2362 with a grade of B– or above
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2366. Advanced Theories of Translation (6 credits)

This advanced-level course introduces students to conceptual translation theories, and is suitable for
theoretically inclined students who are interested to learn about the development of translation studies
beyond the applied domain. Students will learn about the cultural and sociological turns in translation
studies; the relationship between translation and philosophy; as well as other new trends in the field.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN2367. Advanced Translation Workshop E-C (6 credits)

This course prepares students for their final year English-Chinese translation projects. Students will be
trained to analyse the source and target texts from the linguistic, cultural and theoretical perspectives,
with a view to honing their translation skills. They will also be encouraged to learn from different
writers and translators.
Prerequisite: The successful completion of CHIN2361 with a grade of B– or above.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN3311. Translation and the study of Chinese literature (6 credits)

What is translation, what is the study of Chinese literature and culture, and how have these concepts
overlapped, conflicted, and defined each other? Constituting a critical introduction to both Translation
Studies and the academic study of Chinese Literature in English, this course will expect students to
comparatively examine arguments about Chinese language and literature vis-à-vis translation, and
arguments about translation vis-à-vis Chinese language and literature. Further, this course will engage
with the ways sinology as an academic field has revealed certain moments of translation within Chinese
history and culture itself, opening discussion into whether such revelations have any implication on
prescriptions for translating Chinese into English. Taught in English supplemented with Chinese, this
course aims to satisfy students’ intellectual curiosity in the field as well as engage them at a higher level
of academic research. As such, the course will be particularly suitable for research-degree students and
advanced undergraduates.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
 35

CHIN3312. Travel writing, literature, and translation (6 credits)

This course is developed by the School of Chinese in collaboration with the Center of Translation
Studies, Zhejiang University. Its purpose is to make use of the facilities and expertises at Zhejiang
University, a top-ten Chinese university and a leading research institute in the relationship between
tourism and translation studies. By making use of the HKU-China 1000 programme, it hopes to provide
our students with the opportunity to interact with mainland scholars and students with similar interest
and understand the latest development in this field. The course will be co-taught by faculties from both
institutes, and for two whole weeks, students will be required to attend lectures in the morning followed
by a relevant afternoon field trip to complement the materials covered in the lecture. Contact hours are
roughly 20 hours of lecture plus more than 40 hours of field trip and other learning activities. The
intended starting date is the summer of 2018.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

(D) Capstone experience course

CHIN2320. Long translation (capstone experience) (6 credits)

The Long Translation project is an important part of the Translation degree. Its commencement is as
early as the summer vacation between Years Three and Four when students are expected to find and
decide on the texts for their translation. Close study of the chosen texts on the part of the students
should occur in the vacation. From the beginning of the Forth Year to about the end of March of the
graduation year, the actual translation will be done by the student under the supervision of a teacher, in
each case assigned by the teachers of Translation. The length of the translation should be about twenty
pages; the nature of the writing, as literary or practical as the individual student prefers.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

COURSES FOR FOREIGN STUDENTS

Note: The following courses are intended primarily for full-time undergraduate students and not
open to auditors. Full-time undergraduate students include:
(a) HKU full-time students who are exempt from taking a Practical Chinese language course
offered by the Chinese Language Enhancement Programme (CLEP);
(b) exchange/visiting students whose native language is not Mandarin, taking CHIN9501-08;
and
(c) exchange/visiting students whose native language is not Cantonese, taking CHIN9511-12.

Introductory courses

CHIN9501. Chinese as a foreign language I (6 credits)

This course is for foreign students who DO NOT have previous knowledge of Chinese. It covers five
main areas: speaking, listening, reading, writing, and typing which will require Chinese word
processing skills and knowledge of Chinese characters. Typing skill is emphasized for this course
because it enables students to break the restrictions on the number of characters they can actually write
and allows them to communicate in Chinese sooner.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
 36

CHIN9502. Chinese as a foreign language II (6 credits)

This intensive course is intended for foreign students who have completed CHIN9501 or who can
demonstrate equivalent competence in the placement test. A greater emphasis will be placed on oral
drills and listening comprehension. Students will be exposed to 800 frequently used Chinese characters,
which are used to form expressions related to various aspects of life in China. Upon the completion of
the course, students should be able to write approximately 500 Chinese characters and an essay of 200
characters. Students will also be exposed to various aspects of Chinese culture and history in learning
the origins of Chinese characters and idioms.
Prerequisite: CHIN9501 Chinese as a foreign language I or equivalent
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN9511. Cantonese as a foreign language I (6 credits)

This intensive course is intended for foreign students, including Mainland and Taiwan, who have no
prior knowledge of Cantonese. The course introduces students to present-day Cantonese, with an
emphasis on learning correct pronunciation through the Jyutping phonetic romanization transcription
system and basic structure. It aims to develop fundamental oral communication skills through a variety
of situational conversations in a highly interactive classroom.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN9512. Cantonese as a foreign language II (6 credits)

This intensive course is designed for foreign students, including Mainland and Taiwan, who have
completed CHIN9511 or who can demonstrate equivalent competence in the placement test. It aims at
strengthening students’ mastery of the phonetic romanization transcription, the Jyutping system, and at
enhancing their competence in expressing themselves in the language. More practical sentence patterns
and a large range of useful words and expressions related to various aspects of life will be introduced
as well.
Prerequisite: CHIN9511 Cantonese as a foreign language I or equivalent
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN9521. The fundamentals of Chinese characters (6 credits)

This intensive course is intended for foreign students whose mother tongue is not Chinese. It is designed
to introduce the origins and evolution of Chinese characters. The formation and the structure of Chinese
characters will be emphasized to help students to break the puzzles of Chinese written form. This course
also familiarizes students with the distinctive features of the Chinese characters as a means to introduce
them to the unique characteristics of the Chinese language and culture. Students will be equipped with
the writing skills to copy any Chinese characters in correct stroke-order and will be familiar with the
commonly used components of combined characters after this course. The course will teach up to 220
Chinese characters and about 350 compound words. Students are taught how to use Chinese dictionaries
in order to continue learning Chinese characters by themselves.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN9522. Exploration of major cultural themes across Chinese history (6 credits)

A history and culture course that familiarizes students with China and its past, approached from non-
traditional perspectives. The course introduces foreign students to Chinese history, schools of thoughts,
cultural themes and achievements in Chinese civilization; highlights differences and similarities
 37

between Chinese and other cultures; stimulates students’ interest in deeper understanding of China, its
people, its history and its culture in the global context. Students are required to make presentations on
assigned topics.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

Advanced courses

CHIN9503. Chinese as a foreign language III (6 credits)

This intensive course is intended for foreign students who have completed CHIN9502 or have attained
equivalent competence to Chinese Proficiency Test (New HSK) Level 2. It aims to further develop
students’ audio-lingual proficiency as well as raise their reading and writing ability. Students can use
information obtained from the course to converse with Chinese people, and present speeches based on
the assigned topics. Emphasis will be placed on everyday topics and common patterns so that students
can experience communication in Chinese.
Prerequisite: CHIN9502 Chinese as a foreign language II or equivalent
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN9504. Chinese as a foreign language IV (6 credits)

This intensive course is intended for foreign students who have completed CHIN9503 or have attained
an equivalent level of competency. It aims to develop the student’s overall language skills through
reading and discussion of contemporary affairs. Students will not only distinguish the difference
between written language and spoken language, but will also gain the ability to understand and speak
Chinese in a variety of situations.
Prerequisite: CHIN9503 Chinese as a foreign language III or equivalent
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN9505. Chinese as a foreign language V (6 credits)

This intensive course is intended for foreign students who have completed CHIN9504 or have attained
equivalent competence to Chinese Proficiency Test (New HSK) Level 3. It aims to increase students’
communicative and linguistic competence in listening, speaking, reading, writing, and translating. It
also provides in-depth study of Chinese culture and society. It familiarizes students with 150 core
sentences, 450 new words, and 200 most frequently used Chinese characters in addition to 1400 Chinese
characters acquired from previous levels.
Prerequisite: CHIN9504 Chinese as a foreign language IV or equivalent
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN9506. Chinese as a foreign language VI (6 credits)

This intensive course is intended for foreign students who have completed CHIN9505 or have attained
an equivalent level of competency. It aims to increase students’ communicative and linguistic
competence in listening, speaking, reading, writing, and translating. It also provides in-depth study of
Chinese culture and society. It familiarizes students with another 600 new words, 200 most frequently
used Chinese characters, in addition to 1600 Chinese characters and 150 core sentences learnt. The
course will be conducted mainly in Chinese.
Prerequisite: CHIN9505 Chinese as a foreign language V or equivalent
Assessment: 100% coursework.
 38

CHIN9507. Chinese as a foreign language VII (6 credits)

This intensive course is for foreign students who have completed CHIN9506 or have attained equivalent
competence to Chinese Proficiency Test (New HSK) level 4. It aims to enhance students’
communicative competence, specifically targeting at speaking, reading and writing. Students will be
exposed to Chinese society and culture through a greater variety of topical presentations and discussions.
The course will teach 400 new characters and phrases on top of about 1800 characters accumulated in
previous levels. Students are required to write compositions of 750 or more characters.
Prerequisite: CHIN9506 Chinese as a foreign language VI or equivalent
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CHIN9508. Chinese as a foreign language VIII (6 credits)

This intensive course is intended for foreign students who have completed the courses from CHIN9501
to CHIN9507, or have attained equivalent competence to Chinese Proficiency Test (New HSK) Level
5.
This is an extensive course, which aims at enhancing students’ overall competence in listening, reading,
speaking, and writing. Students will be exposed to Chinese society and culture through a variety of
selected reading materials from well-known Chinese modern writers’ works, newspapers and
magazines, short stories and novels. In addition, students will write summaries of some of their reading
assignments to enhance comprehension and strengthen writing ability. Students will also be asked to
accurately and fluently expressing ideas in different topics in class. This course will also prepare for
sentence structure analysis, punctuation usage, and fundamentals of rhetorical methods and classical
Chinese.
Prerequisite: CHIN9507 Chinese as a foreign language VII or equivalent
Assessment: 100% coursework.
 39

SCHOOL OF ENGLISH

INTRODUCTION
The School of English offers teaching and conducts research in literary and cultural studies, English
linguistics and language and communication. The School also contributes to the teaching of the
BA&BEd in Language Education (English) double degree programme and the BA&LLB double degree
programme.

The School offers two majors and two minors:

(1) English Studies (ES)
(2) Language and Communication (L&C)

Admission to the School is strictly on the basis of academic record including a minimum Level 5 in
English Language in the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE) examination, or an
equivalent score in another recognized English proficiency test. Students intending to declare a major
or a minor in the School must pass at least one introductory course from List A in the first year. A major
consists of five introductory courses (including the first-year prerequisite) and eight advanced courses
(including a capstone experience). A minor consists of three introductory courses (including the first-
year prerequisite) and three advanced courses. Students intending to enroll in advanced courses must
normally have completed three introductory courses (with at least one course from both List A and List
B).

Choice of courses and options is subject to the School’s approval. Students should consult the School
web page about the actual course offerings and must ensure that their choice of courses conforms to
any prerequisites laid down by the School. Majors in English Studies and Language and
Communication are given priority entry into advanced courses in their respective major.

Prescribed reading, specifications for each course, recommended course combinations, and information
about prerequisites are available at the website http://www.english.hku.hk. Regular attendance at
tutorials and other classes and the punctual completion of work prescribed by the student’s tutor or
supervisor are expected.

ENGLISH STUDIES

English Studies is the scholarly investigation of the English language and its many uses in social and
historical contexts. It prominently includes the study of literature(s) written in English, as well as
creative writing. Both the language and the literatures are studied from multiple perspectives, linguistic
ones and literary ones, and also including critical and cultural theory. Our English Studies programme
has a strong cross-cultural orientation, recognizing English as a language of global communication and
world literature, a language which people make their own, creatively and habitually, all over the world.
It offers students both a solid foundation and a wide range of choices in various concentrations.
Introductory courses emphasize the practice of critical reading, analysis and writing, as well as the
development of historical and theoretical knowledge. Advanced courses focus on English language and
literature as representations of culture and society in diverse historical contexts, on the production of
meaning in different discursive contexts, genres and media, and on the place of English in relation to
histories of colonization and globalization with special reference to Hong Kong and the region. A range
of capstone courses, including research seminars, internships and senior colloquia, offer students
opportunities to integrate and deploy their learning in the major while considering their options upon
graduation.
 40

On successful completion of the major or minor in English Studies, students should be able to:
 identify and analyze issues and topics in the study of English literature and linguistics through
various approaches;
 formulate critical questions and investigate topics through research, analysis and writing;
 identify and express their own perspectives regarding disciplinary issues and compare them to
those of others;
 demonstrate an appreciation of the global dimensions and cultural diversity within English
language and literature;
 recognize and make use of various rhetorical and discursive features in the presentation,
organization and discussion of ideas, observations, and arguments; and
 understand and articulate the relevance of English Studies in providing insight into the role of
language and literature in culture and society.

The courses of the English Studies programme incorporate a variety of teaching and learning methods,
including formal lectures, seminars, small group tutorials, workshops, and online learning. They are
mostly assessed by coursework, including oral presentations, in-class tests and quizzes, essays and
research projects and portfolios. They are designed to provide students with skills of accurate and
historically sensitive analysis, critical reading and thinking, and clear and coherent argument in both
writing and speaking.

Students are encouraged to discuss their study plans and course selections with the UG Coordinator,
their Academic Advisers, or any teachers in the English Studies programme.

First-year Prerequisite

Students intending to declare a major or minor in English Studies in the second year must pass at least
one introductory ENGL course from List A “Historical and Theoretical Foundations” (6 credits) in the
first year.

Admission to all introductory courses is on the basis of academic record including a minimum Level 5
in English Language in the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE) examination, or an
equivalent score in another recognized English proficiency test.

Major in English Studies (78 credits)

To complete the requirements of the major, students must take:
1. 30 credits of introductory courses (including the first-year prerequisite), normally taken in the
first two years of study, which consist of:
(a) 12 credits from List A “Historical and Theoretical Foundations” (including the first-year
prerequisite);
(b) 12 credits from List B “Critical Reading, Analysis and Writing”;
(c) 6 credits from either List A or List B; and

2. 48 credits of advanced courses, which must include a capstone course to be taken preferably in
the final year.

Minor in English Studies (36 credits)

To complete the requirements of the minor, students must take:
1. 18 credits of introductory courses, which consist of:
(a) 6 credits of the first-year prerequisite from List A “Historical and Theoretical Foundations”;
(b) 6 credits from List B “Critical Reading, Analysis and Writing”;
(c) 6 credits from either List A or List B; and

2. 18 credits of advanced courses.

 41

Introductory Courses

List A: Historical and Theoretical Foundations

The courses in this list will introduce students to the history and organization of diverse areas of literary
and linguistic scholarship. Students will acquire a general overview of selected areas and issues,
including major theoretical distinctions or classifications and their historical development over time.

ENGL1011. An introduction to the study of meaning (6 credits)

ENGL1013. Exploring the modern: Reading early 20th century British writing (6 credits)
ENGL1015. Introduction to English linguistics (6 credits)
ENGL1016. Introduction to life writing (6 credits)
ENGL1017. Introduction to sociolinguistics (6 credits)
ENGL1018. Language and gender (6 credits)
ENGL1020. Nineteenth-century literature and culture (6 credits)
ENGL1022. Poetry past and present (6 credits)
ENGL1023. Experimental prose (6 credits)
ENGL1024. Topics in world literature (6 credits)
ENGL1025. Understanding narratives (6 credits)
ENGL1037. Persuasion (6 credits)
ENGL1044. Introduction to literary theory (6 credits)
ENGL1045. “Community” in Sociolinguistics (6 credits)
ENGL1051. English sounds (6 credits)

LCOM1001. Introduction to language and communication (6 credits)

LCOM1002. Language, communication, society, field (6 credits)
LCOM1003. Theorizing communication (6 credits)
LCOM1004. Introduction to pragmatics (6 credits)

List B: Critical Reading, Analysis and Writing

The courses in this list will introduce students to the practice and methods of critical reading, analysis
and writing, focusing on different areas of literary and linguistic study. Students will acquire a basic
grasp of analytical distinctions and terminology, and learn to ask questions and construct critical
arguments.

ENGL1014. Imaginary geographies: The art of writing place (6 credits)

ENGL1026. Adaptation: From text to screen (6 credits)
ENGL1027. Analyzing discourse (6 credits)
ENGL1028. Awakenings: Exploring women’s writing (6 credits)
ENGL1030. Dramatic changes: Versions of Renaissance literature (6 credits)
ENGL1031. English grammar(s) (6 credits)
ENGL1032. Late Victorian Texts and Contexts (6 credits)
ENGL1033. Intercultural communication (6 credits)
ENGL1034. Language and prejudice (6 credits)
ENGL1035. Language crimes (6 credits)
ENGL1036. Meaning and metaphor (6 credits)
ENGL1038. Practice of criticism (6 credits)
ENGL1039. Realism and representation (6 credits)
ENGL1040. Rewriting and writing back (6 credits)
ENGL1041. Modernity and literary modernism (6 credits)
ENGL1042. World Englishes (6 credits)
ENGL1043. An introduction to 20th-century English poetry (6 credits)
ENGL1047. The English lexicon (6 credits)
ENGL1048. Crime stories (6 credits)
ENGL1049. Early English sonnets (6 credits)
ENGL1050. An introduction to qualitative research methods in sociolinguistics (6 credits)
 42

ENGL1052. Introduction to theatre studies (6 credits)

ENGL1053. Eighteenth century drama: The rise of celebrity culture (6 credits)
ENGL1054. Writing disaster: Literature, trauma, memory (6 credits)

Advanced Courses

In order to enroll in any advanced course in English Studies, students must normally have completed
18 credits of introductory courses, with at least 6 credits from both List A and List B.

ENGL2002. Language in society (6 credits)

ENGL2004. English syntax (6 credits)
ENGL2007. Literary linguistics (6 credits)
ENGL2010. English novel (6 credits)
ENGL2012. Contemporary literary theory (6 credits)
ENGL2030. New Englishes (6 credits)
ENGL2035. Reading poetry (6 credits)
ENGL2039. Gender, sexuality and discourse (6 credits)
ENGL2045. Travel writing (6 credits)
ENGL2047. English discourse structures and strategies (6 credits)
ENGL2048. Language and jargon (6 credits)
ENGL2050. English corpus linguistics (6 credits)
ENGL2055. American Gothic: Haunted homes (6 credits)
ENGL2057. Text and image (6 credits)
ENGL2074. Postcolonial readings (6 credits)
ENGL2075. The idea of China (6 credits)
ENGL2076. Romanticism (6 credits)
ENGL2078. The novel today (6 credits)
ENGL2079. Shakespeare (6 credits)
ENGL2080. Women, feminism and writing (6 credits)
ENGL2085. Creative writing (6 credits)
ENGL2089. Making Americans: Literature as ritual and renewal (6 credits)
ENGL2097. Imagining Hong Kong (6 credits)
ENGL2103. Language and digital media (6 credits)
ENGL2104. Language in the USA (6 credits)
ENGL2112. An introduction to the history of English (6 credits)
ENGL2115. Theories of language acquisition (6 credits)
ENGL2117. English phonology and morphology (6 credits)
ENGL2118. Law and literature (6 credits)
ENGL2119. English in Hong Kong: Making it your own (6 credits)
ENGL2120. Science fiction (6 credits)
ENGL2122. Global Victorians (6 credits)
ENGL2123. Language and identity in Hong Kong (6 credits)
ENGL2125. English construction grammar (6 credits)
ENGL2126. Law, meaning, and interpretation (6 credits)
ENGL2127. Language and the law (6 credits)
ENGL2128. Modernism (6 credits)
ENGL2129. English as a language of science (6 credits)
ENGL2130. Signs, language and meaning: Integrational reflections (6 credits)
ENGL2131. The critic as artist (6 credits)
ENGL2134. World literature (6 credits)
ENGL2135. The cosmopolitan imagination (6 credits)
ENGL2136. Cross-cultural discourses (6 credits)
ENGL2137. The profession of playwright in early modern England (6 credits)
ENGL2138. Language and globalization (6 credits)
ENGL2139. American modern (6 credits)
 43

ENGL2140. Ideologies of language in early modernity (6 credits)

ENGL2141. Doing discourse analysis (6 credits)
ENGL2142. Milton (6 credits)
ENGL2143. Religion and the flourishing of English (6 credits)
ENGL2144. Forms of contemporary literature (6 credits)
ENGL2145. Post-1945 English drama (6 credits)
ENGL2146. Cognitive semantics (6 credits)
ENGL2147. Joyce’s voices (6 credits)
ENGL2149. American dreaming (6 credits)
ENGL2150. The city and modernity (6 credits)
ENGL2152. Theory of the novel (6 credits)
ENGL2153. Literary London (6 credits)
ENGL2156. Eighteenth-century British literature (6 credits)
ENGL2157. Representations of justice in law and literature (6 credits)
ENGL2158. Language processing and learning (6 credits)
ENGL2159. Twenty-first century English poetry (6 credits)
ENGL2160. Sovereignty in law, theory and culture (6 credits)
ENGL2161. Language rights and linguistic justice (6 credits)
ENGL2162. Where the wild things are: Children's literature and the law (6 credits)
ENGL2163. Comics, graphic novel and theory (6 credits)
ENGL2164. The beginnings of English law and literature (6 credits)
ENGL2165. Legal fictions: United States citizenship and the right to write in America (6 credits)
ENGL2166. English phonetics (6 credits)
ENGL2167. Theatre and the world (6 credits)
ENGL2168. The law of signs: Interpretative controversies in legal semiotics (6 credits)
ENGL2169. Writing and violence (6 credits)
ENGL2170. Cringy: The aesthetics of discomfort (6 credits)
ENGL2171. The right to the city: Cultural politics in Hong Kong and London (6 credits)
ENGL2172. The police in literature and culture (6 credits)

LCOM2001. Theories of language and communication (6 credits)

LCOM2002. Language in the workplace (6 credits)
LCOM2003. Language and politeness (6 credits)
LCOM2004. Language, communication and the media (6 credits)
LCOM2005. Language, communication and globalization (6 credits)
LCOM2007. Visual communication (6 credits)
LCOM2008. Health communication, ‘healthy’ communication (6 credits)
LCOM2009. Language and religion (6 credits)
LCOM2011. The language of news media (6 credits)

Capstone Courses
ENGL3040. Internship in English studies (capstone experience) (6 credits)
ENGL3041. Senior colloquium in English studies (capstone experience) (6 credits)
ENGL3042. Extended essay in English studies (capstone experience) (6 credits)

Introductory Courses

ENGL1011. An introduction to the study of meaning (6 credits)

This course introduces the study of meaning in the English language. We will examine semantic
meanings - meanings encoded in the language system itself - and also pragmatic meanings - meanings
inferred from the communicative context of language use. Students will also be introduced to various
theories of meaning and cognitive semantics.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
 44

ENGL1013. Exploring the modern: Reading early 20th century British writing (6 credits)

This course will explore the early 20th century as a site of modernity. We will look at a range of texts
to explore what the modern might mean and how writers have addressed issues of modernity and its
impact on society and human relations. Some of the topics to be covered will include representations of
the city, the changing roles of men and women, the rise of modern transportation and the impact of the
First World War.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1014. Imaginary geographies: The art of writing place (6 credits)

Through studying a wide range of landscape descriptions in poetry, travel writing, drama and the novel,
students will learn about landscape description from aesthetic, historical, geo-humanist and geo-
political perspectives. Students will learn to identify particular movements and styles, such as the
picturesque, romanticism, modernism and environmentalism in selected descriptions of places. They
will also learn how place description functions in literary texts to provide not only a realistic visual
setting, but through metaphor, the thoughts and feelings of characters, and the cultural and ideological
outlook of the writer. The course has a practical component in which students produce place
descriptions of their own and discuss these within their groups.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1015. Introduction to English linguistics (6 credits)

This survey course offers a comprehensive first introduction to the linguistic study of English, covering
the various levels of analysis (and the core branches of linguistics that study them): sounds (phonetics
and phonology), words (morphology and lexicology), meanings (semantics and pragmatics), grammar
(syntax), text and discourse (discourse analysis). It will also offer a first introduction to a number of
key aspects of language use (and the linguistic disciplines dealing with them): language acquisition and
processing (psycholinguistics), language change (historical linguistics), regional and social variation
(sociolinguistics), [literary] style (stylistics). Finally, the course will introduce a number of
methodological and theoretical approaches one can take in the academic study of a language, and
consequently also in English language research.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1016. Introduction to life writing (6 credits)

This course will introduce the contemporary and surging field of “Life Writing”: the telling of lives.
The basic questions open into extraordinary ones: who “owns” a life? who has the “right” to tell
someone’s life? who “deserves” a life-story to be told? how does the “telling” a life interfere with the
conditions of the life itself? what material is left in and what is left out? The course will look at
beginnings of life writing in early religious writings and move into the contemporary and intercultural
directions of life-writing: for example, historical relationship to journalism and gossip; the offering of
role models; and the mapping of voices otherwise unknown.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
 45

ENGL1017. Introduction to sociolinguistics (6 credits)

This course introduces students to the field of sociolinguistics—a cross-disciplinary study of the
relationship between language and society with insights from linguistics, sociology, psychology and
linguistic anthropology. For decades, sociolinguists have looked for ways to understand human social
behaviors and organization by studying what people do with language and why. This course provides a
basic foundation for students who are interested in the scholarly research of language in social contexts,
as well as for those who want an alternate perspective of their own social world.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1018. Language and gender (6 credits)

In this course, we explore how gender ideologies influence and are influenced by language use, in
language about men and women, and in language use by men and women. We will discuss different
approaches to and historical perspectives on the study of language and gender, reviewing both
qualitative and quantitative studies in the early development of the field. We will consider gender as
one of many social categories that interact with other social categories such as age, race, class, ethnicity,
profession, sexuality, and others. Stereotypes and biases about the sexes, standard and vernacular norms,
and power and authority will also be examined in the course. The course will survey the history of the
field and identify major strands in the development of knowledge in the discipline. It also traces the
historical progression of the field, with reference to key historical texts and debates.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1020. Nineteenth-century literature and culture (6 credits)

This course offers a survey of the literature and culture of ‘the long nineteenth century’, that is the
period between the French Revolution (1789) and the beginning of the First World War (1914). We
will be looking at the historical, social and political changes Great Britain underwent in this period:
wars abroad and tumults at home, the industrial revolution, the scientific revolution, religious debate,
empire, class and gender concerns. With such background and context, we will then look at the various
writings (across all genres) that were produced under these circumstances: the realist novel, Romantic
poetry, sensation and silver-fork fiction, aestheticist and fin-de-siècle writing, the bestselling romance,
detective fiction, high and late Victorian drama, to name just some.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1022. Poetry past and present (6 credits)

This course introduces students who have little experience of poetry to two of the most popular generic
forms in English poetry – the sonnet and the lyric. Selected examples will be from the seventeenth to
twentieth centuries and will include poems by British, American, and anglophone writers. A specific
theme will be chosen as the focus for poems from different historical moments.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1023. Experimental prose (6 credits)

This course poses a theoretical question (what is literary prose?), and contemplates a variety of answers
historically, by studying the flourishing prose genres of the English Renaissance. We begin with an
introduction to theories of prose, before proceeding to a wide range of literary works and historical
documents: essays, explorers’ journals, science fiction, utopias, and picaresque novels. The genres that
we examine are all experimental not only in the late modern sense of ‘attempting something new,’ but
 46

also in the early modern sense of ‘relying on experience.’ But what sort of experience did writers consult
to narrate trips to the moon and catalogue the customs of remote peoples? Moreover, how is such
storytelling (fictional or first-hand) supposed to affect the lives of its readers? Our central critical focus
will be the importance of narrative perspective, or the speaker’s ‘point of view,’ for determining what
we, as readers, come to know.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1024. Topics in world literature (6 credits)

This course introduces students to the concept and practice of world literature. It seeks to understand
world literature not as a collection of national literary canons created in different linguistic and cultural
locations, but as a field of knowledge about literature as a cross-cultural and translingual system of
production and circulation. We’ll read a selection of seminal statements on world literature and discuss
the historical formation of world literature: its methodology and scope, its politics and limitations, in
close relation to historical forms and forces of globalization.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1025. Understanding narratives (6 credits)

This is a course about how stories work, and how to read them effectively and critically. We encounter
narratives every day, in gossip and jokes, news reports, in books and films and on the internet. Everyone
is experienced in understanding and interpreting stories. This course gives you the chance to articulate,
understand, and develop your skills as a consumer (and creator) of stories, through describing and
analyzing the various elements of a narrative – such as narration, character, structure, genre, and point
of view – in a number of different examples in English. The course will develop a critical vocabulary
which students working in small groups can use, with increasing confidence, to discuss, analyze and
report on written narrative texts of various length and complexity. Besides the target stories, there will
be critical readings, with plenty of examples, in textual studies and in narratology (the poetics of stories).
At the end of the course, all students should have the skills and confidence to give a productive and
well-informed reading of any narrative, literary or non-literary, and some sense of the part that narrative
plays in our understanding of the world we live in.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1026. Adaptation: From text to screen (6 credits)

In this course, students will be introduced to literary and cinematic technique by studying recent film
adaptations of English literature alongside the original text. We will take one period text, such as Jane
Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, Bleak House or Mrs. Dalloway, and one contemporary text, such as
Atonement, Cloud Atlas or Never Let Me Go. Students will confront the problems and possibilities of
adaptation, the demands of fidelity to the original text, and the need to find contemporary resonances.
As well as developing an awareness of the practical issues of moving from a textual to a predominantly
visual medium, students will learn to identity aesthetic, cultural and political influences in the adaptation
of literature. This course also allows students to think creatively about storyboards and visual techniques,
by sketching alternative scenarios.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1027. Analyzing discourse (6 credits)

This course provides an introduction to the field of discourse, focusing on the analysis of spoken and
written English. In this course, we will focus on exploring different approaches to the study of discourse,
 47

developing tools for analyzing particular texts, and understanding the relationship between discourse
contexts and functions. Emphasis will be placed on data analysis in the course, which will give students
the opportunity to apply concepts from the lectures to workshop discussions and assignments. Some
units to be covered in the course include: narrative structure, rhetorical analysis, spoken versus written
discourse, data collection and transcription, conversation analysis, and discourse in professional
contexts.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1028. Awakenings: Exploring women’s writing (6 credits)

This course will focus on close reading of passages from a selection of prose and poetry authored by
women. As we read these texts, we will explore a few of the key issues that have concerned women
writers. We will examine questions of the difference of the female point of view, the suppression of
female subjectivity and autonomy as well as the renderings of an alternative worldview and culture.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1030. Dramatic changes: Versions of Renaissance literature (6 credits)

In this course we will read great plays of the English Renaissance in tandem with their non-dramatic
sources (history, romance, chapbook, story cycle). In a couple of instances, the plays themselves will
be considered as sources for contemporary representations (Hamlet for Stoppard’s spinoff, Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern are Dead, and Macbeth for Kurosawa’s film, Throne of Blood). For Renaissance
speakers the word ‘version’ principally meant a ‘translation’ from one language into another. We will
observe and evaluate, therefore, what happens when a well-known or ‘true’ story gets ‘translated’ into
the conventions and genres of the theater. We compare notable variations in the telling of the tales, with
attention to the following questions: How does the alteration of a plot element change a story’s
significance? How does the manner of presentation — the enactment of drama (mimesis) or the narration
of prose (diegesis) — affect the way we understand characters?
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1031. English grammar(s) (6 credits)

This course is an elementary and practical introduction to the analytical and terminological distinctions
that are relevant to the study of the structure of English words and sentences. It will pay due attention
to variation in the way they are covered and distinguished in different grammar books. Topics include:
Word structure and word-formation, lexical and phrasal categories, grammatical functions and semantic
roles, coordination and subordination, clause types, tense and aspect, mood, information structure. All
classes will involve practical analysis of linguistic material. A key part of the course will be an
individual assignment in which students critically compare two grammar books with the prescribed
course text.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1032. Late Victorian Texts and Contexts (6 credits)

This course reads representative late nineteenth-century texts, which may include novels, short stories,
plays, poetry, or even musical hall songs and pantomime. The aim is to situate these texts in a society
that is still very much embedded in Victorian ideas and ideals but that is at the same time looking
towards the twentieth century and its changing views of life, the world and literature. Course themes
alongside the regular issues of class, race and gender may include: social changes, the changing subject,
 48

devolution, degeneration, the reading public and the publishing industry, genre and modality (romance,
realism, aestheticism), ‘elite’ and ‘popular’ art, and others.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1033. Intercultural communication (6 credits)

Intercultural communication can be defined as the study of cultural identity, difference and similarity
as constructed through discourse, i.e. different ways of speaking, doing and being. In the ever-changing
world defined by restructuring of economic, social and cultural relations, transnational migration,
tourism, overseas study, and global media, more and more people from different backgrounds come
into contact with one another. Their communication faces many challenges which include the linguistic
challenges of language learning, the discursive challenges of stereotyping and the social challenges of
equal work opportunities, inclusion and justice. This course provides a critical understanding of
intercultural communication from discourse analytic and sociolinguistic perspectives and demonstrates
how people in different situations of intercultural contact position themselves linguistically and
discursively, and how the linguistic codes and varieties they speak and write give them access (or not)
to different resources such as mobility, education opportunities, jobs, and so on. We examine the notions
of ‘sameness’, ‘difference’, ethno-cultural stereotyping, discrimination, exclusion and exploitation, and
the underlying language ideologies (i.e. assumptions and beliefs about language) that normalize and
naturalize the views we hold of ourselves and other people. We ask to what extent we can assume
culture to be synonymous with language and nation, and how acts of intercultural communication are
performed or represented in different contexts such as international business, marketing, and
interpersonal relations.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1034. Language and prejudice (6 credits)

Prejudice is defined as “dislike, hostility, or unjust behaviour deriving from preconceived and
unfounded opinions” (OED). Social prejudice and discrimination often manifest through language use,
and/or attitudes and practice towards language users (who are considered as members of certain
social/ethnic/gender/age categories), this course examines sociolinguistic case studies of language
discrimination both locally and internationally.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1035. Language crimes (6 credits)

This course introduces the study of texts through utterances taken from criminal cases. Students will
learn how to apply concepts such as types of meaning and speech acts to analyse the utterances in
context, and formulate critical arguments about their observations.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1036. Meaning and metaphor (6 credits)

The course looks at different definitions of metaphor and reviews various theories that have been
applied to figurative language. It presents the identification and analysis of metaphor as a tool in the
study of texts of all kinds, and introduces approaches which see the study of metaphor as a key to
understanding human cognition and experience. It shows how questions about metaphor are at the heart
of debates about meaning and interpretation across the humanities and social sciences, and illustrates
the role of metaphor in fundamental ideological discussions. Topics include: Definitions of metaphor;
Literal vs. metaphorical meaning; Metaphor and metonymy; Nonlinguistic realizations of conceptual
 49

metaphors; The scope of metaphor; Metaphor, politics, and ideology; Metaphor in literature; Metaphor
in education; Metaphor in music.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1037. Persuasion (6 credits)

This is a course about rhetoric, in which students will explore ways language can be used to convey,
reinforce or change ideas. In theory and in textual practice we will work together to understand how
persuasion works in English in a number of different language domains. The course explores discourse
relations in writing and speech, through critical analysis and practice of strategies of persuasion in some
or all of the following domains: academic writing; advertising; the courtroom; polemic and propaganda;
literary representation.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1038. Practice of criticism (6 credits)

This course introduces students to the development of criticism as a literary genre and as a space of
engagement with creative literature. By studying a selection of key critical texts in conjunction with
works of imaginative literature, the course will discuss the creative uses of criticism in the history of
literature and the role criticism has played in our understanding of literature. There will be weekly
lectures and workshops, in which we will discuss, and participate in, some of the most significant
debates among major critical thinkers and to relate these debates to our own studies of literary texts.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1039. Realism and representation (6 credits)

In this introductory course we will examine and explore one of the most dominant modes of literary
representation. We will begin by situating realism as a movement in literary history and investigate its
theoretical and material underpinnings and the literary conventions that characterize it. We will consider
different ways of defining realism and situate them in relation to different arguments about the nature
and role of literary representation. With close attention to texts from different times, we will try to trace
how realism distinguishes itself from other forms of writing and how it persists in contemporary literary
practice alongside and even within movements against realism in art and literature. We will also
consider the conventions of realistic representation in different genres, art forms and media, and their
role and relevance in non-fictional discourses and genres. Finally, we will also examine and discuss the
relevance of arguments about realism to the writing and rhetoric of critical essays.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1040. Rewriting and writing back (6 credits)

In this introductory course, we will study and explore the ways in which literary creativity and the
practice of writing are motivated and shaped by the reading of other texts. With close attention to texts
from different times and places, we will identify some of the major acts of rewriting by which authors
have sought to distinguish themselves ever since Virgil chose Homer as his model. Distinguishing
between different modes of rewriting such as allusion, translation, parody, and counter-discourse, we
will examine their role in specific contexts of literary production. Apart from considering the
importance of rewriting in the formation and critique of a literary canon, we will also discuss the value
of rewriting in the critical study of literature and the forms it may take in the writing of essays, including
summary, paraphrase, and plagiarism.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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ENGL1041. Modernity and literary modernism (6 credits)

Literary Modernism has often been characterized as an inward turn: as a growing preoccupation with
the workings of consciousness; the nature of subjective experience; and the constitution, and definition,
of the subjective self. In this introductory course we will examine depictions of subjectivity in modernist
literature, discussing topics such as the unconscious and psychic conflict, impersonality, sexual and
racial difference, the role of the body in consciousness, and the dynamics of fantasy and memory. We
will contextualize our close readings in contemporary psychological and scientific research, the rise of
urbanism and cosmopolitanism, colonialism and post-colonialism, technological advancements and the
World Wars. Through response papers, presentations, and class discussions, students will learn to
analyze textual details and techniques and organize their observations within cogent arguments.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1042. World Englishes (6 credits)

This course introduces students to a study of varieties of English world-wide, surveying the
development and classification of English varieties in both historical and contemporary eras. It explores
both structural and sociolinguistic aspects of World Englishes, with particular attention to New
Englishes. Through the critical reading of introductory texts and research papers in the field, this course
examines some of the fundamental issues and debates in World/ New Englishes, involving concepts of
‘mother tongue’, ‘nativeness’ and ownership, issues of ideology, attitudes and identity, and challenges
of creative expression, pedagogy and planning. Students will be expected to reflect critically on the
readings and issues, and produce a written paper that engages with one of these issues in the field of
World Englishes.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1043. An introduction to 20th-century English Poetry (6 credits)

This course will introduce poems by such major 20th-century poets as T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, Dylan
Thomas, Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney as well as work by other English poets. The
poems have been chosen not just for their intrinsic merits, but also to illustrate the patterns of sound, syntax,
tone and figurative language poets use to achieve their effects. The classes will not be lectures on poetry
but close readings and discussion of individual poems.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1044. Introduction to literary theory (6 credits)

This course offers you an introduction to the study of literature by looking at the development of
literature as a subject of teaching and learning. We will begin by tracing the formation of related
concepts in Western history leading up to the establishment of literature as an academic discipline. The
course will then survey influential theoretical approaches to literature in the 20th century and will
examine their accounts of what literature is and what its place and role are (or should be) in culture and
society. Mapping important debates carried on in these accounts, we will ask how they define and
explain basic activities, roles and effects that form part of literature, such as the activities of reading
and writing, the roles of writers and readers, the network of publication, and the products of writing
(work, text, script) and their meaning. A range of selected literary texts will allow us to critically explore
the insights and interests of different approaches. At the end of the course, students will be able to orient
themselves within the field of literature with the help of a basic vocabulary of critical terminology and
to situate their own interests in relation to relevant theoretical concerns.
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Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1045. “Community” in Sociolinguistics (6 credits)

The concept of “community” has been key to the study of language in society since the inception of
sociolinguistics in the 1960s. In the course of the past half a century, various notions of community
have been proposed and applied to the study of linguistic data. These include “speech community”,
“discourse community”, “community of practice”, “imagined community”, “virtual community” and
most recently “transnational community”. In this course, we will explore how these various concepts
have been applied and we will address salient similarities and differences between them. In doing so,
we will discuss the various understandings of language, and the various understandings of the
relationship between language and society which lie at the heart of these different types of community.
Finally, we will question the validity of the concept of community today against the backdrop of
globalisation, and the rising importance of migration and mobility.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1047. The English lexicon (6 credits)

The term lexicon can refer to a wordlist or dictionary. It is also a synonym of vocabulary, which refers
to all the words of a language, or, as in “one’s vocabulary”, all the words a particular speaker of a
language knows, sometimes referred to as “the mental lexicon”. But what counts as a word in English?
Is driver’s liability insurance three words in English while the Dutch equivalent
bestuurdersaansprakelijkheidsverzekering is one word? Are forms that can be bound by spaces, like
driver’s, liability and insurance, indivisible themselves, or can we identify constituent parts? Have these
forms always been part of the English language or did they come about at different historical moments
and in different ways? How do words, or so-called “entries” in the lexicon, relate to others meaningwise?
Are all words of the same kind, or can we arrange them in categories? When it comes to constructing
sentences, words are often conceived as building blocks which are combined in accordance with the
rules of grammar, but should lexicon and grammar really be seen as completely separate, or could their
relationship also be conceptualized differently? How much grammar is there, or should there be, in a
dictionary? How do speakers access their mental lexicon when they talk? These are some of the
questions that will be addressed in this course on words in English which will approach its topic from
a variety of perspectives: synchronic theoretical linguistics, diachronic linguistics, psycholinguistics
and lexicography.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1048. Crime stories (6 credits)

In The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde famously compares criminal acts to art: “I should fancy
that crime was to them [the lower classes] what art is to us, simply a method of procuring extraordinary
sensations.” Wilde asks us to think about the relationship between art and crime, and the role crime
plays in the growing gap between popular culture and high literature. This course introduces students
to the study of narrative through crime stories, and it will survey the origins of detective and crime
fiction and its development into the twenty-first century. Students will examine how this self-reflexive
genre uses narrative to reflect on acts of storytelling and interpretation. Course materials will include
eighteenth-century broadsheets about famous criminals, nineteenth-century “penny dreadfuls,”
sensation fiction, and detective novels. Readings will include Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle,
Raymond Chandler, and others. The course will conclude with the growth of the detective genre in
contemporary Hong Kong.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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ENGL1049. Early English sonnets (6 credits)

The course provides an introduction to the study of the sonnet, an enduring lyric genre that began in
13th century Italy and became popular in England nearly three centuries later, when poets such as Wyatt
and Surrey translated selected Canzoniere of Francesco Petrarca. Very often the expression of a
suffering lover, a sonnet contains 14 lines that proceed according to a rhyme scheme — the typical
Renaissance pattern is structured ABABCDCDEFEFGG. Beginning with Philip Sidney’s Astrophil and
Stella (composed between 1580 and 1584), sonnets in English sometimes were composed as a sequence,
a collection of poems that features recurrent voices (speaker and addressee), develops thematically, and
tempts the discovery of a narrative trajectory. In addition to the authors mentioned above, we read
carefully some of the major sonnets of the English Renaissance from Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne,
Milton, and others.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1050. An introduction to qualitative research methods in sociolinguistics (6 credits)

As access to the Internet has grown, it has become increasingly common for people to interact via
different channels when going about their day-to-day affairs. For people who have access to the Internet,
this can mean that they interact both online and offline alternatingly or even simultaneously. As a result
it is sometimes difficult to separate online and offline spaces. This has implications for sociolinguistic
research. Taking this as its starting point, this course introduces students to a core set of qualitative
research methodologies used in sociolinguistic research on both online and offline spaces. These include
discourse analysis, interviews and ethnography. In doing so, the course also highlights the interplay
between research questions, data and methodology, thereby offering students a more general
introduction into core components of the qualitative sociolinguistic research process (ethics, research
questions, theoretical literature, data sampling, data analysis). To introduce these methods as part of the
more general process of conducting qualitative sociolinguistic research on online and offline spaces,
the course draws on theoretical material and empirical research, while offering numerous possibilities
in the form of activities in class to discuss and apply these methods to data samples.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1051. English sounds (6 credits)

This course offers an introduction to the study of speech sounds in the English language. We will
examine how speech sounds can be studied in a scientific way (phonetics) and how English sounds are
organised and represented (phonology). Students will be introduced to the International Phonetic
Alphabet (IPA), an essential tool for the description of speech sounds. While this course will focus on
Southern British English (sometimes known as Received Pronunciation or BBC English), accent
variation in English and contemporary sound changes will also be discussed.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1052. Introduction to theatre studies (6 credits)

This course will introduce students to the historical paradigms and methods specific to the field of
Theatre Studies. It will provide an overview of several diverse genres of drama and performance, such
as early modern, realist and intercultural theatre in a variety of geographical contexts. Simultaneously,
the course focuses on concepts such as performers, audiences and space, the critical vocabulary required
for performance analysis.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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ENGL1053. Eighteenth century drama: The rise of celebrity culture (6 credits)

This course introduces students to the world of the bustling and controversial theatres of the Anglo-
Atlantic Eighteenth Century. Taking a dramaturgical approach to a number of dramatic texts produced
in this important period in the history of popular entertainment, this course will examine key
developments in literary innovation such as character development and the rise of interiority from
within the context of new theatrical technology, the rise of new forms of media, the growing power of
government censorship, an emerging imperial identity, nationalism, and increased social mobility. We
will also focus on the rise of celebrity culture in the period and examine the development of popular
obsession with “stars” within the broader social contexts of shifting gender norms, new regimes of
sexual expression, and the rise of consumer culture. We will also examine plays alongside other forms
of texts such as published gossip, celebrity memoirs, newspaper advertisements, playbills, and acting
manuals, making use of existing databases hosted at the Folger, Huntington, and the British Libraries.
This course also aims to serve as a general introduction on how to read literary texts historically, and
how the study of literature can benefit from an interdisciplinary approach that borrows insights from
Language Studies; Cultural Studies; New Media Studies; and Gender/Sexuality studies. At the end of
this course, students should have acquired a critical familiarity with the dramatic culture of the
Eighteenth Century, as well as a set of analytical skills that will prepare them for the future study in
literary criticism. Texts to be studied might include popular versions of Sentimental Comedy;
Operas/Oratorios; Bourgeois Tragedy; Gothic Fantasy; Pantomime and Travel Drama. Authors to be
studied might include Jonathan Steele; George Frideric Handel; Henry Fielding; Oliver Goldsmith;
Susanna Centlivre; Hannah Cowley; and Elizabeth Inchbald.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1054. Writing disaster: Literature, trauma, memory (6 credits)

Broadly conceived, this course will explore the relationship between writing and loss. Its more
concentrated concern is with how writing (and here we mean both literary and cinematic works)
manages to represent the unthinkable, the unsayable, and the unmournable. This course will study the
representational systems and generic instabilities of works that emerge from the aftermath of various
disasters and catastrophes (war, ethnic violence, political turmoil, the annihilation of the ecosystem). In
particular, it will look at how these works engage various clinical and legal discourses about trauma
and testimony, paying close attention to moments when alternative ways of remembering, experiencing,
and recounting disasters are imagined and performed. Focusing mostly on texts in the postcolonial
literary canon, this course will take students through fictional writing, films, theoretical texts, and
philosophical works in order to provide them with a better understanding of what it means “to write
disaster” and to show how this writing unfolds over time and space through the words of those who
survive what they often cannot endure.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

LCOM1001. Introduction to language and communication (6 credits)

This course introduces a range of theories, approaches and applications pertinent to the study of
language and communication. In doing so, it aims to provide students with core knowledge needed to
critically reflect upon the role of language as a social practice; and to apply this when reading texts and
working with data. This entails familiarising students with theories and approaches (including the
polysemy of core concepts like “language” and “communication”, and the shift from structuralist to
social constructionist approaches); methodologies (including ethics, ethnography, interviews and
discourse analysis); and applications (including examples from scholarship and brief presentations by
invited speakers highlighting different ways of doing language and communication). While the course
will highlight the importance of interdisciplinary approaches to language and communication, it will
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strongly draw on themes and research from within the field of sociolinguistics. Structurally, the course
will consist of a mix of frontal input, workshops, tutorials, and contributions by invited speakers. During
the semester, students will thus be expected to be active listeners as well as participants in workshops
and tutorials. The latter will entail students taking first steps in collecting and analysing small segments
of data, with guidance, and using the theoretical and methodological knowledge provided.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

LCOM1002. Language, communication, society, field (6 credits)

In this introductory course to sociolinguistics, we address some fundamental topics in the positioning
of language in human societies, from the beginnings in dialectology, and language variation, to code
choice, and power, as well as consider applications in education and language policy and planning. We
not only examine theories and issues, but also explore methods in conducting sociolinguistic research.
Our investigation draws richly from both English as well as multilingual and non-English scenarios,
critically examining classic sociolinguistic accounts from a contemporary perspective, and ultimately
building a solid and comprehensive understanding of the workings of language and communication in
society.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

LCOM1003. Theorizing communication (6 credits)

This course offers an overview of the major currents in linguistic theory of how the ‘fact’ of (human)
communication is explained, what its prerequisites are, and how they align with everyday personal
experience. Students will be introduced to the major theoretical schools and asked to engage and interact
with each one of them by drawing on their critical reflection, their lay experience, and analyses of their
personal communicational biographies.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

LCOM1004. Introduction to pragmatics (6 credits)

People do not always say what they mean. So, how do we manage to understand each other if speakers
regularly mean something other than what they say? Why don’t people just say what they mean? We
shall answer these and many other questions in this introductory course to Pragmatics. Some of the
topics we shall be concerned with in this course include different levels of meaning, speaker’s intention,
interpretation and understanding of utterances; the role of context in utterance interpretations; speech
acts; conversational implicature; presupposition and politeness.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

Advanced Courses

ENGL2002. Language in society (6 credits)

This course will provide an introduction to the study of ‘sociolinguistics’, which deals with the
relationship between language and society. Topics will vary, but may include the following:
multilingualism, language varieties, language planning, language change, English in contact with other
languages.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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ENGL2004. English syntax (6 credits)

This course introduces the structure of English by investigating approaches to grammar, models of
grammatical analysis, and the grammar of contemporary English. It is interested in the relationship
between morphology and syntax, and grammar and linguistics.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2007. Literary linguistics (6 credits)

Why does a headline capture our attention? An advert slogan stay long in our mind? A speech sway our
opinion? A song carry our emotions away? A joke make us laugh? And a school text leave us blank?
Essentially, it is because of the intricate workings of language; often, it is not so much what is said as
how it is said that impresses us most. And this applies also to the language of literature. Rhyme and
metaphor are not the exclusive property of poetry; while a poet can use the same words as an army
officer or a salesperson. Literature shares many of the features of everyday language, and this course
will take us through the language that is used in a spectrum of texts of differing degrees of literariness,
including poems, plays, stories, songs, jokes, advertisements, political and religious communications,
regulations, textbooks and technical manuals. We will examine how linguistic forms and literary
devices are related to aesthetic effects and ideological functions. We will analyse how the choice and
the patterning of words, sounds and images help convey and elicit feelings and thoughts, and views and
values. Topics include: Towards characterizing stylistic analysis; Collocation, deviation and word play;
Prosody, parallelism and performance; Discourse into discourse; Narration and representation of speech
and thought; Reader positioning and response.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2010. English novel (6 credits)

This course offers a study of narrative fiction, and of its development.

Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2012. Contemporary literary theory (6 credits)

In the late 20th century, developments in critical thought had a major impact on literature and criticism.
Relations between literary production and language, politics and history were radically re-examined by
and through what has become known as ‘theory’. As a body of thought, theory includes such diverse
and conflicting schools and movements as Marxism, poststructuralism, feminism and gender theory,
new historicism, postcolonialism and postmodernism. As well as exploring the institution of theory in
the academy, students will put theory into practice in readings of selected literary texts.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2030. New Englishes (6 credits)

This course explores both structural and sociolinguistic aspects of World Englishes, with particular
attention to New Englishes, especially postcolonial Englishes of Asia. We will examine how the
structural features found in these Englishes are not a consequence of a lack of ability to learn English
perfectly, or pronounce it correctly, or express it clearly. Rather, such features are completely
appropriate to the multilingual and multicultural ecologies in which the Englishes have evolved,
ecologies in which numerous other languages of diverse typologies abound. We will also critically
consider issues and debates in World/ New Englishes, involving concepts of ‘mother tongue’,
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‘nativeness’ and ownership, issues of ideology, attitudes and identity, and challenges of creative
expression, pedagogy and planning.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2035. Reading poetry (6 credits)

This course demonstrates how poems can be used for self-exploration and self-expression, telling a
story, and social comment. A conventional, received idea of poetry is that it is unmediated self-
expression. This course discusses and historicizes this idea with reference to selected texts from the
17th to 20th centuries. It also critiques this idea by attending to how the self in poetry is also a social
self, formed in dialogue with external events and others.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2039. Gender, sexuality and discourse (6 credits)

This course offers an introduction to ways that language usage trends across society can be sensitive to
social categories of sexuality and gender along with how speakers use language to project gender and
sexuality. The course includes an historical view while bringing in cutting edge research, in this way
highlighting emerging trends while keeping persistent themes in view. Project work will focus on
discourse analysis of authentic data.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2045. Travel writing (6 credits)

This is a survey of European travel writing as a literary genre from the medieval period to the present
day. The writings of travelers and explorers such as Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus and James
Cook are examined, as well as those of modern travel writers such as Freya Stark, Graham Greene, D.H.
Lawrence, Paul Theroux and Jan Morris. European travel writing is explored formally and thematically
with the aim of introducing students to its many strategies and subtexts, and especially its historical role
in articulating ‘otherness’ for the European imagination.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2047. English discourse structures and strategies (6 credits)

This course will provide an introduction to the analysis of English discourse from a linguistic
perspective. Students will learn rhetorical methodologies and examine their effects on readers and
listeners. Units include: spoken and written English discourse, global organization and cohesion,
discourse markers, information structure, narrative, and non-verbal structures and strategies.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2048. Language and jargon (6 credits)

This course focuses on specialized sub-group languages or jargons, and uses texts from a range of
historical period to examine the socio-cultural dynamics behind the creation, maintenance and
disappearance of such jargons. Particular attention will be paid to the history of criminal jargon, prison
jargon and other speech varieties associated with other marginal or criminalized sub-groups (e.g. drug
addicts, ‘tramps’, etc.), as well as to the history of the study of such jargons and the inclusion of jargon
and slang items in mainstream dictionaries. Students will read texts from different periods in the history
 57

of English, as well as considering the role of jargons in modern societies such as the United States,
Britain and Hong Kong, as well as in ‘cyber-space’.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2050. English corpus linguistics (6 credits)

Corpus linguistics is a rapidly-developing methodology in the study of language. It exploits the power
of modern computer technology to manipulate and analyse large collections of naturally-occurring
language (‘corpora’). This course will introduce students to the use of computers and computerized
corpora as tools for exploring the English language.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2055. American Gothic: Haunted homes (6 credits)

In this course we will examine the gothic as an important genre in American literature and trace its
tradition over two hundred years of literary history. As a response to dominant ideas and conventions
that shaped American literature, the gothic offers us a challenging perspective on the mainstream as
well as on what it excludes. Beginning with some classic examples of the genre, we will seek to identify
the elements and the rhetoric of the gothic text in order to appreciate the specific use that later writers
have made of the gothic form.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2057. Text and image (6 credits)

This interdisciplinary course explores relations between literature and various forms of image-based
representation. It begins with ‘painterly’ descriptions in novels and poetry, and common strands in art
and literary criticism, and proceeds to discussion of relations between film and literature, such as the
presence of cinematographic form in modern literature. In the concluding module, we consider the shift
in emphasis from text-based to image-based culture and its impact on postmodern society. Course
material consists of critical essays, and examples from literature, the pictorial arts and the moving image.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2074. Postcolonial readings (6 credits)

This course examines important works of literature in English from perspectives opened up by recent
debates on ‘nation’, ‘narration’, and ‘hybridity’.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2075. The idea of China (6 credits)

This course examines English representations and interpretations of China in a selection of writings
from the 18th century to the early 20th century.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2076. Romanticism (6 credits)

The course studies the Romantic era, and traces its history through a selection of its main texts.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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ENGL2078. The novel today (6 credits)

This course provides the opportunity to study selected novels in English which are representative of
current trends in literature. Representative texts will be studied and these will be selected from critically
acclaimed novels such as those appearing on the Man Booker short list. American fiction and world
literature might also be included.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2079. Shakespeare (6 credits)

This course will explore some of the themes and form of Shakespeare’s drama, and will consider how
his work has been interpreted in modern times.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2080. Women, feminism and writing (6 credits)

This course will explore the often difficult relationship between women and what has been traditionally
known as the ‘feminine sphere’. Women have commonly been associated with the feminine sphere of
love, marriage and family and this course will consider how modernity and feminism have challenged
and disrupted this assumption.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2085. Creative writing (6 credits)

This seminar offers an introduction to creative writing. Writers in the class will focus especially on
telling and writing stories through workshops, readings, research, and individual coaching. Students
will also practice the art of holding an audience page by page. Each writer in the class will develop a
body of work specific to individual taste and discovery. No previous experience is necessary.
Workshops and materials will be introduced to sharpen the writer’s plot, characters, dialogue, with an
emphasis on the writer’s ear and eye for shaping stories across drafts.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2089. Making Americans: Literature as ritual and renewal (6 credits)

This course will be an introduction to American literature primarily through fictional and non-fictional
accounts of exemplary lives. Our focus will be on how successive generations of immigrants and settlers
have constructed and transformed a vision of ‘America’ as process and promise. The course aims to
introduce students to the diversity of writing that constitutes American literature, to guide them in the
development of critical reading and writing skills and to provide them with opportunities to build,
present and respond to arguments about the texts and topics under discussion.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2097. Imagining Hong Kong (6 credits)

In this course, students will read selections of fiction, poetry, essays, and journalism from earlier
moments in the twentieth century to post-1997. Questions of modernity, urbanization and the urban
subject, and cross-cultural identities will be discussed from perspectives opened up by postcolonial
 59

theories, and with reference to historical change both locally and in Hong Kong’s geopolitical situation
in the last fifty years.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2103. Language and digital media (6 credits)

Language is strongly influenced by the medium through which it is presented. When the medium itself
is in wide use, norms emerge which determine not only the form that language can take, but also the
pragmatic effects of any language use that either exploits or deviates from these norms. The nature of
public language--that is, language generated by or for the public at large through various media--in turn
influences public discourse (i.e., what is being talked about large-scale, and how it is talked about).
When the nature of the medium is expressly exploited linguistically, then this change can achieve
overwhelming and widespread effects.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2104. Language in the USA (6 credits)

This course addresses the problems (theoretical and practical) inherent in defining a variety of English
as ‘American’. Issues treated include the history of American English; dialectology; sociolinguistics;
Black English; and the politics of American English.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2112. An introduction to the history of English (6 credits)

This introductory seminar will acquaint students with the main historical periods of the English
language (Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English) and theoretical and methodological
problems and approaches in studying these varieties. Through the use of various media apart from
academic literature (video, audio presentations, online sources, computer corpora), the seminar will
offer students various modes of learning about the history of English, language change, and linguistic
theory.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2115. Theories of language acquisition (6 credits)

[Non-permissible combinations: EDUC2203. First and second language acquisition, LING2036. Child
language]

This course offers an introduction to the central themes in language acquisition, covering first language
acquisition, second/foreign language acquisition and bilingualism. Students are expected to gain from
the course a broad understanding of how children acquire their first language, how second language
learners learn a new language, and the potential differences in processing and outcome.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2117. English phonology and morphology (6 credits)

This course provides a comprehensive study of the sounds (phonemes) and building blocks (morphemes)
of English words. Students will examine the phonemes of English as they occur separately and in
context, and the processes involved in producing those sounds. The course involves problems that
Cantonese speakers might have in mastering English phonemes (and why) and ways in which those
problems can be overcome. Students will also develop an understanding of the foundation of English
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words. In learning the various ways in which English words are formed, each student will be able to
increase his/her own lexicon and develop an understanding of how and why words are constantly being
added to or deleted from the English language, and who is generally responsible for those changes.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2118. Law and literature (6 credits)

This course explores the complex interactions between literature and the law. Even though the two
disciplines may seem distinct, both law and literature are products of language and have overlapped in
significant and interesting ways in history. Why do legal themes recur in fiction, and what kinds of
literary structures underpin legal argumentation? How do novelists and playwrights imagine the law,
and how do lawyers and judges interpret literary works? Could literature have legal subtexts, and could
legal documents be re-interpreted as literary texts? We will think through these questions by juxtaposing
novels, plays, court cases, and critical theory.
Pre-requisite: a previous course in legal and/or literary subject.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2119. English in Hong Kong: Making it your own (6 credits)

This course examines English as a cultural phenomenon in Hong Kong. Students investigate the ways
in which Hong Kong English (HKE) differs from British English, and from Englishes in other ex-
colonies of the Pacific region, particularly other Asian countries; you will have an opportunity to focus
on a particular type of HKE discourse, including (but not limited to) everyday social interactions,
business, the law, the media, and literature. You will be asked, specifically, to think about Hong Kong
English as a language full of richness, distinguishable from other Englishes, and no less worthy of
recognition than, say, American English.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2120. Science fiction (6 credits)

As the world is becoming increasingly “science fictional”, the genre of Science Fiction may itself appear
to be boldly entering the mainstream of literature and at last confront the bureaucratic powers of
academic criticism. We therefore do well to remember that Science Fiction is chiefly concerned with
the lure and fear of frontiers and the unknown: a fascination with the future that yet often gives way to
nostalgia, a reaching out to otherness that always risks reaffirming sameness, and a bracing disregard
for literary conventions that nevertheless remains prone to revere tradition. In this course, we will study
contemporary Science Fiction against the background of the genre’s history. We will acknowledge its
prehistory in early modern fictional writing about science and its kinship with related genres such as
utopia (and dystopia), the fantastic, and the gothic. We will pay our respects to the evolution of the
genre from its emergence in the late nineteenth century, through its Golden Age in pulp and its late
ascendancy in novels, TV and films. But we will reserve most of our time to an exploration of
contemporary Science Fiction and its relevance to the pushing of technological frontiers, the looming
ecological tipping points, and the shifting ideological paradigms in our world.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2122. Global Victorians (6 credits)

This course will examine Victorian literature and culture through a global lens with an emphasis on
questions of empire and race.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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ENGL2123. Language and identity in Hong Kong (6 credits)

This course is a continuation of ENGL2002 Language in Society with a special focus on language and
identity in Hong Kong. Students who have taken ENGL2002 will have a foundation in sociolinguistics,
which certainly will be helpful, but ENGL2002 is not a prerequisite.
This course examines identity studies and related language ideology research in sociolinguistics and
linguistic anthropology (including some relevant literature from sociology and social psychology). It
specifically draws on research based in Hong Kong for comparison understanding, and application of
currently available theoretical models.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2125. English construction grammar (6 credits)

This course will introduce students to two burgeoning paradigms in present-day linguistics: construction
grammar and grammaticalization theory. The first of these is a general semantico-syntactic language
theory; the second a (historical) linguistic discipline that focuses on how grammatical constructions
come into being. The compatibility and complementarity of both approaches will be looked at through
a detailed case study of English clausal complement constructions.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2126. Law, meaning, and interpretation (6 credits)

This course is concerned with meaning in verbal discourse. What makes the course distinctive, however,
is that its interest in interpretation will be comparative, not between different languages but as regards
how verbal discourse is interpreted in settings that bring different interpretive norms to bear on linguistic
data: e.g. in literary and film interpretation, in religious interpretation, and in legal interpretation. The
course begins with an introductory review of topics and approaches in semantics and pragmatics, then
traces how meanings are ascribed differently in a selection of disciplinary and institutional settings. A
final stage of the course is concerned with how approaches to interpretation engage with one another
and the controversies and debates that arise when they do. No specialized knowledge of linguistics, law,
or religious interpretation is needed; the course will provide a multidisciplinary introduction to the fields
under discussion. In doing so, it will draw extensively on contributions made by students who are taking
or have taken relevant courses in linguistics, literary criticism, and other cognate fields.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2127. Language and the law (6 credits)

Language plays an essential role both in creating law (e.g. in how specific laws are drafted) as well as
in the implementation of law (e.g. in how language is deployed but also contested - in court). This
course examines how language plays these important social roles, and addresses topics, including:
different linguistic registers and genres which shape our concept of what legal language is;
communicative strategies, adopted in the courtroom by speakers occupying different roles (judge,
barrister, defendant, witness, etc.); how language is used and understood in in legal drafting and
interpretation; submission of language data as evidence in some court cases; and linguistic and legal
issues that arise in bilingual and multilingual jurisdictions (i.e. in systems that formulate and apply their
law in two or more different languages). Together, such aspects of language use form the subject matter
of an increasingly researched and studied interdisciplinary field, known as ‘language and law’ or
‘forensic linguistics’, to which this course provides an accessible introduction.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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ENGL2128. Modernism (6 credits)

This course explores a number of radical twentieth-century literary texts in various genres, written in
or translated into English, each of which is an attempt to challenge and re-invent more traditional forms
and modes of writing. These modernist texts, and their inter-relationship, will be considered under the
rubric of “world literature”. The course will also look at some of the themes - such as empire and nation,
the nature of the artist, the bourgeois experience, the city, and changing understandings of gender, race,
sexuality and the foreign - that shaped modernity in the modernist century.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2129. English as a language of science (6 credits)

English is sometimes called ‘the’ language of science. This could be more myth than reality, but there
is no question that a great deal of academic communication takes place in English. Well-established
notions like ‘scientific English’ or ‘academic English’ suggest that this is a special kind of English
which has features that differ from ‘general’ English. This course will provide a context for reflection
on the present role of English in a globalized academic world and the history of that role, as well as on
the nature of English-language discourse in various academic disciplines. It is not an academic writing
course, but an analytical course dealing, on the one hand, with the sociology and history of the language
of science, and, on the other, with the textual and linguistic characteristics of the discourse produced in
natural-scientific, social-scientific and humanities disciplines.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2130. Signs, language and meaning: Integrational reflections (6 credits)

This course introduces students to the basic tenets of integrational linguistics and integrationism.
Integrational linguistics takes as its point of departure a theory of the sign which emphasizes the
temporal, contextual and experiential dimensions of language and communication. Language users are
also seen as language makers, in that they constantly create meaning and integrate and adapt their
linguistic experience to novel situations. The course aims to provide insight into a wide range of topics,
including the nature of memory, experience, consciousness, and other psychological and philosophical
questions.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2131. The critic as artist (6 credits)

The rise of modern literary criticism is concurrent with the rise of modern society. This course
introduces students to the development of literary criticism as a literary genre and a historical formation.
By studying a selection of key critical texts from the early nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth
century, the course will discuss the creative uses of criticism in the history of English literature and the
role criticism has played in the development of our understanding of literature. There will be weekly
lectures and workshops, in which we will discuss, and participate in, some of the most significant
debates among major critical thinkers and to relate these debates to our own studies of literature.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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ENGL2134. World literature (6 credits)

This course seeks to understand world literature not as a collection of national literary canons created
in different linguistic and cultural locations, but as a field of knowledge about literature as a cross-
cultural and translingual system of production. Reading a selection of texts, both fictional and non-
fictional, we will discuss the concept and practice of world literature: its genealogy and methodology,
its scope and purpose, its politics and limitations, in close relation to historical forms and forces of
globalization.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2135. The cosmopolitan imagination (6 credits)

Invented by Greek philosophers twenty-four centuries ago as a way to stretch received notions of
belonging and obligation, the word ‘cosmopolitan’ continues to tease the imagination even today, in a
time when universities declare global citizenship as an educational aim and you can sign up for world
citizenship online. In this course, we will critically examine different interpretations of what it might
mean to be ‘a citizen of the world’ or ‘at home in every place’ (as Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the
English Language defined ‘cosmopolitan’ in 1755). From the vantage point of recent debates about the
promise or failure of cosmopolitanism to challenge dominant forms of globalization, we will read and
discuss a selection of texts in various genres from the 18th to the 21st century, situating the
cosmopolitan ideal and its critiques in relation to different modes of representation and discrepant
experiences of globalization.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2136. Cross-cultural discourses (6 credits)

This course is a seminar and lecture series for advanced students in which teachers introduce and discuss
a variety of topics and critical issues in cross-cultural studies. Topics will vary from year to year but
will always revolve around one coherent thematic cluster, which might be, for example, China-West,
travel writing, cross-cultural theory and methodology, world literature, literary crossings in British
history, globalism, colonialism, Hong Kong. Students will thus engage with a specific cross-cultural
subject matter in-depth, and from a variety of critical perspectives. They will also learn specifically
about academic research in cross-cultural studies.
Assessment: 100% coursework (written essay or project).

ENGL2137. The profession of playwright in early modern England (6 credits)

In this course we examine the emergence of writing for the theater as a profession — commercial as
well as artistic — during the English Renaissance. An intersection of literary history and textual analysis,
the course begins with a brief look at popular medieval plays as foils in style, production, and authorship.
Subsequent readings include dramatic works (comedy, tragedy, masque), journals from key historical
figures, acts of government, literary criticism, and material histories of the theater. Our inquiry
comprises both the promotion and suppression of drama within the culture of early modern England.
We pay special attention, therefore, to theories of dramatic value (what do authors profess to be doing?)
and various legal regulations of drama (what do authorities find dangerous?).
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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ENGL2138. Language and globalization (6 credits)

[Non-permissible combination: LCOM2005. Language, communication and globalization]

Globalization has been defined in a number of ways, for example as the increased interconnectedness
of individuals, organizations and countries; intense flows of goods, services, capital, information,
images, and people; a new ‘world order’ with privileged centres and disadvantaged peripheries; or a
geography of unequal development. Whichever of these definitions is adopted, an understanding of how
language is used as part of these networks, flows, and inequalities, or indeed to facilitate them, is crucial
in theorizing language and communication in the contemporary world. Therefore, this course examines
language through the metaphors of transition, flux, mobility and displacement. In a world where
people’s lives and identities are no longer so neatly bounded or easily located, with positions of power
and authority no longer clearly defined, we ask questions about the role of language in shaping
contemporary ‘globalized’ identities, relationships and communities. Some of the key areas of
globalization that are considered from the perspective of language and communication are the new
globalized economy; print, broadcast and new media; popular culture; tourism; and second language
education.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2139. American modern (6 credits)

This course will examine American literature from 1900-1940, a period of tremendous change in
American culture. We will explore how certain paradigms of American identity are challenged /
reinforced / examined / sublimated in the literature during this tumultuous period. We will also explore
how American modernist literature is in conversation with (and sometimes in conflict with) the broader
Modernist movement. And finally we will seek to understand how the American modernist style is a
deeply complicated and fraught response to the rapid and complex changes wrought by modernity in
early twentieth century America.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2140. Ideologies of language in early modernity (6 credits)

We analyze early modern reflections on the power of language — in particular, the language of literary
texts — to bring about cultural change. The course investigates how assumptions about language
support arguments that promote a political or social vision. Topics to be explored include: the functions
of speech — communication and persuasion; defenses of the vernacular as suitable for poetry and
biblical translation; theories of poetic agency, or the capacity of fiction to shape readers’ moral character;
epic and the formation of national identity; deviant speech and language crimes.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2141. Doing discourse analysis (6 credits)

In the last fifty years or so, ‘discourse’ and ‘discourse analysis’ (DA) have firmly established themselves
as key notions in many academic disciplines, including linguistics, literary studies, communication
studies, and social sciences, to name a few. As a consequence, there currently exist at least 40 ‘tribes
and sub-tribes’ of discourse analysis, with new approaches still appearing and older approaches being
re-conceptualized. This course aims at, first, providing the students with an accessible introduction to
the theoretical underpinnings of discourse analysis, and, second, taking them through a step-by step
process of doing discourse analysis. The particular focus of the course is on introducing the students to
the analysis of context-specific use of language in written, spoken and multimodal communication.
Examples for the course will be drawn from different authentic discourses, such as everyday
conversations, media, politics, business and healthcare encounters, with some of the examples coming
from the sociocultural context of Hong Kong.
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Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2142. Milton (6 credits)

We read selected poems from Milton’s oeuvre, with a focus on the epic Paradise Lost. As we read the
texts, we focus on questions of genre, interpretative puzzles, and place Milton in the larger literary
culture and religious milieu of early modern England.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2143. Religion and the flourishing of English (6 credits)

This course focuses on how religious dissension in the early modern period affected the development
of English as a literary language. We examine the thought of Christian reformers and counter-reformers
— among others, Wycliffe, Tyndale, and More — and analyze selections from major religious texts
that for the first time became accessible in the vernacular. The works under study come from a range of
genres, including royal edicts, trials, and literary dialogues; and they span from the first English bible,
a manuscript of the late fourteenth century, to the “King James version,” a book printed in 1611 — one
whose impact on English remains unparalleled. Primarily we will attend to arguments about language
featured in their prologues and addresses to the reader. Topics for discussion include: theories of textual
interpretation; controversy over the suitability of English for the translation of scripture; and heresy as
a language crime (the religious thinkers whom we read faced dire punishment for their stances).
‘Flourish’ has comprised three main meanings since its appearance in Middle English: to bloom or
prosper, to brandish a weapon, and to ornament speech. We shall touch on each — the cultural thriving
of English, verbal duels, and the politics of poetics.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2144. Forms of contemporary literature (6 credits)

This advanced course will focus on representative texts of late 20th and early 21st century Anglophone
literature. Topics will include memory, history, and the representation of trauma; the writing of
transnational and trans-lingual experience; the ethics of narration and reading; the formation and
dynamics of the non-nuclear family. We will study formal practices and innovations; allegory and
intertextuality; the poetics of perspective and unreliable narration; the impact of translation on
Anglophone literature.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2145. Post-1945 English drama (6 credits)

This advanced course will introduce a number of plays by major playwrights such as Arthur Miller,
Tennessee Williams, Samuel Beckett, Tom Stoppard, Caryl Churchill and Brian Friel. The course will
be broadly chronological and the plays discussed will be situated in their socio-political contexts. The
classes will comprise close readings and discussion of the plays rather than lectures on drama.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2146. Cognitive semantics (6 credits)

Imagination gives us the ability to invent new concepts so we can develop arts, science, religion, culture,
sophisticated tools, and language. In this course, we focus on how the human mind operates largely
behind the scenes to create new meaning. Almost invisibly to consciousness, we create meaning every
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day. As opposed to the general view that meaning is given or prepackaged in linguistic expressions,
meaning construction should be understood as something that we actively participate in as a product of
interaction with others in specific contexts. We perform it with lightning speed. More often than not,
we do not find it difficult at all to produce and understand language we have not heard before when we
communicate with others. The construction of meaning is also crucial to the understanding of our own
culture. Cultural models are not only ideas that reside in our minds. They are often embodied in a wide
array of material artefacts. This course will look at examples of thinking strategies that involve the
interaction of mental structure and material structure.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2147. Joyce’s voices (6 credits)

This course will explore four of James Joyce’s major works: Dubliners (1914), A Portrait of the Artist
as a Young Man (1916), Ulysses (1922) and Finnegans Wake (1939). “If I can get to the heart of Dublin,
I can get to the heart of all cities in the world. In the particular is contained the universal” (Joyce).
There is a sense in which Joyce wrote only one book. All the characters in his books, early and late,
belong to the same Dublin world. A study of the key texts will reveal the distinctive features of Joyce’s
art as well as the ways in which it can be viewed as a continuous progression. The stylistic brilliance of
Joyce is generally acknowledged. He celebrates the richness, fertility and infinite possibilities of
ordering the world that lie within language. He subverted narrative conventions and experimented with
new forms to produce art that still has the power to startle.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2149. American dreaming (6 credits)

This course will examine American literature from the middle to the end of the twentieth century. It
will stand alone as a course offering but will also dovetail nicely with American Modern which covers
American literature from the first half of the twentieth century. Specifically this course will interrogate
the myth of the American dream -- we will look at novels that explore what it promises, whom it fails.
We will pursue why so often the American dream is a literary nightmare. In this pursuit, we will read
a broad range of important American fiction and interpret what writers from various vantage points
(historical, geographical, economical, ethnic, gender) have to say about the American Dream, an idea
that sustains its potency even as we make our way into the twenty-first century.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2150. The city and modernity (6 credits)

This course will focus on urban literature in a broadly chronological manner to explore the emergence
of the modern metropolis within European and American contexts. Beginning with London and Paris,
we will look at how writers imagined, walked, and mapped the city in a new expression of urban
modernity, from the ‘City of Lights’ to ‘Modern Babylon’. American cities, in particular New York,
will provide another mode of comparison for the ideas of alienation, consumption, crime and corruption
so central to our contemporary conceptions of the city. Utilising primary and secondary sources each
week, the course will be organised thematically, investigating movement, space, gender, and issues of
class to locate the nineteenth century city as a dynamic place of shifting and often contradictory ideas.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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ENGL2152. Theory of the novel (6 credits)

The novel has been one of the most important cultural forms of the past two hundred years. Yet
compared to poetry and drama, the essence of the novel has proven difficult to define. This course will
survey the ways that theorists have sought to understand the novel’s development and how it functions
as a literary form. We will begin with critical accounts of the novel’s rise in the eighteenth century.
Why did the novel emerge at this moment, and what is its relationship to other literary and non-literary
forms, like the romance and the newspaper? We will then think about the form of the novel and how
theorists seek to pin down exactly what it is. Students will think about these theories in relationship to
one or two seminal novels.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2153. Literary London (6 credits)

This course surveys British literary and cultural depictions of London from the eighteenth century to
the present. Students will consider how the expanding eighteenth and nineteenth-century city
transformed cultural understandings of the self and its relationship to society. We will examine literary
representations of the changing spaces of the city and the effect of crowded urban life on individual
character and community. Course materials might include canonical authors like William Wordsworth
or Charles Dickens, popular literature and newspapers, and seminal works in urban studies and literary
criticism in thinking about the depiction of London in literature and popular culture.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2156. Eighteenth-century British literature (6 credits)

The eighteenth century saw the rise of the novel and, arguably, the emergence of a new modern self. It
also ushered in enlightenment ideals that challenged existing social hierarchies. This course will survey
the developments in British literature and culture during this tumultuous time. We will read poetry,
journalism, and prose fiction in light of the period’s key concepts, including the enlightenment, the self,
and the public sphere. In particular, our discussions will focus on the emergence of new genres and
forms, including the newspaper and the novel. Readings may include Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe,
Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, and Fanny Burney’s Evelina.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2157. Representations of justice in law and literature (6 credits)

Addressing readers of the Law Reports, the renowned Renaissance jurist Sir Edward Coke repeats an
ancient definition of justice: “Ius suum cuique tribuere, to give to every one his owne”. As intuitively
appealing as this formulation may be, can we say anything more specific about dessert, about what it
means to be given one’s due? How have literary authors and legal thinkers explored what it might mean
to distribute or receive a fair share? In this course, we examine a variety of conceptions and depictions
of justice, an idea crucial to the peace of the individual as well as the harmony of society; yet it is an
idea that can seem ineffable. We begin with selected foundational meditations and dramatic situations
from antiquity, before continuing with prominent early modern attempts to argue for, come to terms
with, or present a vision of, a particular understanding of justice.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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ENGL2158. Language processing and learning (6 credits)

The course provides an overview of the cognitive approaches to first and second language processing
and learning. Students will gain a broad understanding of how different components of language (words,
meaning and syntax) are processed and represented in the mind, how fundamental principles of learning
and memory may be relevant to first and second language learning, and how language patterns may be
learnt without intention and awareness.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2159. Twenty-first century English poetry (6 credits)

“One of the surest of tests is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poet
steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least
something different.” (T.S. Eliot, 1920) This is not a 'creative writing' course per se nor is it just a lit.
crit. course about recent poetry: students should be willing to approach the texts from the 'inside' as well
as the outside.
Harold Bloom has written of “the anxiety of influence” poets may feel in relation to their precursors.
This can hinder poets’ own poetic development and result in writing that is merely derivative. However,
many poets also demonstrate the ‘benefits of influence’, of serving their (poetic) apprenticeships –
rather as a carpenter does - as they seek their own poetic voices. We may, for instance, follow a clear
line of descent in poetic influence from the poetry of John Keats to Wilfred Owen; Owen to Philip
Larkin; Larkin to Carol Ann Duffy.
Who are the new voices in English poetry in the first few years of the twenty-first century? What is
distinctive about their writing? This course will combine critical and creative approaches to the study
of these poems.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2160. Sovereignty in law, theory and culture (6 credits)

Sovereignty is a centrally important concept for both law and politics, to which recent debates in Hong
Kong testify. In this course we will assess the meaning and significance of sovereignty by drawing on
resources from across the arts, humanities and social sciences. We will read and discuss materials from
law, political theory, philosophy, urban studies, literature and the visual arts in order to answer the
following questions: What is sovereignty and how is it related to the history of the state? How is our
understanding of sovereignty changing in the context of contemporary challenges like globalization,
climate change and international terrorism? And what would law and politics looks like without
sovereignty? The course takes a broad historical sweep, from early-modern conceptions to the present
day. We will look at key theorists of sovereignty like (the authoritarian) Thomas Hobbes, (the Nazi-
sympathizing) Carl Schmitt and (the anarchist philosopher) Giorgio Agamben as well as explore
thinkers who are trying to imagine law and politics ‘without’ or ‘beyond’ sovereignty. Throughout the
course, we supplement theoretical and legal debates with insights from literature and the visual arts.
The plays of William Shakespeare; poetry written by inmates within the Guantanamo detention centers;
17th century emblems and images; and an early-twentieth century novel will all help us understand the
meaning of sovereignty and explore possibilities for its critique.
The course will be of particular interest to students who have enjoyed classes in legal theory, law and
literature, law and film, or constitutional law. But the course is open to all who are excited to explore
the possibilities of interdisciplinary scholarship and want to find out more about the elusive but crucially
important notion of sovereignty. This course hopes to broaden the scholarly horizons of students by
bringing students together from different disciplinary backgrounds. The course will provide participants
with valuable cross-disciplinary reading, rhetorical and evaluative skills.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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ENGL2161. Language rights and linguistic justice (6 credits)

The first part of the course offers a broad picture of linguistic diversity and cultural preservation, traces
the evolution of language rights and explores the historical connections of such evolution with nation
states, warfare, and globalization. The second part of the course surveys international and national legal
regimes in the protection of language rights, covering both minority language rights and official
language rights, and their manifestations as negative and positive rights. We will examine how some of
these rights are realized in the domains of education, legal processes and public services across
jurisdictions, as well as the limitations of their reach. The third part of the course focuses on the
philosophical and moral basis of language rights, addresses sources of contention, and queries the
concept of ‘linguistic justice’. Such discussions provide a lens through which tensions between
liberalism and diversity may be probed.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2162. Where the wild things are: Children's literature and the law (6 credits)

The experience of becoming literate and the content that supports that effort are fundamental to
understanding one's place and one's power in a legal context. A close examination and interrogation of
what societal norms are being introduced to young readers through an analytical study of children's
literature will provide a foundation for understanding the relationship between norms introduced in
children's literature and the laws that codify those norms.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2163. Comics, graphic novel and theory (6 credits)

The course introduces students to the graphic novel (book-length comics) as a relatively "new" genre
of contemporary literature. The course consists of a survey of key texts and provides students with the
necessary critical toolkit used to analyze visual literatures. Over the course of the semester, we will
focus on the “form” of the graphic novel and how it creates arguments about gender, class, sexuality
and race. This course will also be an introduction to the critical methods and theories used to interpret
the unique relationship between text and image.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2164. The beginnings of English law and literature (6 credits)

Students completing the course will have a strong sense of the history and development of English
statute and common law, familiarity with many of the canonical literary texts and authors of the
medieval and renaissance periods, and a critical understanding of the interactions of pre-modern law
and literature, as well as the ability to undertake legal and literary research using primary texts and
documentary artefacts from manuscript libraries and archives. The course focuses on developing
students' skills in developing arguments about a range of canonical literary texts, but also on the ways
in which literary approaches can be the basis for understanding text traditionally considered to be 'non-
literary': legal and archival materials. An innovation of this course is its centralization of the material
archive of books and documents. As part of its training in legal and literary history, the course introduces
students to the history of the book as an academic discipline, and to the skills of pre-modern archival
research – paleography, codicology, diplomatic, and textual scholarship, among others. In this way, the
course (while reinforcing the general skills of legal and literary research and argument necessary for
the successful completion of the LLB or BA) should also prepare students to take on postgraduate work
in a new range of disciplines focusing on the pre-modern period, and thus open to them a greater number
of career paths after their time at HKU.
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Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2165. Legal fictions: United States citizenship and the right to write in America (6
credits)

In 1776, the idea of self-evidence grounded the philosophical assertion that “all men are created equal.”
And yet, political, economic and social equality in the democratic republic of the United States has
often proven less of a guarantee and more of a promise. Beginning with Thomas Jefferson’s writing of
the “Declaration of Independence,” the recognition of a person as fully human in the United States has
depended on assumptions regarding race, class and gender. The course examines the changing
definition of United States citizenship by putting legal texts (the U.S. Constitution, federal and state
laws, Executive Orders, Supreme Court decisions) in dialogue with literary writings and film. In this
course we will read stories by people whom federal and or state law barred from full citizenship.
Through autobiographies, fiction, poetry and speeches, we will examine the cultural legacy of legal
terms such as “domestic dependent nation,” “illegal alien” and “unlawful enemy combatant.” The
course themes may include: property and democracy, slavery, westward expansion and Indian Removal,
immigration (with particular focus on China and Asia), the right of women to vote, and the wartime
powers of the Executive Office. Our goal will be to pay careful attention to the language and genres of
the American legislative and judicial system, and conversely to contextualize literature in relation to
the legal history through which the U.S. Constitution has been reinterpreted and amended to broaden
its terms of equality. We will read writers who used words to protest against and revise the historical
circumstances in which they had to fight for legal standing. We will also consider how different kinds
of writing -- legal, scientific, autobiographical and fictional -- employ different rhetorical strategies to
reach audiences, affect readers and influence the world.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2166. English phonetics (6 credits)

This course introduces students to the theoretical advancements in the study of speech. In the first half
of the course, we will look at the acoustic nature of different 'components' of speech: vowels, consonants,
stress and accent, intonation, and voice quality. The second half of the course will focus on how the
study of speech can be applied various areas of inquiry such as speech perception and production, the
learning of new sounds, sociophonetics, and forensic phonetics. Students will get hands-on experience
with Praat, a free computer software package for analysis of speech in phonetics. Prior knowledge of
phonetics and/or phonology will be helpful but not obligatory. Students with little background on the
study of speech are encouraged to read the recommended introductory textbooks before the course starts.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2167. Theatre and the world (6 credits)

This course explores how theatre was produced and consumed globally during the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries. Through a critical historical approach, students will analyze how proscenium
theatre was disseminated, Asian performance traditions were mythologized and a transnational,
commercial entertainment industry was instituted during the colonial and postcolonial ages. The course
will therefore consider theatre and performance in relation to broader themes such as imperialism,
postcolonialism, globalisation and neoliberalism.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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ENGL2168. The law of signs: Interpretative controversies in legal semiotics (6 credits)

This course investigates the way that law treats verbal and visual signs. The study of signs is termed
semiotics. By sign is meant here the visual and verbal bearer of contentious meanings and/or of disputed
cultural significance. Through the study of decided cases, the courses analyzes how verbal and visual
signs encounter law's definitions, registration regimes, prohibition, censorship, or protection. Among
the legal domains involved are: trademark and copyright law; employment and discrimination law;
censorship, free speech and obscenity law; blasphemy; public order law; human rights law. The course
will be divided into sections by topic (not all of which will be taught for each iteration): (i) names and
marks (legal limits on the right to choose, registration regimes in relation to personal and corporate
names, marks, titles, licence plates, domain names); (ii) art (art works and customs regulations, legal
definitions of art; art works and forgery, e.g. artistic images of currency; art works and parody; art and
taboo; song lyrics and taboo meanings); (iii) flags, insignia and symbols (laws against flag desecration;
banned political symbols; triad society symbols; gang insignia); (iv) speech versus conduct (gestures;
public order offences involving swearing, insulting language or behaviour; contempt of court; the
definition of speech under the First Amendment); (v) clothing and hair-styles (e.g. employment law;
sumptuary laws; contempt of court); (vi) cultural appropriation and identity (the commercial use of
indigenous linguistic materials and cultural symbols); (vii) language in public spaces (regulations on
signage; noise and nuisance; the definition of public). The course focuses on the underlying legal, socio-
political, and semiotic doctrines that are at play, but also the implicit or explicit theory of the sign, the
understanding of how signs communicate, how the ownership of signs and images is understood, and
how law assigns authorial and interpretative responsibility for meanings.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2169. Writing and violence (6 credits)

“The pen is mightier than the sword.” In this course, we will probe the complex relationship between
writing and violence, metonymically hinted at in this popular saying, which reassuringly identifies
writing as a more effective alternative to violence, but also – more troublingly – as a superior weapon.
The complexity lurks in the word “might”, which – also troublingly – rhymes with “right”. What, then,
does the relationship between writing and violence have to do with questions of power and potential,
justice and what counts as normal? We will approach this question from three perspectives, considering
writing about violence, writing on the side of violence, and writing against violence. We will try to trace
the shadow of violence in the history of writing and to locate its function in the formation of classical
genres and conventions of literature, in order to scrutinize their influence and transformation in
contemporary writing, both fictional and non-fictional. Throughout, we will refer to different theoretical
accounts of violence and test their value in understanding the potential of writing to serve or check,
expose or veil, normalize or counteract, face or avert violence. Recognizing the capacity of writing to
reflect on its own troubled relationship with violence, we may also ask how it can empower readers to
respond critically to violence, in literature and in life.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2170. Cringy: The aesthetics of discomfort (6 credits)

Cringe, Crunch, Coil: Although the words form no sentence, their proximity to each other, and the
distinctive quality of their alliteration might produce that elusive feeling of the awkward-embarrassed-
slightly/very-uncomfortable “cringe.” We are all well acquainted with that “cringy feeling” as it arises
in interpersonal relationships; no doubt, many of us have countless memories of distressing moments
of awkwardness. Unfortunately -- or fortunately -- the ground never opens up to swallow us. But cringy
is not simply that feeling of awkwardness we, as individuals, wish away or try to breathe through. What
happens when creators of aesthetic objects move away from effecting outright shock, awe, and shame
and instead look to making “cringy” literature, film, and art? By consuming these aesthetic objects, we
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begin to experience the collective dimension of “cringy.” That said, under what circumstances do
consumers of “cringy art” feel cringy? And, more importantly, what processes of interpretation, critique,
and action are triggered by this minor emotion that is never satisfyingly cathartic? In order to answer
these questions (and many more), we will, by focusing on a collection of literary and cinematic works,
study the techniques, styles, and narrative modes that enable “cringy art.”
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2171. The right to the city: Cultural politics in Hong Kong and London (6 credits)

From their historical relationship to their contemporary status as leaders of global finance capital to the
challenges of Brexit and reunification, the pairing of Hong Kong and London offers ideal ground for
examining the rights to the city in the present. Taking advantage of King's College London's partnership
with HKU, this course will enable students to seek commonalities and solutions by reading about,
researching and engaging with each other's environment. The parallax views created by a joint
HKU/KCL course will provide students with a unique opportunity to grasp the specific ways in which
global dynamics coalesce in the cultural politics of different locales. By bringing together literature and
other forms of urban culture -- for example, stand-up comedy, underground music and street art -- 'The
Right to the City' will help students to trace the role that cultural forms play in mediating struggles for
urban justice.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2172. The police in literature and culture (6 credits)

This course will explore representations of the police and law enforcement in literature and popular
culture from the nineteenth century to the present. Students will study the history of policing and its
emergence in the nineteenth century, as well as its relationship to the rise of detective fiction and true
crime.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

LCOM2001. Theories of language and communication (6 credits)

This course examines theoretical discussions of language and communication, with special reference to
underlying assumptions about language (i.e. their metatheory) and the respective philosophies of
language they are based on, their merits and shortcomings, as well as possible points of contact between
them. These assumptions will also be critically discussed on the basis of exemplary linguistic studies
presented in class. We shall hence consider the various traditions contributing to language and
communication theory, among which are the semiotic, the phenomenological, and the sociocultural
traditions. Particular emphasis will be placed on how sociolinguistic theory has dealt with the
phenomena of language and communication.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

LCOM2002. Language in the workplace (6 credits)

People spend a considerable amount of time at work. The workplace thus provides a useful site for
investigating various aspects of language and communication. This course will discuss a range of
features of workplace discourse and illustrate the impact social factors may have on the ways in which
language is used in this context. We will also discuss and compare different methodological approaches
and a variety of theoretical frameworks used for an analysis of workplace discourse. These tools will
then be used by the students to analyse naturalistic data.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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LCOM2003. Language and politeness (6 credits)

This course will discuss various approaches to linguistic politeness. Students will be introduced to a
number of theoretical frameworks that have been developed in order to capture and assess this complex
concept. A particular focus will be on the question of universality and culturally influenced perceptions
of politeness. Moreover, the impact of various social factors (including power, gender and ethnicity)
on the performance and perception of linguistic politeness is discussed, and the topic of impoliteness is
covered.
Assessment:100% coursework.

LCOM2004. Language, communication and the media (6 credits)

This course introduces students to the study of mass media discourse in today’s society. The ‘mass
media’ phenomenon deserves particular attention because, as sociologists and sociolinguists point out,
it has a deep impact on our knowledge of and on how we communicate about the world. The course
considers cross-cultural issues of mediated discourse and looks how eastern and western ideologies
amalgamate to form new local ideological discourses, with particular attention to Hong Kong. The
course will take as its foundation the field of (social) semiotics, and will look more closely at how this
field’s theoretical premises match with our personal experiences as communicating members of society.
The course also introduces students to philosophical-semiotic questions about epistemology and
ontology.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

LCOM2005. Language, communication and globalization (6 credits)

[Non-permissible combination: ENGL2138. Language and globalization]

This course, centring on the phenomenon of ‘globalization’ in relation to language and communication,
critically examines some widely held notions, such as the view that globalization has resulted in the
homogenization of cultures and languages, and in the hegemony of English, and is organized along
three main lines. It investigates the politics of language and globalization, in how various nations,
particularly those in Asia, struggle with the balance between their indigenous languages and languages
of global import and/or wider local significance, e.g. English or Mandarin. It addresses the phenomenon
of globalization bringing communities and languages into contact, the consequences of which are often
viewed as situations of peril, involving the endangerment of languages, as well as the evolution of new
linguistic varieties such as World/New Englishes. It identifies a number of communicative practices in
pop culture that are ubiquitous in and representative of today’s global world, such as SMSes, e-mail
and other electronic communication, hiphop, and callcentres, and explores how languages are
appropriated by users in managing their own local identity alongside wider global needs.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

LCOM2007. Visual communication (6 credits)

All visual texts such as photographs, advertisements, magazine covers and websites are carefully
designed and create specific effects. Designers use different semiotic tools such as colour, framing,
focus, font style and positioning of elements to communicate with the viewer. Taken together, this
visual vocabulary makes up a visual language that we can analyse. More broadly, this course is
concerned with ‘visuality’ – the different ways in which we are capable of seeing (our ‘vision’) are
constructed: how we see, how we are able, allowed, or made to see, and how we relate to these acts of
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seeing (or not seeing). We will examine a wide range of visual examples from everyday life including
photographs, advertisements, cartoons, magazine covers, artworks and websites.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

LCOM2008. Health communication, ‘healthy’ communication (6 credits)

Health communication extends from patient-doctor interactions to inter-professional encounters and

media campaigns. While research has shown that effective communication is an indispensable part of
delivering quality healthcare, technological advances in modes of communication, together with
increasingly complex social environments, are presenting professionals and patients alike with multiple
challenges. This course pursues two main interrelated objectives (as reflected in the course title). First,
it is aimed at introducing the students to one specific area of inquiry within the so-called ‘applied
linguistics of professions’ (Sarangi, 2005). The students will learn about different analytical approaches
to healthcare communication, namely micro- and macro-perspectives on the analyses of spoken and
written discourse data. Second, it is intended as a course with a more ‘practical’ aim of developing the
students’ understanding that effective health communication strategies may significantly improve the
healthcare quality and outcomes. To achieve these two objectives, the students will engage with
authentic data from a variety of healthcare sites (from primary care encounters to specialist clinics to
genetic counseling) to examine some critical issues of health communication such as shared decision-
making between healthcare professionals and patients; delivery of accurate and accessible healthcare
information; communicating health risk and uncertainty (that is very common in modern medicine).
Assessment: 100% coursework.

LCOM2009. Language and religion (6 credits)

In this course we will explore the complex relationship between language and religion by focusing on
four main questions: 1) What is religion? 2) What is language? 3) How is the relationship between
language and religion conceptualised in sociolinguistics, and what does this conceptualisation imply?
4) How can language be used to perform religious identities? We will address the first two questions
by focusing on the historical emergence of religion as a universal category; and on conceptualisations
of language as a practice. The third question will be examined on the basis of theoretical literature and
case studies which discuss the relationship between language and religion, and the use of language for
the performance of religious identities. This will lead to a consideration of the various ways language
is used as a resource to perform these same identities; and of the interaction between religion and other
social categories. Since the Internet and English have become important ways of spreading and sharing
knowledge, we will also tackle this fourth question by working with computer-mediated data taken from
English-language websites used by religious communities.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

LCOM2011. The language of news media (6 credits)

As a natural concomitant of the mass media, the consumption of news has become a staple of modernity.
We encounter and attend to different kinds of news discourse on a daily basis – for example, print
newspapers; news documentaries, current affairs programmes, news interviews, or investigative
journalism programmes on television and radio; online news from digitised newspapers, news blogs,
news updates or news feeds from social networking sites (e.g. Facebook/Twitter), Google news,
YouTube news videos. In this course, we will examine the ways in which meanings are discursively
construed in the news. We will also critically reflect and debate on issues of power relations and
ideologies of the news media: the influence they exert both on our governments and major institutions
as well as their ability to shape our ideas, beliefs and behaviours through the news discourse that we
immerse ourselves in. Adopting a linguistic/semiotic perspective, this course offers detailed insights
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into the language of the news by discussing the main characteristics of news discourse and exploring
theoretical frameworks to research and analyse the use of text and image in the construction of news
and the manifestations of power, control and ideology in the press.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

Capstone Courses

ENGL3040. Internship in English studies (capstone experience) (6 credits)

This course offers students a capstone learning experience by allowing them to take their classroom
knowledge into the community. Students will have an opportunity for experiential learning, earn credits
toward their degree, and engage in a rich experience while working in an organization that demonstrates
a real impact on society. Students are responsible for identifying and securing a suitable internship
opportunity, in consultation with the course coordinator. The duration of the internship will depend on
the arrangement between the student and the organization, but should involve at least 36 contact hours
of service for the organization. Assessment will be graded on a pass/fail basis, based on a written report
as well as feedback from the organization contact.
Assessment: 100% coursework (graded on a pass/fail basis).

ENGL3041. Senior colloquium in English studies (capstone experience) (6 credits)

This course is designed as a capstone course offering students an opportunity to integrate and reflect
upon what they have learned in the major while focusing on current topics and critical debates in English
studies. Students are expected to be able to build on courses they have taken before and should consult
individual colloquium co-ordinators before registering for the course. There will be no formal lectures
but weekly meetings for the discussion of texts and issues, led by students. Assessment will be based
on contributions to colloquium discussions and a final essay.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL3042. Extended essay in English studies (capstone experience) (6 credits)

The Extended Essay in English Studies offers students an opportunity to undertake an undergraduate
research project in a particular area of English Studies under the guidance and instruction of a supervisor.
The extended essay course can only be taken in conjunction with another advanced ENGL course, and
students will be required to attend the classes for that course, as part of a 12-credit combination. The
supervisor of the extended essay will normally be the teacher of the conjoined course and students
intending to enrol in an extended essay course must first seek approval from the prospective supervisor.
Subject to the teacher’s approval, students can enrol in the extended essay course either concurrently
with the conjoined course or after they have completed the conjoined course. Assessment will normally
consist of an extended essay of approximately 5,000 words in addition to the coursework of the
conjoined course, or it may involve completing alternative pieces of coursework, including a research
paper, for the taught and research courses together.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION

Language and Communication is an interdisciplinary programme within the Faculty of Arts, which
centres on the study and use of language in society in a multilingual, globalized world. It thereby focuses
on both languages of global import, such as English, as well as those with local significance, and on
how they are appropriated and positioned in multilingual, cosmopolitan contexts of Asia. The
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programme provides the theoretical foundations and applied contexts for understanding and addressing
linguistic and social questions of language and communication. It equips students with the intellectual
and practical tools to critically examine, intelligently reflect on, and competently participate in
communicative situations, in real-world contexts, such as in the workplace as well as in more informal
sites of multilingual communication. The Language and Communication programme takes particular
pride in engaging in experiential learning, from internships and projects in courses involving fieldwork
in Hong Kong, to initiatives such as overseas field trips. In addressing the need in society for
linguistically versatile and culturally sensitive leaders in the 21st-century knowledge economy of Asia’s
world city and beyond, the programme aims at honing transferable skills for a wide range of careers,
including education, materials development, editing and publishing, public administration, public
relations, marketing, the media, event organization, tourism, cultural affairs and global creative
industries.

On successful completion of the major or minor in Language and Communication, students should be
able to:
 identify and critique relevant issues in the study of language and communication, and apply
theoretical and methodological knowledge to real-world social and linguistic data;
 critically evaluate established knowledge and creatively apply it to novel, contemporary
contexts of communication, in this multilingual, globalized world, in particular in the settings
of Hong Kong and Asia;
 critically reflect upon the strengths and weaknesses of their own and others’ viewpoints and
communicative practices, and challenge taken-for-granted assumptions about language and
communication;
 identify, appreciate and critically examine the role of diversity in languages and communicative
strategies across cultures and time, and how this shapes one’s linguistic identity and comes to
bear upon communicative situations, drawing on cross-cultural perspectives in the study of
language and communication;
 use the necessary intellectual, communicative and practical skills to participate in intellectual
discussions of linguistic and social issues and collaborate productively in research projects, in
and for both institutional and real-world contexts; and
 demonstrate an understanding of the complexities of contemporary social and political issues
of language and communication in the context of globalization – such as the appropriation and
positioning of languages of global significance, in particular English, and the fine balance
struck with other local languages, with a view to sustainability in multilingual, cosmopolitan
contexts of Asia, – which allows for intelligent, significant and responsible contributions to
society.

The courses of the Language and Communication programme incorporate a variety of teaching and
learning methods, including formal lectures, seminars, small group tutorials, workshops, and online
learning. They are mostly assessed by coursework, including oral presentations, in-class tests and
quizzes, essays and research projects and portfolios. They are designed to provide students with skills
of accurate and historically sensitive analysis, critical reading and thinking, and clear and coherent
argument in both writing and speaking.

Students are encouraged to discuss their study plans and course selections with the UG Coordinator,
their Academic Advisers, or any teachers in the Language and Communication programme.

First-year Prerequisite

Students intending to declare a major or minor in Language and Communication in the second year
must pass at least one introductory LCOM course from List A “Historical and Theoretical Foundations”
(6 credits) in the first year.
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Admission to all introductory courses is on the basis of academic record including a minimum Level 5
in English Language in the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE) examination, or an
equivalent score in another recognized English proficiency test.

Major in Language and Communication (78 credits)

To complete the requirements of the major, students must take:
1. 30 credits of introductory courses (including the first-year prerequisite), normally taken in the
first two years of study, which consist of:
(a) 12 credits from List A (of which at least 6 credits must be from LCOM as a first-year
prerequisite);
(b) 6 credits from List B;
(c) 12 credits from List C; and

2. 48 credits of advanced courses, which consist of:

(a) 24 credits from the ENGL and LCOM course lists below (of which 12 credits must be from
LCOM, and 12 credits from either ENGL or LCOM), which must include a capstone course
to be taken preferably in the final year;
(b) 24 credits from any other programmes from the list below (i.e. which are not ENGL and
LCOM courses).

Minor in Language and Communication (36 credits)

To complete the requirements of the minor, students must take:
1. 18 credits of introductory courses (including the first-year prerequisite), which consist of:
(a) 6 credits of LCOM course from List A (first-year prerequisite);
(b) 6 credits from List B;
(c) 6 credits from List C; and

2. 18 credits of advanced courses (of which at least 6 credits must be from LCOM).

Introductory Courses

List A: Historical and Theoretical Foundations

The courses in this list will introduce students to the history and organization of diverse areas of
linguistic scholarship. Students will acquire a general overview of selected areas and issues, including
major theoretical distinctions or classifications and their historical development over time.

ENGL1011. An introduction to the study of meaning (6 credits)

ENGL1015. Introduction to English linguistics (6 credits)
ENGL1017. Introduction to sociolinguistics (6 credits)
ENGL1018. Language and gender (6 credits)
ENGL1037. Persuasion (6 credits)
ENGL1045. “Community” in Sociolinguistics (6 credits)
ENGL1051. English sounds (6 credits)

LCOM1001. Introduction to language and communication (6 credits)

LCOM1002. Language, communication, society, field (6 credits)
LCOM1003. Theorizing communication (6 credits)
LCOM1004. Introduction to pragmatics (6 credits)

List B: Critical Reading, Analysis and Writing

The courses in this list will introduce students to the practice and methods of critical reading, analysis
and writing, focusing on different areas of literary and linguistic study. Students will acquire a basic
grasp of analytical distinctions and terminology, and learn to ask questions and construct critical
arguments.
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ENGL1014. Imaginary geographies: The art of writing place (6 credits)

ENGL1026. Adaptation: From text to screen (6 credits)
ENGL1027. Analyzing discourse (6 credits)
ENGL1028. Awakenings: Exploring women’s writing (6 credits)
ENGL1030. Dramatic changes: Versions of Renaissance literature (6 credits)
ENGL1031. English grammar(s) (6 credits)
ENGL1032. Late Victorian Texts and Contexts (6 credits)
ENGL1033. Intercultural communication (6 credits)
ENGL1034. Language and prejudice (6 credits)
ENGL1035. Language crimes (6 credits)
ENGL1036. Meaning and metaphor (6 credits)
ENGL1038. Practice of criticism (6 credits)
ENGL1039. Realism and representation (6 credits)
ENGL1040. Rewriting and writing back (6 credits)
ENGL1041. Modernity and literary modernism (6 credits)
ENGL1042. World Englishes (6 credits)
ENGL1043. An introduction to 20th-century English Poetry (6 credits)
ENGL1047. The English lexicon (6 credits)
ENGL1048. Crime stories (6 credits)
ENGL1049. Early English sonnets (6 credits)
ENGL1050. An introduction to qualitative research methods in sociolinguistics (6 credits)
ENGL1052. Introduction to theatre studies (6 credits)
ENGL1053. Eighteenth century drama: The rise of celebrity culture (6 credits)
ENGL1054. Writing disaster: Literature, trauma, memory (6 credits)

List C: Introductory courses from other programmes

African Studies
AFRI1001. Foundations in African Studies (6 credits)
AFRI2004. Introduction to African linguistics (6 credits)

China Studies
SINO1003. Greater China: A multi-disciplinary introduction (6 credits)

Comparative Literature
CLIT1008. Ways of reading: Film, literature, and culture (6 credits)
CLIT1010. Ways of thinking about culture and society (6 credits)

European Studies
EUST1010. Foundations of European Studies (6 credits)

General Linguistics
LING1000. Introduction to language (6 credits)
LING1004. Language structure for language learning (6 credits)
LING2004. Phonetics: Describing sounds (6 credits)
LING2009. Languages of the world (6 credits)
LING2034. Psycholinguistics (6 credits)
LING2050. Grammatical description (6 credits)
LING2056. Sociolinguistics (6 credits)

Global Creative Industries

GCIN1001. Introduction to global creative industries (6 credits)

Hong Kong Studies

HKGS1001. Hong Kong’s long twentieth century (6 credits)
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Japanese Studies
JAPN1011. Introduction to Japanese studies (6 credits)

Korean Studies
KORE1021. Introduction to Korean Studies (6 credits)

Translation
CHIN1311. Introduction to translation (6 credits)
CHIN2333. Culture and translation (6 credits)
CHIN2352. Language contrast and translation I (6 credits)
CHIN2364. Bilingualism and law: Perspectives from translation (6 credits)

Students should note that LING1000 is the pre-requisite for the five other introductory LING courses.
However students who have completed any introductory course in List A may enroll in these LING
courses without the pre-requisite LING course.

Advanced Courses

In order to enroll in any advanced courses in English Studies or Language and Communication, students
must normally have completed 18 credits of introductory courses, with at least 6 credits from both List
A and List B.

Students should note that they bear the responsibility of fulfilling the necessary pre-requisites, if any,
for advanced courses in other programmes. Students who have completed any introductory course in
List A may however enroll in some of the advanced LING courses in the list below without having to
do the pre-requisite and/or introductory LING course(s), though it may still be preferable to do so.

American Studies
AMER2002. The road in American culture (6 credits)
AMER2014. A dream in the heart: varieties of Asian American culture (6 credits)
AMER2022. What’s on TV? Television and American culture (6 credits)
AMER2033. Asia on America’s screen (6 credits)
AMER2038. American film, from Golden-Age Hollywood to New Hollywood and beyond (6 credits)
AMER2040. Creating culture in the world: American creative industries in the age of globalization
(6 credits)
AMER2041. How the West was won: The frontier in American culture and literature (6
credits)
AMER2042. Consuming culture: decoding American symbols (6 credits)
AMER2043. Born in the USA: U.S. youth cultures (6 credits)
AMER2045. Film beyond the mainstream: American art cinema (6 credits)
AMER2048. American literature (6 credits)
AMER2055. African American history and culture (6 credits)
AMER2062. Disability and human rights in American Studies (6 credits)

China Studies
SINO2007. Creative Industries in China in a Global Context (6 credits)

Comparative Literature
CLIT2001. Comparative studies of literary and visual narratives (6 credits)
CLIT2025. Visual cultures (6 credits).
CLIT2026. Digital culture (6 credits)
CLIT2045. Colonialism/ Postcolonialism (6 credits)
CLIT2050. Globalisation and culture (6 credits)
CLIT2064. Hong Kong culture: Popular arts and everyday life (6 credits)
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CLIT2074. Film and ideology in contemporary China (6 credits)

CLIT2083. Film art, language and culture (6 credits)
CLIT2096. Ethics of film and literature (6 credits)
CLIT2099. Anticolonialism and decoloniality (6 credits)
CLIT2100. Fugitive science: Science and technology studies (STS) approaches to facts and
fakes (6 credits)

English Studies
ENGL2002. Language in society (6 credits)
ENGL2004. English syntax (6 credits)
ENGL2007. Literary linguistics (6 credits)
ENGL2030. New Englishes (6 credits)
ENGL2039. Gender, sexuality and discourse (6 credits)
ENGL2047. English discourse structures and strategies (6 credits)
ENGL2048. Language and jargon (6 credits)
ENGL2050. English corpus linguistics (6 credits)
ENGL2057. Text and image (6 credits)
ENGL2103. Language and digital media (6 credits)
ENGL2104. Language in the USA (6 credits)
ENGL2112. An introduction to the history of English (6 credits)
ENGL2115. Theories of language acquisition (6 credits)
ENGL2117. English phonology and morphology (6 credits)
ENGL2123. Language and identity in Hong Kong (6 credits)
ENGL2125. English construction grammar (6 credits)
ENGL2126. Law, meaning, and interpretation (6 credits)
ENGL2127. Language and the law (6 credits)
ENGL2129. English as a language of science (6 credits)
ENGL2130. Signs, language and meaning: Integrational reflections (6 credits)
ENGL2138. Language and globalization (6 credits)
ENGL2140. Ideologies of language in early modernity (6 credits)
ENGL2141. Doing discourse analysis (6 credits)
ENGL2146. Cognitive semantics (6 credits)
ENGL2158. Language processing and learning (6 credits)
ENGL2160. Sovereignty in law, theory and culture (6 credits)
ENGL2161. Language rights and linguistic justice (6 credits)
ENGL2166. English phonetics (6 credits)
ENGL2168. The law of signs: Interpretative controversies in legal semiotics (6 credits)

European Studies
EUST2010. European Identity (6 credits)
EUST2015. From cinema to society: Understanding Europe through film (6 credits)
EUST2016. Creative industries in Europe in a global context (6 credits)
EUST2017. World War I (6 credits)
EUST2030. The modern imagination in Europe (6 credits)
EUST3012. The EU as a global actor and EU-China relations (6 credits)
EUST3015. The dark side of European civilization: The Holocaust (6 credits)
EUST3018. European empire: Comparative British and French imperialism (6 credits)
EUST3020. The making of the West: From Descartes to Rorty (6 credits)

General Linguistics
LING2003. Semantics: Meaning and grammar (6 credits)
LING2013. Language typology: The study of linguistic diversity (6 credits)
LING2022. Pragmatics (6 credits)
LING2023. Discourse analysis (6 credits)
LING2036. Child language (6 credits)
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LING2037. Bilingualism (6 credits)

LING2040. Languages in contact (6 credits)
LING2048. Language and cognition (6 credits)
LING2058. Topics in Cantonese linguistics (6 credits)
LING2060. Languages of China (6 credits)
LING2061. Linguistic fieldwork (6 credits)
LING2062. Experimental syntax (6 credits)
LING2065. Endangered languages: Issues and methods (6 credits)
LING2069. Origins of language (6 credits)
LING2071. Introductory statistics for the humanities (6 credits)
LING2072. Advanced statistics for the humanities (6 credits)

Global Creative Industries

GCIN2002. Commercializing creativity: A cultural critique (6 credits)
GCIN2006. Fashion and luxury: Cultural and organizational dynamics (6 credits)
GCIN2007. Film and media: Cultural and organizational dynamics (6 credits)
GCIN2008. Advertising: Cultural and organizational dynamics (6 credits)
GCIN2011. Understanding Hong Kong TV industry (6 credits)
GCIN2014. Communication strategies in advertising (6 credits)
GCIN2018. Publishing industry in digital age (6 credits)

Hong Kong Studies

HKGS2001. Speaking of Hong Kong: Global voices (6 credits)
HKGS2002. Hong Kong identities in local, national and global contexts (6 credits)
HKGS2004. Hong Kong’s economic growth: A modernisation and internationalisation miracle (6
credits)
HKGS2005. An anthropology of Hong Kong’s belief systems and religious practices (6 credits)
HKGS2007. Geographic challenges: The ‘space premium’ and Hong Kong society (6 credits)

Japanese Studies
JAPN2031. The media and Japan (6 credits)
JAPN2045. Sex, gender, and technology in Japan (6 credits)
JAPN2050. Creative industries in East Asia (Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea and Japan) (6 credits)
JAPN2058. Understanding popular culture in Japan (6 credits)
JAPN2081. Japanese literature (6 credits)
JAPN2082. Japanese film and society (6 credits)
JAPN2083. Contemporary Japanese society and culture (6 credits)
JAPN2084. Studies in Japanese culture (6 credits)
JAPN2090. Growing up in Japan: Youth, culture and society (6 credits)
JAPN2091. Introduction to pre-modern Japan (6 credits)
JAPN3035. Revolutionary origins of modern Japan (6 credits)
JAPN3036. Medicine and disease in Japanese history (6 credits)
JAPN3039. Japanese popular music and Hong Kong society (6 credits)

Korean Studies
KORE2026. Topics in Korean culture and society (6 credits)
KORE2027. Creative industries in Korea in a global context (6 credits)
KORE2033. Modern and contemporary Korea (6 credits)

Language and Communication

LCOM2001. Theories of language and communication (6 credits)
LCOM2002. Language in the workplace (6 credits)
LCOM2003. Language and politeness (6 credits)
LCOM2004. Language, communication and the media (6 credits)
LCOM2005. Language, communication and globalization (6 credits)
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LCOM2007. Visual communication (6 credits)

LCOM2008. Health communication, ‘healthy’ communication (6 credits)
LCOM2009. Language and religion (6 credits)
LCOM2011. The language of news media (6 credits)

Philosophy
PHIL2075. The semantics/pragmatics distinction (6 credits)
PHIL2225. The philosophy of artificial intelligence (6 credits)
PHIL2230. Philosophy and cognitive science (6 credits)
PHIL2410. Mind and language in Chinese thought (6 credits)
PHIL2610. Philosophy of Language (6 credits)
PHIL2651. Bad language: the philosophy of non-ideal language use (6 credits)

Translation
CHIN2331. Choice of words in translation (6 credits)
CHIN2332. Translation in Hong Kong society (6 credits)
CHIN2339. Translation for administration and business (6 credits)
CHIN2340. Film translation workshop (6 credits)
CHIN2341. Translating writings on art (6 credits)
CHIN2342. Interpretation workshop II (6 credits)
CHIN2343. Legal interpreting (6 credits)
CHIN2344. Short stories: East and West (6 credits)
CHIN2345. Syntax-based translation (6 credits)
CHIN2346. From page to stage: A workshop on drama adaptation and translation (6 credits)
CHIN2347. World literature and translation (6 credits)
CHIN2348. Bilingual studies in media and popular culture (6 credits)
CHIN2351. Translation criticism (6 credits)
CHIN2356. Language contrast and translation II (6 credits)
CHIN2357. Bilingual communication in translation (6 credits)
CHIN2358. Journeys to the East: Translation and China in the literary imagination of the West (6
credits)
CHIN2363. Advanced translation workshop C-E (6 credits)
CHIN2366. Advanced theories of translation (6 credits)
CHIN2367. Advanced translation workshop E-C (6 credits)
CHIN3311. Translation and the study of Chinese literature (6 credits)
CHIN3312. Travel writing, literature, and translation (6 credits)

Capstone Courses

LCOM3001. Cultural dimensions of language and communication (capstone experience) (6 credits)

LCOM3004. Language and communication field trip (capstone experience) (6 credits)
LCOM3005. Internship in language and communication (capstone experience) (6 credits)
LCOM3006. Extended essay in language and communication (capstone experience) (6 credits)

Introductory Courses

ENGL1011. An introduction to the study of meaning (6 credits)

This course introduces the study of meaning in the English language. We will examine semantic
meanings - meanings encoded in the language system itself - and also pragmatic meanings - meanings
inferred from the communicative context of language use. Students will also be introduced to various
theories of meaning and cognitive semantics.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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ENGL1014. Imaginary geographies: The art of writing place (6 credits)

Through studying a wide range of landscape descriptions in poetry, travel writing, drama and the novel,
students will learn about landscape description from aesthetic, historical, geo-humanist and geo-
political perspectives. Students will learn to identify particular movements and styles, such as the
picturesque, romanticism, modernism and environmentalism in selected descriptions of places. They
will also learn how place description functions in literary texts to provide not only a realistic visual
setting, but through metaphor, the thoughts and feelings of characters, and the cultural and ideological
outlook of the writer. The course has a practical component in which students produce place
descriptions of their own and discuss these within their groups.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1015. Introduction to English linguistics (6 credits)

This survey course offers a comprehensive first introduction to the linguistic study of English, covering
the various levels of analysis (and the core branches of linguistics that study them): sounds (phonetics
and phonology), words (morphology and lexicology), meanings (semantics and pragmatics), grammar
(syntax), text and discourse (discourse analysis). It will also offer a first introduction to a number of
key aspects of language use (and the linguistic disciplines dealing with them): language acquisition and
processing (psycholinguistics), language change (historical linguistics), regional and social variation
(sociolinguistics), [literary] style (stylistics). Finally, the course will introduce a number of
methodological and theoretical approaches one can take in the academic study of a language, and
consequently also in English language research.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1017. Introduction to sociolinguistics (6 credits)

This course introduces students to the field of sociolinguistics—a cross-disciplinary study of the
relationship between language and society with insights from linguistics, sociology, psychology and
linguistic anthropology. For decades, sociolinguists have looked for ways to understand human social
behaviors and organization by studying what people do with language and why. This course provides a
basic foundation for students who are interested in the scholarly research of language in social contexts,
as well as for those who want an alternate perspective of their own social world.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1018. Language and gender (6 credits)

In this course, we explore how gender ideologies influence and are influenced by language use, in
language about men and women, and in language use by men and women. We will discuss different
approaches to and historical perspectives on the study of language and gender, reviewing both
qualitative and quantitative studies in the early development of the field. We will consider gender as
one of many social categories that interact with other social categories such as age, race, class, ethnicity,
profession, sexuality, and others. Stereotypes and biases about the sexes, standard and vernacular norms,
and power and authority will also be examined in the course. The course will survey the history of the
field and identify major strands in the development of knowledge in the discipline. It also traces the
historical progression of the field, with reference to key historical texts and debates.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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ENGL1026. Adaptation: From text to screen (6 credits)

In this course, students will be introduced to literary and cinematic technique by studying recent film
adaptations of English literature alongside the original text. We will take one period text, such as Jane
Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, Bleak House or Mrs. Dalloway, and one contemporary text, such as
Atonement, Cloud Atlas or Never Let Me Go. Students will confront the problems and possibilities of
adaptation, the demands of fidelity to the original text, and the need to find contemporary resonances.
As well as developing an awareness of the practical issues of moving from a textual to a predominantly
visual medium, students will learn to identity aesthetic, cultural and political influences in the adaptation
of literature. This course also allows students to think creatively about storyboards and visual techniques,
by sketching alternative scenarios.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1027. Analyzing discourse (6 credits)

This course provides an introduction to the field of discourse, focusing on the analysis of spoken and
written English. In this course, we will focus on exploring different approaches to the study of discourse,
developing tools for analyzing particular texts, and understanding the relationship between discourse
contexts and functions. Emphasis will be placed on data analysis in the course, which will give students
the opportunity to apply concepts from the lectures to workshop discussions and assignments. Some
units to be covered in the course include: narrative structure, rhetorical analysis, spoken versus written
discourse, data collection and transcription, conversation analysis, and discourse in professional
contexts.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1028. Awakenings: Exploring women’s writing (6 credits)

This course will focus on close reading of passages from a selection of prose and poetry authored by
women. As we read these texts, we will explore a few of the key issues that have concerned women
writers. We will examine questions of the difference of the female point of view, the suppression of
female subjectivity and autonomy as well as the renderings of an alternative worldview and culture.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1030. Dramatic changes: Versions of Renaissance literature (6 credits)

In this course we will read great plays of the English Renaissance in tandem with their non-dramatic
sources (history, romance, chapbook, story cycle). In a couple of instances, the plays themselves will
be considered as sources for contemporary representations (Hamlet for Stoppard’s spinoff, Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern are Dead, and Macbeth for Kurosawa’s film, Throne of Blood). For Renaissance
speakers the word ‘version’ principally meant a ‘translation’ from one language into another. We will
observe and evaluate, therefore, what happens when a well-known or ‘true’ story gets ‘translated’ into
the conventions and genres of the theater. We compare notable variations in the telling of the tales, with
attention to the following questions: How does the alteration of a plot element change a story’s
significance? How does the manner of presentation — the enactment of drama (mimesis) or the narration
of prose (diegesis) — affect the way we understand characters?
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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ENGL1031. English grammar(s) (6 credits)

This course is an elementary and practical introduction to the analytical and terminological distinctions
that are relevant to the study of the structure of English words and sentences. It will pay due attention
to variation in the way they are covered and distinguished in different grammar books. Topics include:
Word structure and word-formation, lexical and phrasal categories, grammatical functions and semantic
roles, coordination and subordination, clause types, tense and aspect, mood, information structure. All
classes will involve practical analysis of linguistic material. A key part of the course will be an
individual assignment in which students critically compare two grammar books with the prescribed
course text.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1032. Late Victorian Texts and Contexts (6 credits)

This course reads representative late nineteenth-century texts, which may include novels, short stories,
plays, poetry, or even musical hall songs and pantomime. The aim is to situate these texts in a society
that is still very much embedded in Victorian ideas and ideals but that is at the same time looking
towards the twentieth century and its changing views of life, the world and literature. Course themes
alongside the regular issues of class, race and gender may include: social changes, the changing subject,
devolution, degeneration, the reading public and the publishing industry, genre and modality (romance,
realism, aestheticism), ‘elite’ and ‘popular’ art, and others.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1033. Intercultural communication (6 credits)

Intercultural communication can be defined as the study of cultural identity, difference and similarity
as constructed through discourse, i.e. different ways of speaking, doing and being. In the ever-changing
world defined by restructuring of economic, social and cultural relations, transnational migration,
tourism, overseas study, and global media, more and more people from different backgrounds come
into contact with one another. Their communication faces many challenges which include the linguistic
challenges of language learning, the discursive challenges of stereotyping and the social challenges of
equal work opportunities, inclusion and justice. This course provides a critical understanding of
intercultural communication from discourse analytic and sociolinguistic perspectives and demonstrates
how people in different situations of intercultural contact position themselves linguistically and
discursively, and how the linguistic codes and varieties they speak and write give them access (or not)
to different resources such as mobility, education opportunities, jobs, and so on. We examine the notions
of ‘sameness’, ‘difference’, ethno-cultural stereotyping, discrimination, exclusion and exploitation, and
the underlying language ideologies (i.e. assumptions and beliefs about language) that normalize and
naturalize the views we hold of ourselves and other people. We ask to what extent we can assume
culture to be synonymous with language and nation, and how acts of intercultural communication are
performed or represented in different contexts such as international business, marketing, and
interpersonal relations.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1034. Language and prejudice (6 credits)

Prejudice is defined as “dislike, hostility, or unjust behaviour deriving from preconceived and
unfounded opinions” (OED). Social prejudice and discrimination often manifest through language use,
and/or attitudes and practice towards language users (who are considered as members of certain
social/ethnic/gender/age categories), this course examines sociolinguistic case studies of language
discrimination both locally and internationally.
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Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1035. Language crimes (6 credits)

This course introduces the study of texts through utterances taken from criminal cases. Students will
learn how to apply concepts such as types of meaning and speech acts to analyse the utterances in
context, and formulate critical arguments about their observations.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1036. Meaning and metaphor (6 credits)

The course looks at different definitions of metaphor and reviews various theories that have been
applied to figurative language. It presents the identification and analysis of metaphor as a tool in the
study of texts of all kinds, and introduces approaches which see the study of metaphor as a key to
understanding human cognition and experience. It shows how questions about metaphor are at the heart
of debates about meaning and interpretation across the humanities and social sciences, and illustrates
the role of metaphor in fundamental ideological discussions. Topics include: Definitions of metaphor;
Literal vs. metaphorical meaning; Metaphor and metonymy; Nonlinguistic realizations of conceptual
metaphors; The scope of metaphor; Metaphor, politics, and ideology; Metaphor in literature; Metaphor
in education; Metaphor in music.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1037. Persuasion (6 credits)

This is a course about rhetoric, in which students will explore ways language can be used to convey,
reinforce or change ideas. In theory and in textual practice we will work together to understand how
persuasion works in English in a number of different language domains. The course explores discourse
relations in writing and speech, through critical analysis and practice of strategies of persuasion in some
or all of the following domains: academic writing; advertising; the courtroom; polemic and propaganda;
literary representation.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1038. Practice of criticism (6 credits)

This course introduces students to the development of criticism as a literary genre and as a space of
engagement with creative literature. By studying a selection of key critical texts in conjunction with
works of imaginative literature, the course will discuss the creative uses of criticism in the history of
literature and the role criticism has played in our understanding of literature. There will be weekly
lectures and workshops, in which we will discuss, and participate in, some of the most significant
debates among major critical thinkers and to relate these debates to our own studies of literary texts.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1039. Realism and representation (6 credits)

In this introductory course we will examine and explore one of the most dominant modes of literary
representation. We will begin by situating realism as a movement in literary history and investigate its
theoretical and material underpinnings and the literary conventions that characterize it. We will consider
different ways of defining realism and situate them in relation to different arguments about the nature
and role of literary representation. With close attention to texts from different times, we will try to trace
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how realism distinguishes itself from other forms of writing and how it persists in contemporary literary
practice alongside and even within movements against realism in art and literature. We will also
consider the conventions of realistic representation in different genres, art forms and media, and their
role and relevance in non-fictional discourses and genres. Finally, we will also examine and discuss the
relevance of arguments about realism to the writing and rhetoric of critical essays.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1040. Rewriting and writing back (6 credits)

In this introductory course, we will study and explore the ways in which literary creativity and the
practice of writing are motivated and shaped by the reading of other texts. With close attention to texts
from different times and places, we will identify some of the major acts of rewriting by which authors
have sought to distinguish themselves ever since Virgil chose Homer as his model. Distinguishing
between different modes of rewriting such as allusion, translation, parody, and counter-discourse, we
will examine their role in specific contexts of literary production. Apart from considering the
importance of rewriting in the formation and critique of a literary canon, we will also discuss the value
of rewriting in the critical study of literature and the forms it may take in the writing of essays, including
summary, paraphrase, and plagiarism.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1041. Modernity and literary modernism (6 credits)

Literary Modernism has often been characterized as an inward turn: as a growing preoccupation with
the workings of consciousness; the nature of subjective experience; and the constitution, and definition,
of the subjective self. In this introductory course we will examine depictions of subjectivity in modernist
literature, discussing topics such as the unconscious and psychic conflict, impersonality, sexual and
racial difference, the role of the body in consciousness, and the dynamics of fantasy and memory. We
will contextualize our close readings in contemporary psychological and scientific research, the rise of
urbanism and cosmopolitanism, colonialism and post-colonialism, technological advancements and the
World Wars. Through response papers, presentations, and class discussions, students will learn to
analyze textual details and techniques and organize their observations within cogent arguments.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1042. World Englishes (6 credits)

This course introduces students to a study of varieties of English world-wide, surveying the
development and classification of English varieties in both historical and contemporary eras. It explores
both structural and sociolinguistic aspects of World Englishes, with particular attention to New
Englishes. Through the critical reading of introductory texts and research papers in the field, this course
examines some of the fundamental issues and debates in World/ New Englishes, involving concepts of
‘mother tongue’, ‘nativeness’ and ownership, issues of ideology, attitudes and identity, and challenges
of creative expression, pedagogy and planning. Students will be expected to reflect critically on the
readings and issues, and produce a written paper that engages with one of these issues in the field of
World Englishes.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1043. An introduction to 20th-century English poetry (6 credits)

This course will introduce poems by such major 20th-century poets as T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, Dylan
Thomas, Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney as well as work by other English poets. The
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poems have been chosen not just for their intrinsic merits, but also to illustrate the patterns of sound, syntax,
tone and figurative language poets use to achieve their effects. The classes will not be lectures on poetry
but close readings and discussion of individual poems.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1045. “Community” in Sociolinguistics (6 credits)

The concept of “community” has been key to the study of language in society since the inception of
sociolinguistics in the 1960s. In the course of the past half a century, various notions of community
have been proposed and applied to the study of linguistic data. These include “speech community”,
“discourse community”, “community of practice”, “imagined community”, “virtual community” and
most recently “transnational community”. In this course, we will explore how these various concepts
have been applied and we will address salient similarities and differences between them. In doing so,
we will discuss the various understandings of language, and the various understandings of the
relationship between language and society which lie at the heart of these different types of community.
Finally, we will question the validity of the concept of community today against the backdrop of
globalisation, and the rising importance of migration and mobility.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1047. The English lexicon (6 credits)

The term lexicon can refer to a wordlist or dictionary. It is also a synonym of vocabulary, which refers
to all the words of a language, or, as in “one’s vocabulary”, all the words a particular speaker of a
language knows, sometimes referred to as “the mental lexicon”. But what counts as a word in English?
Is driver’s liability insurance three words in English while the Dutch equivalent
bestuurdersaansprakelijkheidsverzekering is one word? Are forms that can be bound by spaces, like
driver’s, liability and insurance, indivisible themselves, or can we identify constituent parts? Have these
forms always been part of the English language or did they come about at different historical moments
and in different ways? How do words, or so-called “entries” in the lexicon, relate to others meaningwise?
Are all words of the same kind, or can we arrange them in categories? When it comes to constructing
sentences, words are often conceived as building blocks which are combined in accordance with the
rules of grammar, but should lexicon and grammar really be seen as completely separate, or could their
relationship also be conceptualized differently? How much grammar is there, or should there be, in a
dictionary? How do speakers access their mental lexicon when they talk? These are some of the
questions that will be addressed in this course on words in English which will approach its topic from
a variety of perspectives: synchronic theoretical linguistics, diachronic linguistics, psycholinguistics
and lexicography.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1048. Crime stories (6 credits)

In The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde famously compares criminal acts to art: “I should fancy
that crime was to them [the lower classes] what art is to us, simply a method of procuring extraordinary
sensations.” Wilde asks us to think about the relationship between art and crime, and the role crime
plays in the growing gap between popular culture and high literature. This course introduces students
to the study of narrative through crime stories, and it will survey the origins of detective and crime
fiction and its development into the twenty-first century. Students will examine how this self-reflexive
genre uses narrative to reflect on acts of storytelling and interpretation. Course materials will include
eighteenth-century broadsheets about famous criminals, nineteenth-century “penny dreadfuls,”
sensation fiction, and detective novels. Readings will include Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle,
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Raymond Chandler, and others. The course will conclude with the growth of the detective genre in
contemporary Hong Kong.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1049. Early English sonnets (6 credits)

The course provides an introduction to the study of the sonnet, an enduring lyric genre that began in
13th century Italy and became popular in England nearly three centuries later, when poets such as Wyatt
and Surrey translated selected Canzoniere of Francesco Petrarca. Very often the expression of a
suffering lover, a sonnet contains 14 lines that proceed according to a rhyme scheme — the typical
Renaissance pattern is structured ABABCDCDEFEFGG. Beginning with Philip Sidney’s Astrophil and
Stella (composed between 1580 and 1584), sonnets in English sometimes were composed as a sequence,
a collection of poems that features recurrent voices (speaker and addressee), develops thematically, and
tempts the discovery of a narrative trajectory. In addition to the authors mentioned above, we read
carefully some of the major sonnets of the English Renaissance from Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne,
Milton, and others.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1050. An introduction to qualitative research methods in sociolinguistics (6 credits)

As access to the Internet has grown, it has become increasingly common for people to interact via
different channels when going about their day-to-day affairs. For people who have access to the Internet,
this can mean that they interact both online and offline alternatingly or even simultaneously. As a result
it is sometimes difficult to separate online and offline spaces. This has implications for sociolinguistic
research. Taking this as its starting point, this course introduces students to a core set of qualitative
research methodologies used in sociolinguistic research on both online and offline spaces. These include
discourse analysis, interviews and ethnography. In doing so, the course also highlights the interplay
between research questions, data and methodology, thereby offering students a more general
introduction into core components of the qualitative sociolinguistic research process (ethics, research
questions, theoretical literature, data sampling, data analysis). To introduce these methods as part of the
more general process of conducting qualitative sociolinguistic research on online and offline spaces,
the course draws on theoretical material and empirical research, while offering numerous possibilities
in the form of activities in class to discuss and apply these methods to data samples.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1051. English sounds (6 credits)

This course offers an introduction to the study of speech sounds in the English language. We will
examine how speech sounds can be studied in a scientific way (phonetics) and how English sounds are
organised and represented (phonology). Students will be introduced to the International Phonetic
Alphabet (IPA), an essential tool for the description of speech sounds. While this course will focus on
Southern British English (sometimes known as Received Pronunciation or BBC English), accent
variation in English and contemporary sound changes will also be discussed.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1052. Introduction to theatre studies (6 credits)

This course will introduce students to the historical paradigms and methods specific to the field of
Theatre Studies. It will provide an overview of several diverse genres of drama and performance, such
as early modern, realist and intercultural theatre in a variety of geographical contexts. Simultaneously,
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the course focuses on concepts such as performers, audiences and space, the critical vocabulary required
for performance analysis.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1053. Eighteenth century drama: The rise of celebrity culture (6 credits)

This course introduces students to the world of the bustling and controversial theatres of the Anglo-
Atlantic Eighteenth Century. Taking a dramaturgical approach to a number of dramatic texts produced
in this important period in the history of popular entertainment, this course will examine key
developments in literary innovation such as character development and the rise of interiority from
within the context of new theatrical technology, the rise of new forms of media, the growing power of
government censorship, an emerging imperial identity, nationalism, and increased social mobility. We
will also focus on the rise of celebrity culture in the period and examine the development of popular
obsession with “stars” within the broader social contexts of shifting gender norms, new regimes of
sexual expression, and the rise of consumer culture. We will also examine plays alongside other forms
of texts such as published gossip, celebrity memoirs, newspaper advertisements, playbills, and acting
manuals, making use of existing databases hosted at the Folger, Huntington, and the British Libraries.
This course also aims to serve as a general introduction on how to read literary texts historically, and
how the study of literature can benefit from an interdisciplinary approach that borrows insights from
Language Studies; Cultural Studies; New Media Studies; and Gender/Sexuality studies. At the end of
this course, students should have acquired a critical familiarity with the dramatic culture of the
Eighteenth Century, as well as a set of analytical skills that will prepare them for the future study in
literary criticism. Texts to be studied might include popular versions of Sentimental Comedy;
Operas/Oratorios; Bourgeois Tragedy; Gothic Fantasy; Pantomime and Travel Drama. Authors to be
studied might include Jonathan Steele; George Frideric Handel; Henry Fielding; Oliver Goldsmith;
Susanna Centlivre; Hannah Cowley; and Elizabeth Inchbald.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL1054. Writing disaster: Literature, trauma, memory (6 credits)

Broadly conceived, this course will explore the relationship between writing and loss. Its more
concentrated concern is with how writing (and here we mean both literary and cinematic works)
manages to represent the unthinkable, the unsayable, and the unmournable. This course will study the
representational systems and generic instabilities of works that emerge from the aftermath of various
disasters and catastrophes (war, ethnic violence, political turmoil, the annihilation of the ecosystem). In
particular, it will look at how these works engage various clinical and legal discourses about trauma
and testimony, paying close attention to moments when alternative ways of remembering, experiencing,
and recounting disasters are imagined and performed. Focusing mostly on texts in the postcolonial
literary canon, this course will take students through fictional writing, films, theoretical texts, and
philosophical works in order to provide them with a better understanding of what it means “to write
disaster” and to show how this writing unfolds over time and space through the words of those who
survive what they often cannot endure.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

LCOM1001. Introduction to language and communication (6 credits)

This course introduces a range of theories, approaches and applications pertinent to the study of
language and communication. In doing so, it aims to provide students with core knowledge needed to
critically reflect upon the role of language as a social practice; and to apply this when reading texts and
working with data. This entails familiarising students with theories and approaches (including the
polysemy of core concepts like “language” and “communication”, and the shift from structuralist to
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social constructionist approaches); methodologies (including ethics, ethnography, interviews and

discourse analysis); and applications (including examples from scholarship and brief presentations by
invited speakers highlighting different ways of doing language and communication). While the course
will highlight the importance of interdisciplinary approaches to language and communication, it will
strongly draw on themes and research from within the field of sociolinguistics. Structurally, the course
will consist of a mix of frontal input, workshops, tutorials, and contributions by invited speakers. During
the semester, students will thus be expected to be active listeners as well as participants in workshops
and tutorials. The latter will entail students taking first steps in collecting and analysing small segments
of data, with guidance, and using the theoretical and methodological knowledge provided.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

LCOM1002. Language, communication, society, field (6 credits)

In this introductory course to sociolinguistics, we address some fundamental topics in the positioning
of language in human societies, from the beginnings in dialectology, and language variation, to code
choice, and power, as well as consider applications in education and language policy and planning. We
not only examine theories and issues, but also explore methods in conducting sociolinguistic research.
Our investigation draws richly from both English as well as multilingual and non-English scenarios,
critically examining classic sociolinguistic accounts from a contemporary perspective, and ultimately
building a solid and comprehensive understanding of the workings of language and communication in
society.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

LCOM1003. Theorizing communication (6 credits)

This course offers an overview of the major currents in linguistic theory of how the ‘fact’ of (human)
communication is explained, what its prerequisites are, and how they align with everyday personal
experience. Students will be introduced to the major theoretical schools and asked to engage and interact
with each one of them by drawing on their critical reflection, their lay experience, and analyses of their
personal communicational biographies.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

LCOM1004. Introduction to pragmatics (6 credits)

People do not always say what they mean. So, how do we manage to understand each other if speakers
regularly mean something other than what they say? Why don’t people just say what they mean? We
shall answer these and many other questions in this introductory course to Pragmatics. Some of the
topics we shall be concerned with in this course include different levels of meaning, speaker’s intention,
interpretation and understanding of utterances; the role of context in utterance interpretations; speech
acts; conversational implicature; presupposition and politeness.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

Advanced Courses

ENGL2002. Language in society (6 credits)

This course will provide an introduction to the study of ‘sociolinguistics’, which deals with the
relationship between language and society. Topics will vary, but may include the following:
multilingualism, language varieties, language planning, language change, English in contact with other
languages.
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Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2004. English syntax (6 credits)

This course introduces the structure of English by investigating approaches to grammar, models of
grammatical analysis, and the grammar of contemporary English. It is interested in the relationship
between morphology and syntax, and grammar and linguistics.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2007. Literary linguistics (6 credits)

This course uses linguistic techniques to analyse literary texts by examining both the devices that
literary authors employ and the literary effects they create in different styles and genres. It employs
methods of structural linguistic analysis (looking at the syntax and phonology of texts) as well as socio-
historical and pragmatic methods.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2030. New Englishes (6 credits)

This course explores both structural and sociolinguistic aspects of World Englishes, with particular
attention to New Englishes, especially postcolonial Englishes of Asia. We will examine how the
structural features found in these Englishes are not a consequence of a lack of ability to learn English
perfectly, or pronounce it correctly, or express it clearly. Rather, such features are completely
appropriate to the multilingual and multicultural ecologies in which the Englishes have evolved,
ecologies in which numerous other languages of diverse typologies abound. We will also critically
consider issues and debates in World/ New Englishes, involving concepts of ‘mother tongue’,
‘nativeness’ and ownership, issues of ideology, attitudes and identity, and challenges of creative
expression, pedagogy and planning.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2039. Gender, sexuality and discourse (6 credits)

This course offers an introduction to ways that language usage trends across society can be sensitive to
social categories of sexuality and gender along with how speakers use language to project gender and
sexuality. The course includes an historical view while bringing in cutting edge research, in this way
highlighting emerging trends while keeping persistent themes in view. Project work will focus on
discourse analysis of authentic data.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2047. English discourse structures and strategies (6 credits)

This course will provide an introduction to the analysis of English discourse from a linguistic
perspective. Students will learn rhetorical methodologies and examine their effects on readers and
listeners. Units include: spoken and written English discourse, global organization and cohesion,
discourse markers, information structure, narrative, and non-verbal structures and strategies.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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ENGL2048. Language and jargon (6 credits)

This course focuses on specialized sub-group languages or jargons, and uses texts from a range of
historical period to examine the socio-cultural dynamics behind the creation, maintenance and
disappearance of such jargons. Particular attention will be paid to the history of criminal jargon, prison
jargon and other speech varieties associated with other marginal or criminalized sub-groups (e.g. drug
addicts, ‘tramps’, etc.), as well as to the history of the study of such jargons and the inclusion of jargon
and slang items in mainstream dictionaries. Students will read texts from different periods in the history
of English, as well as considering the role of jargons in modern societies such as the United States,
Britain and Hong Kong, as well as in ‘cyber-space’.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2050. English corpus linguistics (6 credits)

Corpus linguistics is a rapidly-developing methodology in the study of language. It exploits the power
of modern computer technology to manipulate and analyse large collections of naturally-occurring
language (‘corpora’). This course will introduce students to the use of computers and computerized
corpora as tools for exploring the English language.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2057. Text and image (6 credits)

This interdisciplinary course explores relations between literature and various forms of image-based
representation. It begins with ‘painterly’ descriptions in novels and poetry, and common strands in art
and literary criticism, and proceeds to discussion of relations between film and literature, such as the
presence of cinematographic form in modern literature. In the concluding module, we consider the shift
in emphasis from text-based to image-based culture and its impact on postmodern society. Course
material consists of critical essays, and examples from literature, the pictorial arts and the moving image.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2103. Language and digital media (6 credits)

Language is strongly influenced by the medium through which it is presented. When the medium itself
is in wide use, norms emerge which determine not only the form that language can take, but also the
pragmatic effects of any language use that either exploits or deviates from these norms. The nature of
public language--that is, language generated by or for the public at large through various media--in turn
influences public discourse (i.e., what is being talked about large-scale, and how it is talked about).
When the nature of the medium is expressly exploited linguistically, then this change can achieve
overwhelming and widespread effects.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2104. Language in the USA (6 credits)

This course addresses the problems (theoretical and practical) inherent in defining a variety of English
as ‘American’. Issues treated include the history of American English; dialectology; sociolinguistics;
Black English; and the politics of American English.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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ENGL2112. An introduction to the history of English (6 credits)

This introductory seminar will acquaint students with the main historical periods of the English
language (Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English) and theoretical and methodological
problems and approaches in studying these varieties. Through the use of various media apart from
academic literature (video, audio presentations, online sources, computer corpora), the seminar will
offer students various modes of learning about the history of English, language change, and linguistic
theory.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2115. Theories of language acquisition (6 credits)

[Non-permissible combinations: EDUC2203. First and second language acquisition, LING2036. Child
language]

This course offers an introduction to the central themes in language acquisition, covering first language
acquisition, second/foreign language acquisition and bilingualism. Students are expected to gain from
the course a broad understanding of how children acquire their first language, how second language
learners learn a new language, and the potential differences in processing and outcome.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2117. English phonology and morphology (6 credits)

This course provides a comprehensive study of the sounds (phonemes) and building blocks (morphemes)
of English words. Students will examine the phonemes of English as they occur separately and in
context, and the processes involved in producing those sounds. The course involves problems that
Cantonese speakers might have in mastering English phonemes (and why) and ways in which those
problems can be overcome. Students will also develop an understanding of the foundation of English
words. In learning the various ways in which English words are formed, each student will be able to
increase his/her own lexicon and develop an understanding of how and why words are constantly being
added to or deleted from the English language, and who is generally responsible for those changes.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2123. Language and identity in Hong Kong (6 credits)

This course is a continuation of ENGL2002 Language in Society with a special focus on language and
identity in Hong Kong. Students who have taken ENGL2002 will have a foundation in sociolinguistics,
which certainly will be helpful, but ENGL2002 is not a prerequisite.
This course examines identity studies and related language ideology research in sociolinguistics and
linguistic anthropology (including some relevant literature from sociology and social psychology). It
specifically draws on research based in Hong Kong for comparison understanding, and application of
currently available theoretical models.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2125. English construction grammar (6 credits)

This course will introduce students to two burgeoning paradigms in present-day linguistics: construction
grammar and grammaticalization theory. The first of these is a general semantico-syntactic language
theory; the second a (historical) linguistic discipline that focuses on how grammatical constructions
come into being. The compatibility and complementarity of both approaches will be looked at through
a detailed case study of English clausal complement constructions.
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Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2126. Law, meaning, and interpretation (6 credits)

This course is concerned with meaning in verbal discourse. What makes the course distinctive, however,
is that its interest in interpretation will be comparative, not between different languages but as regards
how verbal discourse is interpreted in settings that bring different interpretive norms to bear on linguistic
data: e.g. in literary and film interpretation, in religious interpretation, and in legal interpretation. The
course begins with an introductory review of topics and approaches in semantics and pragmatics, then
traces how meanings are ascribed differently in a selection of disciplinary and institutional settings. A
final stage of the course is concerned with how approaches to interpretation engage with one another
and the controversies and debates that arise when they do. No specialized knowledge of linguistics, law,
or religious interpretation is needed; the course will provide a multidisciplinary introduction to the fields
under discussion. In doing so, it will draw extensively on contributions made by students who are taking
or have taken relevant courses in linguistics, literary criticism, and other cognate fields.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2127. Language and the law (6 credits)

Language plays an essential role both in creating law (e.g. in how specific laws are drafted) as well as
in the implementation of law (e.g. in how language is deployed but also contested - in court). This
course examines how language plays these important social roles, and addresses topics, including:
different linguistic registers and genres which shape our concept of what legal language is;
communicative strategies, adopted in the courtroom by speakers occupying different roles (judge,
barrister, defendant, witness, etc.); how language is used and understood in in legal drafting and
interpretation; submission of language data as evidence in some court cases; and linguistic and legal
issues that arise in bilingual and multilingual jurisdictions (i.e. in systems that formulate and apply their
law in two or more different languages). Together, such aspects of language use form the subject matter
of an increasingly researched and studied interdisciplinary field, known as ‘language and law’ or
‘forensic linguistics’, to which this course provides an accessible introduction.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2129. English as a language of science (6 credits)

English is sometimes called ‘the’ language of science. This could be more myth than reality, but there
is no question that a great deal of academic communication takes place in English. Well-established
notions like ‘scientific English’ or ‘academic English’ suggest that this is a special kind of English
which has features that differ from ‘general’ English. This course will provide a context for reflection
on the present role of English in a globalized academic world and the history of that role, as well as on
the nature of English-language discourse in various academic disciplines. It is not an academic writing
course, but an analytical course dealing, on the one hand, with the sociology and history of the language
of science, and, on the other, with the textual and linguistic characteristics of the discourse produced in
natural-scientific, social-scientific and humanities disciplines.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2130. Signs, language and meaning: Integrational reflections (6 credits)

This course introduces students to the basic tenets of integrational linguistics and integrationism.
Integrational linguistics takes as its point of departure a theory of the sign which emphasizes the
temporal, contextual and experiential dimensions of language and communication. Language users are
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also seen as language makers, in that they constantly create meaning and integrate and adapt their
linguistic experience to novel situations. The course aims to provide insight into a wide range of topics,
including the nature of memory, experience, consciousness, and other psychological and philosophical
questions.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2138. Language and globalization (6 credits)

[Non-permissible combination: LCOM2005. Language, communication and globalization]

Globalization has been defined in a number of ways, for example as the increased interconnectedness
of individuals, organizations and countries; intense flows of goods, services, capital, information,
images, and people; a new ‘world order’ with privileged centres and disadvantaged peripheries; or a
geography of unequal development. Whichever of these definitions is adopted, an understanding of how
language is used as part of these networks, flows, and inequalities, or indeed to facilitate them, is crucial
in theorizing language and communication in the contemporary world. Therefore, this course examines
language through the metaphors of transition, flux, mobility and displacement. In a world where
people’s lives and identities are no longer so neatly bounded or easily located, with positions of power
and authority no longer clearly defined, we ask questions about the role of language in shaping
contemporary ‘globalized’ identities, relationships and communities. Some of the key areas of
globalization that are considered from the perspective of language and communication are the new
globalized economy; print, broadcast and new media; popular culture; tourism; and second language
education.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2140. Ideologies of language in early modernity (6 credits)

We analyze early modern reflections on the power of language — in particular, the language of literary
texts — to bring about cultural change. The course investigates how assumptions about language
support arguments that promote a political or social vision. Topics to be explored include: the functions
of speech — communication and persuasion; defenses of the vernacular as suitable for poetry and
biblical translation; theories of poetic agency, or the capacity of fiction to shape readers’ moral character;
epic and the formation of national identity; deviant speech and language crimes.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2141. Doing discourse analysis (6 credits)

In the last fifty years or so, ‘discourse’ and ‘discourse analysis’ (DA) have firmly established themselves
as key notions in many academic disciplines, including linguistics, literary studies, communication
studies, and social sciences, to name a few. As a consequence, there currently exist at least 40 ‘tribes
and sub-tribes’ of discourse analysis, with new approaches still appearing and older approaches being
re-conceptualized. This course aims at, first, providing the students with an accessible introduction to
the theoretical underpinnings of discourse analysis, and, second, taking them through a step-by step
process of doing discourse analysis. The particular focus of the course is on introducing the students to
the analysis of context-specific use of language in written, spoken and multimodal communication.
Examples for the course will be drawn from different authentic discourses, such as everyday
conversations, media, politics, business and healthcare encounters, with some of the examples coming
from the sociocultural context of Hong Kong.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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ENGL2146. Cognitive semantics (6 credits)

Imagination gives us the ability to invent new concepts so we can develop arts, science, religion, culture,
sophisticated tools, and language. In this course, we focus on how the human mind operates largely
behind the scenes to create new meaning. Almost invisibly to consciousness, we create meaning every
day. As opposed to the general view that meaning is given or prepackaged in linguistic expressions,
meaning construction should be understood as something that we actively participate in as a product of
interaction with others in specific contexts. We perform it with lightning speed. More often than not,
we do not find it difficult at all to produce and understand language we have not heard before when we
communicate with others. The construction of meaning is also crucial to the understanding of our own
culture. Cultural models are not only ideas that reside in our minds. They are often embodied in a wide
array of material artefacts. This course will look at examples of thinking strategies that involve the
interaction of mental structure and material structure.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2158. Language processing and learning (6 credits)

The course provides an overview of the cognitive approaches to first and second language processing
and learning. Students will gain a broad understanding of how different components of language (words,
meaning and syntax) are processed and represented in the mind, how fundamental principles of learning
and memory may be relevant to first and second language learning, and how language patterns may be
learnt without intention and awareness.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2160. Sovereignty in law, theory and culture (6 credits)

Sovereignty is a centrally important concept for both law and politics, to which recent debates in Hong
Kong testify. In this course we will assess the meaning and significance of sovereignty by drawing on
resources from across the arts, humanities and social sciences. We will read and discuss materials from
law, political theory, philosophy, urban studies, literature and the visual arts in order to answer the
following questions: What is sovereignty and how is it related to the history of the state? How is our
understanding of sovereignty changing in the context of contemporary challenges like globalization,
climate change and international terrorism? And what would law and politics looks like without
sovereignty? The course takes a broad historical sweep, from early-modern conceptions to the present
day. We will look at key theorists of sovereignty like (the authoritarian) Thomas Hobbes, (the Nazi-
sympathizing) Carl Schmitt and (the anarchist philosopher) Giorgio Agamben as well as explore
thinkers who are trying to imagine law and politics ‘without’ or ‘beyond’ sovereignty. Throughout the
course, we supplement theoretical and legal debates with insights from literature and the visual arts.
The plays of William Shakespeare; poetry written by inmates within the Guantanamo detention centers;
17th century emblems and images; and an early-twentieth century novel will all help us understand the
meaning of sovereignty and explore possibilities for its critique.
The course will be of particular interest to students who have enjoyed classes in legal theory, law and
literature, law and film, or constitutional law. But the course is open to all who are excited to explore
the possibilities of interdisciplinary scholarship and want to find out more about the elusive but crucially
important notion of sovereignty. This course hopes to broaden the scholarly horizons of students by
bringing students together from different disciplinary backgrounds. The course will provide participants
with valuable cross-disciplinary reading, rhetorical and evaluative skills.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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ENGL2161. Language rights and linguistic justice (6 credits)

The first part of the course offers a broad picture of linguistic diversity and cultural preservation, traces
the evolution of language rights and explores the historical connections of such evolution with nation
states, warfare, and globalization. The second part of the course surveys international and national legal
regimes in the protection of language rights, covering both minority language rights and official
language rights, and their manifestations as negative and positive rights. We will examine how some of
these rights are realized in the domains of education, legal processes and public services across
jurisdictions, as well as the limitations of their reach. The third part of the course focuses on the
philosophical and moral basis of language rights, addresses sources of contention, and queries the
concept of ‘linguistic justice’. Such discussions provide a lens through which tensions between
liberalism and diversity may be probed.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2166. English phonetics (6 credits)

This course introduces students to the theoretical advancements in the study of speech. In the first half
of the course, we will look at the acoustic nature of different 'components' of speech: vowels, consonants,
stress and accent, intonation, and voice quality. The second half of the course will focus on how the
study of speech can be applied various areas of inquiry such as speech perception and production, the
learning of new sounds, sociophonetics, and forensic phonetics. Students will get hands-on experience
with Praat, a free computer software package for analysis of speech in phonetics. Prior knowledge of
phonetics and/or phonology will be helpful but not obligatory. Students with little background on the
study of speech are encouraged to read the recommended introductory textbooks before the course starts.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2168. The law of signs: Interpretative controversies in legal semiotics (6 credits)

This course investigates the way that law treats verbal and visual signs. The study of signs is termed
semiotics. By sign is meant here the visual and verbal bearer of contentious meanings and/or of disputed
cultural significance. Through the study of decided cases, the courses analyzes how verbal and visual
signs encounter law's definitions, registration regimes, prohibition, censorship, or protection. Among
the legal domains involved are: trademark and copyright law; employment and discrimination law;
censorship, free speech and obscenity law; blasphemy; public order law; human rights law. The course
will be divided into sections by topic (not all of which will be taught for each iteration): (i) names and
marks (legal limits on the right to choose, registration regimes in relation to personal and corporate
names, marks, titles, licence plates, domain names); (ii) art (art works and customs regulations, legal
definitions of art; art works and forgery, e.g. artistic images of currency; art works and parody; art and
taboo; song lyrics and taboo meanings); (iii) flags, insignia and symbols (laws against flag desecration;
banned political symbols; triad society symbols; gang insignia); (iv) speech versus conduct (gestures;
public order offences involving swearing, insulting language or behaviour; contempt of court; the
definition of speech under the First Amendment); (v) clothing and hair-styles (e.g. employment law;
sumptuary laws; contempt of court); (vi) cultural appropriation and identity (the commercial use of
indigenous linguistic materials and cultural symbols); (vii) language in public spaces (regulations on
signage; noise and nuisance; the definition of public). The course focuses on the underlying legal, socio-
political, and semiotic doctrines that are at play, but also the implicit or explicit theory of the sign, the
understanding of how signs communicate, how the ownership of signs and images is understood, and
how law assigns authorial and interpretative responsibility for meanings.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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LCOM2001. Theories of language and communication (6 credits)

This course examines theoretical discussions of language and communication, with special reference to
underlying assumptions about language (i.e. their metatheory) and the respective philosophies of
language they are based on, their merits and shortcomings, as well as possible points of contact between
them. These assumptions will also be critically discussed on the basis of exemplary linguistic studies
presented in class. We shall hence consider the various traditions contributing to language and
communication theory, among which are the semiotic, the phenomenological, and the sociocultural
traditions. Particular emphasis will be placed on how sociolinguistic theory has dealt with the
phenomena of language and communication.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

LCOM2002. Language in the workplace (6 credits)

People spend a considerable amount of time at work. The workplace thus provides a useful site for
investigating various aspects of language and communication. This course will discuss a range of
features of workplace discourse and illustrate the impact social factors may have on the ways in which
language is used in this context. We will also discuss and compare different methodological approaches
and a variety of theoretical frameworks used for an analysis of workplace discourse. These tools will
then be used by the students to analyse naturalistic data.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

LCOM2003. Language and politeness (6 credits)

This course will discuss various approaches to linguistic politeness. Students will be introduced to a
number of theoretical frameworks that have been developed in order to capture and assess this complex
concept. A particular focus will be on the question of universality and culturally influenced perceptions
of politeness. Moreover, the impact of various social factors (including power, gender and ethnicity)
on the performance and perception of linguistic politeness is discussed, and the topic of impoliteness is
covered.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

LCOM2004. Language, communication and the media (6 credits)

This course introduces students to the study of mass media discourse in today’s society. The ‘mass
media’ phenomenon deserves particular attention because, as sociologists and sociolinguists point out,
it has a deep impact on our knowledge of and on how we communicate about the world. The course
considers cross-cultural issues of mediated discourse and looks how eastern and western ideologies
amalgamate to form new local ideological discourses, with particular attention to Hong Kong. The
course will take as its foundation the field of (social) semiotics, and will look more closely at how this
field’s theoretical premises match with our personal experiences as communicating members of society.
The course also introduces students to philosophical-semiotic questions about epistemology and
ontology.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

LCOM2005. Language, communication and globalization (6 credits)

[Non-permissible combination: ENGL2138. Language and globalization]

This course, centring on the phenomenon of ‘globalization’ in relation to language and communication,
critically examines some widely held notions, such as the view that globalization has resulted in the
homogenization of cultures and languages, and in the hegemony of English, and is organized along
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three main lines. It investigates the politics of language and globalization, in how various nations,
particularly those in Asia, struggle with the balance between their indigenous languages and languages
of global import and/or wider local significance, e.g. English or Mandarin. It addresses the phenomenon
of globalization bringing communities and languages into contact, the consequences of which are often
viewed as situations of peril, involving the endangerment of languages, as well as the evolution of new
linguistic varieties such as World/New Englishes. It identifies a number of communicative practices in
pop culture that are ubiquitous in and representative of today’s global world, such as SMSes, e-mail
and other electronic communication, hiphop, and callcentres, and explores how languages are
appropriated by users in managing their own local identity alongside wider global needs.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

LCOM2007. Visual communication (6 credits)

All visual texts such as photographs, advertisements, magazine covers and websites are carefully
designed and create specific effects. Designers use different semiotic tools such as colour, framing,
focus, font style and positioning of elements to communicate with the viewer. Taken together, this
visual vocabulary makes up a visual language that we can analyse. More broadly, this course is
concerned with ‘visuality’ – the different ways in which we are capable of seeing (our ‘vision’) are
constructed: how we see, how we are able, allowed, or made to see, and how we relate to these acts of
seeing (or not seeing). We will examine a wide range of visual examples from everyday life including
photographs, advertisements, cartoons, magazine covers, artworks and websites.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

LCOM2008. Health communication, ‘healthy’ communication (6 credits)

Health communication extends from patient-doctor interactions to inter-professional encounters and

media campaigns. While research has shown that effective communication is an indispensable part of
delivering quality healthcare, technological advances in modes of communication, together with
increasingly complex social environments, are presenting professionals and patients alike with multiple
challenges. This course pursues two main interrelated objectives (as reflected in the course title). First,
it is aimed at introducing the students to one specific area of inquiry within the so-called ‘applied
linguistics of professions’ (Sarangi, 2005). The students will learn about different analytical approaches
to healthcare communication, namely micro- and macro-perspectives on the analyses of spoken and
written discourse data. Second, it is intended as a course with a more ‘practical’ aim of developing the
students’ understanding that effective health communication strategies may significantly improve the
healthcare quality and outcomes. To achieve these two objectives, the students will engage with
authentic data from a variety of healthcare sites (from primary care encounters to specialist clinics to
genetic counseling) to examine some critical issues of health communication such as shared decision-
making between healthcare professionals and patients; delivery of accurate and accessible healthcare
information; communicating health risk and uncertainty (that is very common in modern medicine).
Assessment: 100% coursework.

LCOM2009. Language and religion (6 credits)

In this course we will explore the complex relationship between language and religion by focusing on
four main questions: 1) What is religion? 2) What is language? 3) How is the relationship between
language and religion conceptualised in sociolinguistics, and what does this conceptualisation imply?
4) How can language be used to perform religious identities? We will address the first two questions
by focusing on the historical emergence of religion as a universal category; and on conceptualisations
of language as a practice. The third question will be examined on the basis of theoretical literature and
case studies which discuss the relationship between language and religion, and the use of language for
the performance of religious identities. This will lead to a consideration of the various ways language
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is used as a resource to perform these same identities; and of the interaction between religion and other
social categories. Since the Internet and English have become important ways of spreading and sharing
knowledge, we will also tackle this fourth question by working with computer-mediated data taken from
English-language websites used by religious communities.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

LCOM2011. The language of news media (6 credits)

As a natural concomitant of the mass media, the consumption of news has become a staple of modernity.
We encounter and attend to different kinds of news discourse on a daily basis – for example, print
newspapers; news documentaries, current affairs programmes, news interviews, or investigative
journalism programmes on television and radio; online news from digitised newspapers, news blogs,
news updates or news feeds from social networking sites (e.g. Facebook/Twitter), Google news,
YouTube news videos. In this course, we will examine the ways in which meanings are discursively
construed in the news. We will also critically reflect and debate on issues of power relations and
ideologies of the news media: the influence they exert both on our governments and major institutions
as well as their ability to shape our ideas, beliefs and behaviours through the news discourse that we
immerse ourselves in. Adopting a linguistic/semiotic perspective, this course offers detailed insights
into the language of the news by discussing the main characteristics of news discourse and exploring
theoretical frameworks to research and analyse the use of text and image in the construction of news
and the manifestations of power, control and ideology in the press.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

Capstone Courses

LCOM3001. Cultural dimensions of language and communication (capstone experience) (6

credits)

Taking its cue from the view of communicative practices as constitutive of the culture of everyday life,
this fieldwork-based course has as a focus the speakers and cultures involved in language and
communication. As a capstone course, the overarching goal is to have students (a) bring together the
theoretical knowledge and methodological skills acquired in this and previous courses in this (and other)
programmes, (b) with a focus on the local and contemporary in multilingual, globalised contexts, and
(c) with an emphasis on issues of linguistic and cultural diversity and the responsibility that each
individual has to make informed and significant contributions to society, for sustainability and the
advancement of the human condition. Topics of linguistic diversity and multilingualism, and language
maintenance, shift and endangerment in minority communities will be explored, as well as related issues
for education, policy and economic development. The course addresses not only the theories involved
but just as importantly the methods for intellectual investigation. Activities and assignments, which aim
to cultivate an understanding of the complexities of contemporary social and political issues, will
involve investigative fieldwork projects on speech communities in Hong Kong, including local
Hongkongers as well as other ‘minority’ groups such as ethnic minorities and domestic workers.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

LCOM3004. Language and communication field trip (capstone experience) (6 credits)

[Course offering will be subject to student enrolment]

The LCOM field trip provides students with a valuable international experience and a perfect
opportunity for experiential learning: in this course, students of language and communication witness
first-hand, engage in and intellectually reflect on communicative practices in multilingual settings (such
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as Singapore, Switzerland, Sri Lanka, South Africa, etc), where languages of global import are used –
in complementary or competing fashion – alongside languages of local significance.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

LCOM3005. Internship in language and communication (capstone experience) (6 credits)

This course offers students a capstone learning experience by allowing them to take their classroom
knowledge into the community. In accordance with Language and Communication’s focus on real-
world contexts in the multilingual, globalized world of today, the internship encourages the use and
appreciation of communicative competence while contributing to the honing of transferable skills for a
wide range of careers, including education, editing and publishing, public administration, public
relations, marketing, the media, tourism, and cultural affairs. Students are responsible for identifying
and securing a suitable internship opportunity, in consultation with the course coordinator. The duration
of the internship will depend on the arrangement between the student and the organization, but should
involve at least 36 contact hours of service for the organization. Assessment will be graded on a pass/fail
basis, based on a written report as well as feedback from the organization contact.
Assessment: 100% coursework (graded on a pass/fail basis).

LCOM3006. Extended essay in language and communication (capstone experience) (6 credits)

The Extended Essay in Language and Communication offers students an opportunity to undertake an
undergraduate research project in a particular area of Language and Communication under the guidance
and instruction of a supervisor. The extended essay course can only be taken in conjunction with another
advanced LCOM course, and students will be required to attend the classes for that course, as part of a
12-credit combination. The supervisor of the extended essay will normally be the teacher of the
conjoined course and students intending to enrol in an extended essay course must first seek approval
from the prospective supervisor. Subject to the teacher’s approval, students can enrol in the extended
essay course either concurrently with the conjoined course or after they have completed the conjoined
course. Assessment will normally consist of an extended essay of approximately 5,000 words in
addition to the coursework of the conjoined course, or it may involve completing alternative pieces of
coursework, including a research paper, for the taught and research courses together.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE

The Department of Comparative Literature specializes in the investigation, analysis, and theorization
of literature, the cinema, and other forms of cultural expression. Our curriculum reaches across multiple
nations, cultures, genres, and media forms to illuminate connections linking texts to their times,
locations, and communities from a multitude of competing perspectives. The primary objects of enquiry
center on English-language texts, but include material in many other languages.

The hallmarks of the programme center on honing skills in critical thinking, library and archival
research, and original argumentation. Students engage with a wide range of theories, methodologies,
concepts, and texts to develop their own scholarly positions. The mission of comparative literary
scholarship is equally concerned with learning how to understand the world we live in as much as with
learning how to impact the world we live in.

To major in Comparative Literature, students are required to fulfill the following requirements:

(a) not fewer than one (6 credits) of the following first year Comparative Literature courses, and
obtain a grade C or above: CLIT1001 or CLIT1008 or CLIT1009 or CLIT1010;
(b) 12 credits of introductory courses from any Arts programmes, which may include additional
credits in 1000-level Comparative Literature courses; and
(c) not fewer than 54 credits of 2000- and 3000-level Comparative Literature courses, which should
include at least one (6 credits) capstone experience course.

Choice of courses is subject to the approval of the department. Priority of entry into 2000- and 3000-
level courses will be given to Comparative Literature majors and minors. Students must make sure that
their choices conform to any prerequisites set down by the department. Some of the capstone courses,
for example research and internship courses, are offered to Comparative Literature majors only.

A minor in Comparative Literature shall consist of CLIT1001 or CLIT1008 or CLIT1009 or CLIT1010,

and not fewer than 30 credit units of 2000- and 3000-level courses.

To fulfill the credit requirements of the major/minor in Comparative Literature, students can also take
the following courses in other programmes:

 History programme: HIST2082, HIST2083, HIST2085 and HIST2119.

 Music programme: MUSI2044 and MUSI2055.
 Faculty of Law: LLAW3141.
 School of Chinese: CHIN2348 and CHIN2358.
 School of Modern Languages and Cultures: AFRI2007, AMER2022, AMER2033, AMER2035,
AMER2048, AMER2052, EUST2011, EUST2030, EUST3020, HKGS2008, HKGS2011,
HKGS2012, SINO2008, SINO2012 and SINO2013.

Please refer to the relevant programmes for course details and availability.

All courses offered in the department will be assessed continuously with 100% coursework. Teaching
activities may include film screenings, workshops, and guest lectures. Assignments may include essay
writing, oral presentations in tutorials, and take-home or in-class tests. Course organizers will provide
details of assessment at the beginning of their courses.
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FIRST-YEAR COURSES

The department’s first year consists of courses introducing students to cross-cultural and inter-
disciplinary perspectives in comparative literary, cultural, film and visual studies. There will normally
be at least one 6-credit course offered in each semester.

Students who intend to major or minor in Comparative Literature are required to take CLIT1001 or
CLIT1008 or CLIT1009 or CLIT1010.

CLIT1001. Introduction to film studies (6 credits)

This course introduces students to the basic concepts in film studies and enables them to both appreciate
and analyze films. The course analyzes some major elements of film and film languages such as editing,
camera movement, lighting, sound, color, and point of view. In addition to the historical and generic
approach, the course also discusses how to read film as a social and cultural practice by involving the
study of the relation between film and a range of cultural, sociological, political, institutional, and
psychological factors. Films will be drawn from the traditions of Euro-American, Asian, and/or “Third”
cinema so as to broaden students’ knowledge of films and film studies. This course will be taught at an
introductory level, preparing students to take CLIT2007 and CLIT2083.
Note: Students who intend to major or minor in Comparative Literature are required to take CLIT1001
or CLIT1008 or CLIT1009 or CLIT1010.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT1002. Introduction to gender studies (6 credits)

Feminism, gender and sexuality, masculinity and femininity – indeed, even what we mean by “men”
and “women” – are all areas of contemporary debate and will continue to be topical issues in human
culture. This course introduces students to the subject of Comparative Literature by introducing the
most important debates and issues in gender studies, which will remain important throughout the years
of studies in the department. We will look at what is meant by “gender” through critical readings of
some crucial texts and cases from various cultures both local and cross-cultural, and will support the
examination of these texts and cases with reference to a range of different theoretical perspectives.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT1008. Ways of reading: Film, literature, and culture (6 credits)

This foundation course introduces basic strategies to approach literature, film, and other cultural texts
critically. Basic theories of literary criticism, film criticism, visual and material culture studies will be
introduced. Students are encouraged to explore different approaches and reading strategies and learn
how to apply critical tools to a diverse range of texts and mediums. Topics covered include the following:
Basic and extended definitions of text, author, and reader; cinema, modernity, and the apparatus theory;
the advent of urban fiction; gendered readings; race and ethnicity; how to analyze a popular culture icon;
visuality and materiality; cities as photographed; ecocriticism and narratives of travel and migration.
Writing assignments are designed to help students secure their knowledge of the vocabulary and tools
of analysis necessary for more complex work in the field of comparative literary and cultural studies.
Note: Students who intend to major or minor in Comparative Literature are required to take CLIT1001
or CLIT1008 or CLIT1009 or CLIT1010.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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CLIT1009. Introduction to postcolonialism and culture (6 credits)

Through film and literature, this course introduces theoretical approaches to cultural issues in
connection with colonial and postcolonial experiences. We will analyze cultural representations and
issues of identity politics, such as the orientalist imagination and the nationalist imagination of culture,
history, race and gender, as well as challenges to such imaginaries. We will also learn how to analyze
the traumatic experience of racial and sexual discrimination under conditions of colonialism, slavery,
exile and poverty, and the possibilities of survival and resistance. Texts from cultures that have
undergone multiple colonial experiences are included to encourage more complex understanding of
inter-racial relations.
Note: Students who intend to major or minor in Comparative Literature are required to take CLIT1001
or CLIT1008 or CLIT1009 or CLIT1010.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT1010. Ways of thinking about culture and society (6 credits)

This course introduces ways of thinking about culture and society in an international frame. “Culture”
and “society” are familiar yet difficult terms. The main purpose of this class is to arrive at a sense of
why each of them represents something important, something that speaks to everyday, real life and not
just the dominant accounts of what is going on. It will introduce students to some of the key terms,
techniques, and interpretive strategies that enable them to think about culture and society in complex
ways. Thinking in this sense means being familiar with a range of concepts, issues, and “isms” and
being able to relate them to other texts and problems. But to think is also to read. Thus we will also
study the ways of reading in its broadest and narrowest senses – how we make sense of texts and
problems and do “readings” of them. To do this we must place texts into their contexts and analyze
them rhetorically. This includes the ability to do “practical criticism” or “close reading” – to make
advanced sense of the words on the page, or what people actually say and do.
Texts from China and elsewhere will illustrate these ways of thinking. These range from literary,
popular, and historical texts to visual ones like film and architecture as well as the practices of everyday
life. The common emphasis is on the ways of thinking that can then be carried over into later classes in
Comparative Literature.
Note: Students who intend to major or minor in Comparative Literature are required to take CLIT1001
or CLIT1008 or CLIT1009 or CLIT1010.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

ADVANCED COURSES

Advanced courses are offered to year two or above students.

CLIT2001. Comparative studies of literary and visual narratives (6 credits)

This course will primarily investigate western critical concepts and theories that have informed the
study of narratives. It will introduce students to a variety of narrative forms found in literature, film,
and popular texts from different times and cultures. We will examine some of the ways in which critics
and theorists interpret the aesthetic, psychological, and philosophical aspects of narrative. The course
is divided into three sections: the mechanics of narrative, forms and intertextuality, and different critical
approaches to the study of narrative. Through these three modules, we will chart the earlier moment of
structuralism and how it was challenged by poststructuralist and postmodernist approaches to narrative
study, culminating in the recent phase of the cultural turn. Topics to be explored include story and
discourse, narrative time and space, the social functions of narrative texts, the relationship of ideology
and narrative form, and the circulation of cultures.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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CLIT2003. Modern drama in comparative perspective (6 credits)

This course examines the development of modern drama from the late 19th century to the postwar
period, in a comparative perspective which includes modern dramatic texts from European as well as
Chinese contexts. While taking a textual approach to some significant dramatic works, the course will
contextualize them within the larger background of intellectual history, examining concepts like
individualism, modernism and postmodernism. Dramatic texts will also be related to theories such as
Brecht’s distancing effect and the critique of identification, Beckett’s theatre of the absurd and the
emergence of post-dramatic theatre, paying renewed attention to the question of performance. The
theatre will be considered as a framework for the interaction between individuals and society and the
institutionalization of a form of public space.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT2007. Film culture I (6 credits)

This course is designed to explore global cinema by focusing on key genres, directors, and movements
that emerged after World War II. It surveys some of the major developments in international film since
1945. It explores a variety of film types from popular genre films to art films, from realist drama to
modernist experimentation, produced under a variety of conditions in order to provide students with an
understanding of the relationship between film culture and issues of national identity, ethnicity, class,
race, gender and sexual orientation. Students are expected to sharpen their critical and analytical
abilities through the close analysis of individual films.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT2008. Film culture II (6 credits)

The 20th century was celebrated for achievements in technological progress, rapid urbanization, and
massive production. It was remembered also for the world wars, several holocausts, deracination,
impoverishment, and domestic violence that terminated the promises of utopia, the reign of reason, and
the prospect of infinite progress. The series of unprecedented traumas reported in media and written
about in testimonials and memoirs have motivated filmmakers to turn cinema into a medium of popular
cultural memory. Films become innovative and reflexive in their search for forms to represent the
traumatic experiences of modernity, to mediate the past and the present/future, and to find meanings in
the embodied memories of their subjects. This course will explore the representation and
representability of trauma and memory on film. Acclaimed postwar French films together with notable
Chinese-language films will be examined along with more recent European and American titles in a
transcultural inquiry. Students will gain an understanding of the forms of film that convey and
complicate trauma, pain, mourning, testimony and forgetting. Close study of notable films will attend
to their auditory-visual, narrative, and cultural dimensions, to examine a transnational film culture that
has brought to light the complexities of modernity and remembering.
Prerequisite: CLIT1008 or CLIT2007 or CLIT2025 or CLIT2061 or CLIT2065 or CLIT2074.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT2014. Feminist cultural studies (6 credits)

This course surveys the history of the feminist critique of patriarchal culture from the “First Wave” to
the “Third Wave” of feminist thought. Students are expected to acquire an appreciation for the range
of approaches available within the field of feminist cultural studies, including psychoanalysis, Marxism,
postmodernism, post-structuralism, performance theory, and queer critique. They will become familiar
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with the depiction of women in a range of cultural texts, including films, popular books, commercial
advertising, music, theatre, and television.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT2016. The body in culture (6 credits)

This course will explore various theoretical approaches as we attempt to develop discourses to address
the notion of ‘the body’. There will be an emphasis on issues of corporeal identity, movement, and
performance. We will present and discuss texts from the fields of philosophy, critical theory,
psychoanalysis, architecture, literature, dance, theatre, film/media studies, gender studies, anthropology,
technology, science, performance art, and cultural studies.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT2025. Visual cultures (6 credits)

This course introduces students to key issues, debates, and genres in the burgeoning field of visual
culture studies. It explores how the cultures of visual production, consumption, and surveillance are
formed, and how these visual cultures impact upon our ways of seeing the world and communicating
with each other. Depending on the instructor, specific topics may include: advertisements and visual
propaganda, nature and built environments, visual surveillance, counter politics of visuality,
audiovisuality, and image-making in the age of internet. Theories of visual cultures offer a vantage
point to examine the intersections of power, technologies, and experiences of everyday life. The goal
of the course is to equip students with a set of critical tools to assess visual phenomena near and far.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT2026. Digital culture (6 credits)

This course explores the evolving cultural dimensions of the digital domain. It examines moral issues,
including privacy, surveillance, and hacking, as well as the political implications of our online lives.
The course also examines the aesthetic potential of the digital and investigates key concepts such as
“virtuality,” “interactivity,” “hypertexts,” “simulation,” “cyborgs,” and “cyber-subcultures.” Media
synergy and depictions of cyberculture in the cinema, literature, and other art forms will also be
considered.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT2028. The city as cultural text (6 credits)

If contemporary cities are becoming more ‘invisible’, it is because the effects they have upon us are
indirect and displaced. Our experience of cities becomes more problematic as cities themselves become
more complex. This course explores the changing cultural space of cities mainly through major works
of fiction and of cinema, though it will include other forms like painting and architecture as well as
theoretical texts. Topics for discussion include: How is urban experience transformed by
colonialism/imperialism, technology, information? What are the different ways of reading the city? Is
Hong Kong a ‘Chinese city’? How can the city be read as a cultural text?
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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CLIT2037. Gender and sexuality in Chinese literature and film (6 credits)

Why do Chinese films and novels usually convey male-oriented imagination and projections? When
Chinese women directed and wrote, were the results different? Throughout the 20th century, film and
literature produced in the Chinese mainland have supported the progressive causes of equality,
independence and freedom for a modern nation. They also subsumed gender and sexuality under grand
narratives of revolution and nation-building. A major shift took place as the cultures of postmodernism
gained ground in post-Mao urban culture open to neo-liberal economy and consumerism. Bodies,
desires and sexuality became the flashy markers of self and identity. Apparently postfeminist interests
gained prominence over Marxist feminism. Taking a textual and historical approach, this course
explores the issues of gender and sexuality in contemporary Chinese film and literature. The selected
texts of study include mainly well-known films along with some novels and short stories. The course
encourages students to explore interpretive possibilities in the space of texts marked by the interrelated
issues of gender and sexuality.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT2045. Colonialism/postcolonialism (6 credits)

This course introduces students to the influential and inter-disciplinary field of Postcolonial Studies. It
builds on earlier units in other departmental classes by surveying this field as a whole. It studies
representative texts, problems, and concepts central to the study of colonialism and postcolonialism.
Since this is a vast area of world history and culture (dating from at least 1492), not all issues, key texts,
concepts, and geographic areas can be considered, and so will vary by instructor. However topics to be
examined can include: definitions of colonialism, imperialism and the post-colonial condition;
orientalism and occidentalism; colonial discourse and sexuality and gender; race; the nation and
nationalism as imagined community; identities and mentalities of the colonized and colonizer.
Representative areas might include the mainland and greater China, but will certainly include some
texts from and places within South and South East Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and the Americas. Texts
can include literature, film, non-fiction, television, advertizing and the media.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT2050. Globalization and culture (6 credits)

Globalization is not only an obvious “buzzword” of the post-Cold War age, but is also an important
historical, social, and cultural process that both predates the current era and yet is said to be “new” and
more important than ever. Whether you see it as the most salient feature of our age or as so much hype
if not an alibi for transnational capitalism, it is an important term and phenomenon in the study of
literature, film, and culture more broadly. This course introduces students to some of the key debates
about globalization, especially but not only in terms of culture. We will examine questions like: How
do we understand globalization in Hong Kong, China, South East Asia and elsewhere? What is “new”
about it? Are we becoming more alike everywhere or more aware of our cultural differences because
of globalization? Are our identities and cultures more or less “hybrid” and “cosmopolitan” than before
recent globalization? And how do national and local cultures everywhere respond to globalization? Are
the nation-state and nationalism fading away or is it the reverse? How can we analyze the problems of
globalization from the spread of European cultures in the age of colonialism to the present new world
orders of global capitalism? We will think through these types of questions with reference to local and
global phenomena and texts.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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CLIT2052. Chinese urban culture (6 credits)

With specific references to contemporary Chinese cities ranging from Hong Kong and Taipei to
Shanghai and Beijing, the course examines how forces of modernization, colonialism, and globalization
have drastically transformed these cities and constantly changed, mutated, and revamped their cultural
scenes. It ponders over key issues in urban studies like the politics of urbanity (the rural vs. the urban),
the aesthetics of the city, sexual desire and sexual citizenship, as well as discourses on popular culture
and global studies. The crucial issues will have to do with the questions of identity (urban, cultural,
regional, global) and politics, as well as history and agency. We will focus on the changes which have
emerged since the 1980s. Despite their different paths, these cities witnessed the growth of a capitalist
culture and the relentless processes of globalization. We wish to explore the transformations of
traditions and analyze the patterns of urban lives associated with consumptions, different modes of
capitalisms, and cosmopolitanism. Dealing with debates on cosmopolitan cities, we shall see how these
tensions are embedded and manifested in a wide range of filmic and literary texts.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT2058. Histories of sexuality (6 credits)

Analyzed, categorized, disciplined, pathologized, feared, fantasized, enjoyed and embedded in all sorts
of cultural productions and human records: sexuality is a core part of human lives and civilizations.
This course explores the development of sexuality as a concept and what we mean by it, how we practice
it, how we talk about it in different cultures. This cross-cultural approach recognizes that the complex
histories of sexuality in Eastern and Western cultures are also the result of intricate dynamics of colonial,
racial, gender, class and cultural relations. Through examining different cultural and theoretical texts,
this course considers questions like: What were the official or governing discourses of sexuality? What
were the popular beliefs and practices about sexuality? What were the relationships of these ideas to the
cultural contexts from which they emerged? What were the causes of transformations in sexual attitudes
and behavior? What is the relationship between sexuality and other forms of social difference, such as
gender, class, race and ethnicity? What are the changing responses to these questions since the 19th
century in which sexuality as a concept and as a global movement has developed exponentially?
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT2060. Fiction and film in contemporary Chinese societies (6 credits)

This course will use a variety of literary and cinematographic sources to explore different faces of post-
reform China within the larger “sinophone” context including Hong Kong and Taiwan. Literary fiction
and essays, as well as documentary and feature films will be referred to in order to explore the
representation of history and violence, colonialism, and their relationship with collective memory
(Cultural Revolution, the 1989 protest movement and its repression, the memory of 2-28 in Taiwan, the
handover of Hong Kong). The use of fiction vs. documentary forms of narrative will be discussed in
relation with realism. The course will also question the notions of Chinese post-socialism vs. globalizing
postmodernism in the context of the 1990s and 2000s.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT2061. Narratives of the past in the contemporary moment (6 credits)

Organized around different kinds of narratives of the past in contemporary culture, this course raises
basic questions about historical representation: What is ‘history’? How is it differentiated from
‘memory’ and ‘nostalgia’? Drawing from literature, film, museum narratives, architecture or music
from different cultures, the course explores the politics and poetics of historical representation in
contemporary societies. Depending on the instructor, topics for discussion may include: tensions
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between official history and personal memory, different styles and forms of imagining and narrating
history, and the role of the media and other cultural means such as oral narratives in the mediation of
‘history.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT2064. Hong Kong culture: Popular arts and everyday life (6 credits)

This course looks into various aspects of culture and everyday life in Hong Kong from the perspective
of cultural studies to examine the tension and intricate relationship between the popular and the artistic.
The major media and popular forms of expressions to be discussed include popular music, popular
literature, MTV, film, television program, talk show/theatrical performance, advertisement, and the
Internet. Through this study, we aim to develop critical ways of reading popular texts in the context of
Hong Kong’s social, cultural, political, and historical background. We will discuss how culture is
produced, consumed, and received so to as to develop our critical ability to assess and interpret Hong
Kong popular culture. We will also negotiate and reconsider the boundary between the popular and the
artistic, and see how popular arts cast an impact on the everyday life of Hong Kong people.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT2065. Hong Kong culture: Representations of identity in literature and film (6 credits)

This course aims primarily to examine the transformation of identity in Hong Kong through the analysis
of the tropes of crisis, home, and “border-crossing” in contemporary Hong Kong literary and filmic
texts. We shall explore how various crucial moments of transition in Hong Kong history have produced
identity crises in the people of Hong Kong. Some of these intriguing moments include the communist
takeover in 1949, the 1997 handover, as well as more recently the SARS outbreak and the urban
redevelopment debates. We will discuss critically the relation between nation and home, self and other,
the individual and the collective, memory and forgetting so as to critique the cultural problems bound
up in a space of flows called “Hong Kong.”
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT2066. Postmodernism (6 credits)

This course aims to explore a wide variety of phenomena characteristic of late twentieth-century culture,
with a particular focus on political and cultural theory from the 1970s to the 1990s. This era
encompasses the rise of neoliberalism, new forms of global capitalism, the end of the Cold War, the
canonisation of ‘continental philosophy’, shifts in media production and circulation, and the final
decades of the British Empire -- as well as the responses that these significant changes evoked. Students
will engage with ideas like fragmentation, irony, pastiche, playfulness, kitsch and camp, hypertext, etc.
Literature, film, theory, visual arts, architecture, music, TV shows and computer games will be
discussed in the attempt of gaining a decently comprehensive understanding of this period, and its
implications for the twenty-first century.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT2069. The making of modern masculinities (6 credits)

Why is it that the biggest box office hits year after year are nearly always male-centered action films
with a hero performing a heightened form of martial masculinity? Does this establish a cultural
construction of masculinity that runs counter to the civilizational aspirations of modern societies or does
it fulfil a deep fantasy that remains insatiable? We will address key films that have captured the
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imaginations of domestic and international box offices within their cultural contexts of origin to critique
this one-sided recurring representation of modern masculinity in operation.
Non-permissible combination: CLIT3023.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT2074. Film and ideology in contemporary China (6 credits)

This course introduces students to the concepts of ideology and culture in the study of contemporary
Chinese film. It surveys contemporary Chinese film forms of narratives and documentaries, and a range
of Chinese film practices including blockbuster movies, festival films, independent features, and
underground digital videos. It examines how these different forms and practices carry, convey, and
contest official ideologies and values as well as those of civil society and those commonly found in
popular culture. Topics of discussion include: 1) Concepts of ideology and culture in the study of
narrative and documentary films and various film practices; 2) Changes in official ideology regarding
nationalism, progress, wealth, heroism, and China’s role in world economy and culture; 3) Civil society
values in independent and underground films regarding social progress, justice and difference; 4)
Thoughts and emotions regarding freedom, happiness, love, and community in everyday life. Students
must complete viewing the assigned films in a group or on their own.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT2075. Modern poetry: Hong Kong and beyond (6 credits)

This course will examine the relationship between poetry and culture, exploring how culture is
internalized, enacted, and resisted in the realm of poetry. We will situate the questions of ideology,
subjectivity, resistance within the historical and cultural framework of world literature with a specific
focus on Hong Kong and Greater China. The dynamics of a constantly reshaped connection between
knowledge, sensation, language, and the social contexts of poetry will be closely examined. This course
will focus on some of the recurrent themes of Chinese and Western poetry, including temporality and
spatiality, visibility and invisibility, the notion of the city, etc. We will trace the moments when Europe
and America defined themselves as modern as well as the development of modern Chinese poetry,
considering not only the internal dynamics of the poems we read but also their implications in the
(post)modern world.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT2076. Fashioning femininities (6 credits)

In The Second Sex (1949), Simone de Beauvoir states: “One is not born, but rather becomes a woman.”
In this course, we will use this statement as a starting point to examine a number of theoretical and
historical issues in gender studies: What is the relationship between sex and gender? Is sex a “biological
given” and gender a “socio-cultural construct”? What is the role of the body in relation to sex and gender
identities? How are these identities formed? How have these issues evolved in different societies at
different periods? We will investigate these questions using as case study representations of femininities
as found in a diverse range of texts such as philosophical treaties, medical writings, guidebooks for
young girls and women, paintings, women's magazines, and fashion advertisings.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT2083. Film art, language and culture (6 credits)

This course examines key ways of analyzing film art and culture. How films create meaning and how
viewers make sense of the cinema frame this exploration of film as visual language and cultural text in
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the context of global cultures. The course places emphasis on learning basic film terminology and the
rudiments of film form. Critical discourses are also introduced to help students understand cultural
issues such as identity, gender, history, and globalization. The student becomes acquainted with
classical Hollywood cinema, other national cinemas, transnational cinemas, counter-cinemas, as well
as hybrid, experimental and documentary film modes. At the conclusion of the course, the student
should be able to look at motion pictures critically, understand films as formal constructs, and place
films within broader institutional, economic, ideological, and cultural contexts.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT2085. Hong Kong: Community and cultural policy in the global context (6 credits)

How should we understand culture in a postcolonial city like Hong Kong? What aspects of globalization
are relevant to the study of Hong Kong culture? How can postcolonial Hong Kong culture offer new
ways to understand the relation between the colonial past and the present global world order? On the
one hand, cultural production is becoming the new drive for global and local economy in post-industrial
cities. Dynamic cultural policy and planning is gaining currency worldwide as a way to integrate
cultural demands, political objectives, and socioeconomic goals. Recently, other countries have stressed
the importance of cultural policies that are sustainable, democratic and grounded in local needs. How
does Hong Kong fare in this picture? On the other hand, cultural politics and analysis are becoming
increasingly important in the current global wave of youthful movements that aim at changing the global
and local cultures of governance and development. In similar movements in Hong Kong, cultural
politics and cultural activism also play a crucial role in generating new public discourses and values.
We begin to ask: how should we understand issues of community, heritage, diversity and tolerance?
How should we understand public space, public resources and public culture? What policy approach
can enable and foster cultural talent incubation and creativity? How can we democratize and decolonize
Hong Kong’s culture of governance? This interdisciplinary course equips students with the capacity to
engage in these complex debates and learn how to fill the intellectual gaps in mainstream Hong Kong’s
understanding of cultural politics and policy in the global context.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT2087. Modern Chinese culture and society: Rebellions and revolutions (6 credits)

This course focuses on the social history, politics, and culture of modern China. We will study important
moments of the May 4th and “reform” eras, but most of our attention will be spent on the most maligned
but fascinating era of modern China: that of Mao Zedong and the continuous revolution (1930s-1979).
This course is an advanced introduction but does not presume too much knowledge about mainland
China. We’ll look at the development of the P.R.C. as it is reflected and refracted in select literary, film,
ethnographic, scholarly, and primary/historical documents from China and the world. Writers can range
from Lu Xun, Liang Chi-Chao, and Mao Zedong to William Hinton and Gao Mobo. Films can include
“agit-prop” as well as documentaries. But in addition to surveying this complex socio-cultural history,
we will also contest conventional wisdom about the People’s Republic. We will take China’s long
revolution seriously, in all its glory as well as its gory details. Our ultimate focus is on the interpretive,
theoretical, and ethical-political issues raised by the rise and continuance of the P.R.C.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT2088. Critical approaches to film studies (6 credits)

This course is designed to acquaint the student with the principal critical methods and theoretical
debates of film theory. In addition to providing a survey of film theories, this course focuses on the
interconnections of theory with film criticism and production practices. A range of fiction and non-
fiction films will be screened, including early Soviet, classical Hollywood, Third Cinema, French New
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Wave, and contemporary international productions. Theoretical perspectives include structuralism,

semiology, Marxism, feminism, psychoanalysis, queer theory, post-structuralism, and cultural studies.
Some of the theoretical issues covered include questions of narrative and narration, realism, formalism,
modernism, postmodernism, post-colonialism, gender, sexuality, ideology, authorship, and genre.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT2089. Culture and ‘queer’ theory (6 credits)

This course aims to examine the interconnections between queer and other discourses, such as race,
class, gender, and politics. Topics may include queer consumerism (the myth of the pink dollar as well
as gay/lesbian icons) and activism, and we will see how queer potentially “invades” established
structures like religion and the nuclear family to explore both the vibrancy and limitations of queer
theories. By consulting both theoretical accounts of queerness and engaging with a wide range of filmic
and literary texts drawn from both Asian and Western contexts, this course aims at bringing students a
global perspective to decipher the multifaceted nature of queer culture, theory, and dynamics.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT2090. Orientalism, China, and globalization (6 credits)

This course focuses on the theory and history of orientalism both in themselves and as they apply – or
fail to usefully apply – to Western understandings of China from dynastic times up to more recent
decades of globalization. Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978) has helped transform the humanities and
social sciences and helped establish the field of postcolonial studies. It has also been taken up in
problematic ways and remains a controversial if not notorious text in some circles. We will seek to gain
a firm grasp of Said’s book and the complex historical phenomenon of orientalism. We’ll also examine
two crucial areas that Said himself largely left unexplored: that of the real, historical China and the
“China” of Western minds. We will then ask how well the theory fits “China” (and China) both in the
past and in more recent, postcolonial or global times. How might the theory be revised, assuming it
should be at all? Why does orientalism persist even after the formal end of colonialism? And what of
its flip-side or obverse, “occidentalism”? How might we understand or represent “the Other” in non-
orientalist or non-dominative ways? These are difficult, speculative questions but important for all of
us living in an increasingly globalized and increasingly “Chinese” world.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT2091. Gender, feminism and modern China (6 credits)

This course focuses on literary, historical and theoretical/interpretive writings by and about modern
Chinese women and their experiences of gender and of China’s long revolution (from the late Qing and
early Republican periods up to the present). We’ll focus on how our selected texts reflect and record
the place, significance, and “experience” of gender (and to a lesser extent, of sexuality) during key
moments within Chinese history. Lectures will cover this historical ground and examine how women
made history and were made by it, how the feminist movement impacted mainland China (and vice
versa), and how the P.R.C. incorporated feminist analysis and sought to liberate women. We’ll also
delve into select interpretive and theoretical issues related to this focus, such as state feminism, gender
neutrality, homosociality, (Confucian) patriarchy, gender discourse, and domestic labor. We’ll
emphasize the quest for women’s liberation and (or “in”) the revolution. While we will spend some
time studying the post-Mao era, the majority of the course will be on the radical decades from the fall
of the Qing through the various campaigns of the Mao era (1936-1976).
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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CLIT2092. Modern American poetry: Politics and aesthetics (6 credits)

This course surveys modern American poetry in its aesthetics and “politics”. The richness of its
language and formal expression is, in other words, rivaled only by its abilities to thematize social,
intellectual and cultural problems (e.g. mass culture, racism or alienation) as well as their imaginative
resolution. We will read both canonical and non-canonical poets. Among the authors we will study are:
Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens,
Langston Hughes, Kenneth Fearing, Tillie Olsen, Edwin Rolfe, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Allen
Ginsberg, Amiri Baraka, and Adrienne Rich. Much of the course will be given over to instruction and
practice in the “art” of reading modern poetry as well as discussing and writing about it. But we will
also be concerned as much with content – and historical and intellectual contexts – as with form. Among
the topics we will attend to are: the long-standing dialogue on the meaning, hope or nightmare of
America; the search for a literary form adequate to the complexity of modern life; modernity as problem,
possibility and “feeling”; “political poetry” versus the politics of poetry; and lyricism vs. “facts”.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT2093. 20th Century fashion and the making of the modern women (6 credits)

Coco Chanel, the celebrated French fashion designer known for redefining the feminine form and
silhouette, once said: “I make fashions that women can live in, breathe in, feel comfortable in and look
younger in.” Using the work of Chanel as a launching point, students will develop a historical
understanding of the emergence of the modern woman through the study of the evolution of women’s
fashion and clothing in 20th century, and will learn to analyze the economic, social and political
dimensions of fashion and their impacts on the evolution of women’s roles and identities.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT2094. Introduction to critical theory and cultural studies (6 credits)

This introductory course examines some of the foundational texts, concepts, and arguments within the
fields of critical theory and cultural studies. It is a foundational survey primarily intended to prepares
students for further work in literary and cultural studies. Readings will include primary sources and
secondary readings from introductory anthologies. These may be supplemented by select literary, visual,
or other texts which illuminate particular theories, concepts, or approaches.
The rise of post-structuralism (or “postmodernism”) will be partially covered but is not the basis of the
course. Alternative traditions and ideas within the long, rich history of critical theory will be addressed.
These can range from ancient and early modern reflections on culture and literature, for example, to
dialectical and Marxist notions of ideology and power as well as post-colonial and feminist critiques of
history and patriarchy.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT2095. World, text, and critic (6 credits)

Course materials for this class will be drawn from a variety of periods, traditions, cultures, and
translations from around the world, and it will introduce students to conversations on how the “globe,”
“planet” or “world” is figured in literature and film. Students will read and think about the tropes that
are commonly used to describe travel, knowledge, or beliefs about other cultures from both the “West”
and the “East,” and the “South” and the “North.” How do we interpret the presence of “strangers” in
foreign lands? How, in the first place, do we begin to imagine foreign lands? Do we see the world as
individuals or as part of a collective? Other popular tropes may include those of kinship, friend or enemy,
and maps. The critical questions of this course will focus on the relation between the political and the
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literary in this imagining of the world where there is an increasing need to articulate a shared history of
the world while respecting the particularities of those same histories.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT2096. Ethics of film and literature (6 credits)

Controversial and often explosive, questions of good, bad, evil, or the moral and amoral have fueled
debates and quarrels over cultural texts and their meanings throughout history. Aesthetic evaluations
and moral judgments are also often enmeshed. Governments may censor or ban certain kinds of books,
films and other art works, or censure the artists who produce them because they assume that art has a
moral dimension . Consequently, because such arbitrations shape how we respond to, evaluate, and
interpret these texts, students will read critical and creative texts that engage with narrative ethics as
they appear in different cultural and linguistic traditions. This focus on ethics will simultaneously
redirect us back to narrativity and the constructedness of texts.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT2097. Independent documentaries: Theory and practice (6 credits)

This course will introduce students to the theory and practice of independent documentaries. Through
screenings, readings, and discussion, we will review and examine the various forms and approaches of
documentary videos and films. We will discuss the key modes of documentary including: observational,
expository, personal, interactive, reflective, and other mixed modes. We will examine the narrative,
rhetorical, affective, and critical aspects of documentaries through examples taken from western and
recent Chinese-language productions. The course will examine documentary work in a range of
subjects and will discuss questions of technique, poetics, politics, ethics, censorship, and legal issues.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT2099. Anticolonialism and decoloniality (6 credits)

This course introduces students to anticolonial and decolonial thought, and political thought more
broadly, from the Global South. Anticolonial and decolonial thought, across the twentieth and twenty-
first century, is the intellectual predecessor to postcolonial theory. It also demonstrates an engagement
with political thought from Western Europe, but reveals its shortcomings and its presumptions. This
course will study and analyse primary texts by key anticolonial thinkers from South Asia, Africa, the
Caribbean, and Latin America. The course thus focuses on writing that emerged in response to European
empires: British, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. The thinkers we will study include M.K. Gandhi,
Frantz Fanon, Edouard Glissant, Paulo Friere, Steve Biko, and many others.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT2100. Fugitive science: Science and technology studies (STS) approaches to facts and
fakes (6 credits)

Concerns over fakes have come to the fore across a wide range of contemporary global transformations,
from the circulation of counterfeits, forgeries, and other shadow markets, to “fake news” and the
decontextualization of information reproduced across globalized media technologies, to specters of state
pageantry, rigged elections, and a burgeoning internet zeal for conspiracy theories of all kinds. But,
what is a fake? Are all fakes the same? Who gets to decide what is authentic? Are ‘fake’ and ‘authentic’
absolute and antithetical categories? Can there be such things as “real/fake” hybrids? And, do fakes
have any virtues?
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In this course, students will explore issues of authenticity and manipulation in relation to the production
and circulation of 'facts', especially as they arise in medicine and science. We will consider, for instance,
if doping in sports is a form of cheating and if self-tracking devices reveal our authentic selves, or if we
exist as cyborgs in ways that makes these distinctions moot. We will ask whether scientists produce
knowledge about things and people that already exist out there in the world, or if they might actually
make their objects of analysis in the very act of studying them. Through topics like 'heart disease and
race' and 'sick building syndrome and chemical exposure', students will learn about how activists,
scientists, and industries fight over what and who gets “made up” through science. For their final
research paper, students will investigate how scientific facts are produced, debated, circulated (or not
circulated): they will choose a Wikipedia topic and study the “talk pages” associated with it online,
developing their own argument about how and why some statements became “facts”, while others did
not. The objective of this course is not to make claims over what is or is not factual, but to introduce
students to STS approaches for critically interrogating how facts are produced rather than merely
discovered.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CAPSTONE EXPERIENCE COURSES

Capstone courses are offered to year three or above students.

CLIT3019. Internship in Comparative Literature and cultural sectors (capstone experience)

(6 credits)

This course aims at placing Comparative Literature majors in the working environments where their
cultural knowledge, critical thinking, creativity, and their skills in writing, analysis, and cultural
research acquired from advanced courses will find application and become enriched in the process of
self-reflexive experiential learning. Students will also have hands on experience in learning and
realizing how to integrate academic concepts with everyday circumstances through case-by-case basis,
therefore rethinking the dynamics, complications, and significance of the learning objectives they have
had throughout their education at Comparative Literature. Internship placement will be made only if
the student passes an interview and acquires the approval of the prospective host organization.
Internship placements may include but are not limited to the following areas:
• Cultural criticism and publishing
• Film and media
• Cultural curatorship and management
• Cultural innovation/activism, non-government organizations
• Teaching and creative education
• Overseas inter-faculty internship with international NGOs (for summer semester only)
Note: For Comparative Literature majors only; students are recommended to take the course in the
second semester of their third year, the summer semester of their third year (if it is offered) or
the fourth year.
Prerequisite: A minimum cumulative GPA of 2.9 is normally required.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT3020. Independent research (capstone experience) (6 credits)

This course aims at providing well-prepared Comparative Literature majors in the final year an
opportunity to pursue a research topic under the supervision of a teacher. It contributes to the capstone
learning experience of major students in Comparative Literature majors. It helps students advance their
skills in doing research for disciplinary and interdisciplinary topics in literary and cultural studies. The
contact hours are minimal (10-14 hours for a 6-credit course) and will include teaching of research
method and discussion of work-in-progress. Students will undertake independent research and writing.
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Assessment is through a single research essay or an undergraduate dissertation of approximately 7,000

words. The research courses require students to have a final year Comparative Literature Departmental
major status, a GPA of 3.25 or above, and lecturer approval upon the receipt of a research proposal of
approximately 1,000 words and a working bibliography at least one month prior to the semester when
the course is taken.
Note: For Comparative Literature majors only.
Prerequisite: A minimum cumulative GPA of 3.25 is normally required.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT3021. Advanced studies in theory and cultural analysis (capstone experience) (6 credits)

This course moves beyond basic literary and cultural theories introduced in lower-level courses and
brings in special topics that continue to challenge students to think, read, and write critically. A special
topic will be introduced each time the course is offered. Recent topics covered include cosmopolitanism
and world literature, transmediality and film adaptations, and photography in the age of internet. The
instructor will incorporate ongoing campus forums into class planning to bring students in tune with
cutting edge research in literary and cultural studies. The class will be conducted in a seminar mode
requiring students’ active participation. The goal is for each student to work toward a final project that
concludes four years of study at HKU.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT3022. Critiques of modernity (capstone experience) (6 credits)

What is ‘modernity’? When is/was ‘modernity’? What do modernity’s aesthetic and political forms look
like? This course will examine literary, philosophical, and political texts that wrestle with the notion of
‘modernity’. These texts are often marked by literary experimentation, abstraction, and a concern for
the intersection between philosophy and literature. Traditionally many scholars suggested that
modernity ‘began’ in Europe and spread outwards around the world. More recently, scholars from
Africa, South Asia, and East Asia have argued against this, though in different ways. This course will
explore ‘modernity’ and ‘modernism’ as it took place around the world in the first half of the twentieth-
century. We will read novels and philosophical texts from various ‘modernities’ and ‘modernist’
movements from Europe, North America, Africa, and Asia.
Non-permissible combination: CLIT2018.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT3024. “New” cinemas across national boundaries (capstone experience) (6 credits)

Almost as soon as the French nouvelle vague appeared, the next European new wave began to break on
the cinematic horizon. Since then, “new” cinemas have appeared in places as diverse as the United
States, Japan, Senegal, Brazil, Iran, South Korea and Taiwan. However, the emergence of
postmodernism has called into question what can be claimed as “new” in global film culture.
Interventions coming from post-classical Hollywood, the digital revolution, postcolonial cinemas,
diasporic and transnational film cultures, post-feminist and queer considerations of gender and sexual
orientation have further complicated the notion of the “new” in world cinema. This course examines
what is beyond or behind the “new waves” in global cinema by exploring key auteurs, genres, film
movements, aesthetic and technological innovations in world film culture from the mid-1980s to the
present.
Prerequisite: CLIT2007.
Non-permissible combination: CLIT2084.Assessment: 100% coursework.
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CLIT3025. Asia on global screens (capstone experience) (6 credits)

This course centers on films that originate in Asia and address Asian concerns be it national, regional,
and/or global in scope. Films under analysis include box office hits, award winning art films, and
documentaries. How do Asian films critique what it means to be Asian by contesting cultural traditions
as well as promoting the need to transform Asia into something newer and better?
Non-permissible combination: CLIT2086.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT3026. Violence in Asia (capstone experience) (6 credits)

Hannah Arendt distinguishes between power and violence, and argues that one cancels the other out in
the political realm. This distinction unpacks the relationship politics has to violence broadly conceived
even as it acknowledges the relationship between legitimate political power and violence as such.
Nonetheless, politics retains traces of violence that require careful and thoughtful responses often
encapsulated in artistic works either as valorization, rejection, or critique that teach us more about being
human. Consequently, how do our conceptions of politics and violence influence the cultural life of
Asia? For example, what effects has war had on ‘cultural imaginaries’? And how have various Asian
writers, scholars, or filmmakers responded to changes in economic or political systems as Asia leaves
colonialism behind? Other phenomena that have deep and sometimes brutal impact on our social life
include the alienation of modernization, migration, environmental degradation, imprisonment, mental
illness, racial or religious violence, or urban-rural divides may be covered in any given semester. This
course will look at how violence in Asia has been portrayed, and how those portrayals affect our ideas
about the relation of power between Asian countries, and also between the continent and the rest of the
world. Depending on the semester, the instructor may choose to focus on certain Asian regions such as
South, Southeast, or East Asia. The texts in this class will be interdisciplinary and can be drawn from
newspapers, popular media, historical texts, film, or literature.
Note: Non-majors interested in adding the course should contact the instructor.
Non-permissible combination: CLIT2098.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

CLIT3027. From states of nature to states of the world: Political theory as literature (capstone
experience) (6 credits)

This course surveys classic and modern texts that offer ‘big picture’ analyses of humanity, human
nature, the creation of society or political society specifically, and, in sum, the state of the world. Texts
can range from Plato (The Republic) and Confucius (Analects) to Machiavelli’s Prince, Marx’s
Manifesto, and Mao’s “Peasant Movement in Hunan”, but may also include the early modern trinity of
Hobbes (Leviathan), Locke (The Second Treatise), and Rousseau (The Social Contract), as well as texts
from after World War II and up to the present age of “globalization”. We will examine them as
important sources of political thought and human imagination, and also as instances of great writing.
Time and space permitting we may also examine select fiction, film, or other secondary texts to help
illustrate the classic ones. Think of this as a “Great Books” class focused on political and social visions
and theories. Until fairly recently, all major thinkers and artists had particular theories of human nature
and how human or political society came about from our very distant origins in nature. Our authors
helped produce this tradition about what politics and society mean. We will begin at the beginning, but
then move forward to the modern 19th and 20th centuries of developed capitalism, when everything
was thought to have changed. We will move far and wide, from ancient Greece and China through the
period of Western dominance, and up to the more ambiguous present. All of our texts will be major
statements about the world, as seen by the authors in their own time, and in most cases will be widely
acknowledged literary or non-fiction classics.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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FINE ARTS

The Department of Fine Arts teaches the history and theory of art, including painting, calligraphy,
sculpture, architecture, photography, conceptual art, and related visual media. Courses examine
European, American, Chinese, Japanese, and Indian artistic traditions in depth. Several courses focus
on specialized skills related to museum studies. Students may major or minor in Fine Arts and will
discover many fruitful combinations between art history and other disciplines inside and outside the
Arts Faculty.

The Fine Arts Major (72 credits)

Students wishing to major in Fine Arts must normally complete the following requirements:

 Complete one 6-credit Fine Arts course at the 1000-level

 Complete 12 credits of introductory courses from any Arts programme(s) (which may include
additional credits in 1000-level Fine Arts courses)
 Complete 54 credits of Fine Arts courses from among those offered at the 2000-, 3000-, and
4000-levels, of which:
o 6 credits must be the course FINE2081 (Art history & its methods)
o 6 credits must be in Western art
o 6 credits must be in Asian art
o 6 credits must be in 3000-level courses
o 6 credits must be in a 4000-level course to fulfill the capstone requirement

The Fine Arts Minor (36 credits)

Students wishing to minor in Fine Arts must normally complete the following requirements:

 Complete one 6-credit Fine Arts course at the 1000-level

 Complete 30 credits of Fine Arts courses from among those offered at the 2000- and 3000-
levels

Course Selection

Prospective students should note that individual upper-level courses in the Department of Fine Arts may
require prerequisites which are listed in the relevant sections below. In exceptional cases, these
requirements may be waived. Some courses impose caps on enrollment to ensure standards of teaching
quality. All major, minor, and other course selections are subject to the approval of the Head of the
School of Humanities on the recommendation of the Undergraduate Coordinator of the department.

Experiential Learning

The Department of Fine Arts fosters experiential learning in many ways. Within our courses, these may
include examining original works of art and architecture in museums and other sites in Hong Kong;
training on handling works of art in class; working on an art exhibition or other curatorial project; and
participating in a teacher-led field trip locally or overseas. We also offer a museum studies workshop
(FINE2056) and a credit-bearing internship (FINE4005) for a limited number of students. Outside the
formal curriculum, we support students who seek their own internships, temporary jobs at art galleries,
auction houses, and art fairs, and summer travel to study art. The department has several grants that can
help fund student travel.
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Learning Outcomes

Over the course of their studies, students who major in Fine Arts can expect to:

 Apply skills of critical intellectual enquiry to the study of the visual arts.
 Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of more than one area of the history of art.
 Understand the visual arts to the point where further learning can be undertaken independently.
 Critically evaluate works of art and art historical and theoretical writings.
 Devise research topics and conduct independent research in the field of art history.
 Use knowledge of art to reflect upon their own values and the assumptions underlying them.
 Demonstrate a sensitivity to diversity through engagement with differing viewpoints and beliefs.
 Demonstrate and articulate an awareness of the diversity of art of various time periods and
cultures.
 Develop effective oral and written communication skills.

Assessment

All courses offered in the department are assessed by 100% coursework. Coursework may include
essays, research papers, tests, participation in tutorials and seminars, oral presentations, and other work
as specified by the course instructor.

1000-LEVEL COURSES

The following courses are open to students in all years of study.

FINE1001. Introduction to Western art history (6 credits)

This course surveys the history of Western art from ancient Greece and Rome to the 21st century.
Focusing primarily on painting and sculpture, it explains how art communicates ideas and values that
have shaped Western civilization and how art has developed in relation to changes in historical context,
including politics, religion, science, economics, and society. Students will learn about major artistic
movements, common techniques of Western art, and methods for interpreting visual culture both
visually and historically. No previous knowledge of art history is assumed.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE1006. Art and society (6 credits)

This course introduces visual and critical skills for interpreting the art of different cultures from both
the past and the present. We examine a variety of themes related to the techniques and functions of art,
and we study the way art expresses various moral, social, political, and religious ideas. Students will
gain a better understanding of cross-cultural communication and will learn how to analyze the complex
visual culture of the contemporary world.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE1008. Introduction to the arts of Asia: Past and present (6 credits)

This survey course introduces major themes in art from early formations of Asian civilizations to the
twenty-first century. Students investigate the various forms of art production in China, Japan, India and
Southeast Asia with an emphasis on the means by which art creates meaning in diverse Asian cultures.
Themes include issues such as patronage, personal style, artistic autonomy, art institutions and
collecting practices.
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Assessment: 100% coursework.

2000-LEVEL COURSES

The following courses are open to students in the second, third, and fourth years of study. Some have
no pre-requisite, while others require successful completion of one 1000-level Fine Arts course.

FINE2012. Italian Renaissance art and architecture (6 credits)

This course examines the painting and sculpture of Italy from about 1300 to 1550. Probing why the
Italian Renaissance was so pivotal in the development of Western art, the course examines changes in
art styles and techniques, artists’ responses to medieval and classical art, and the impact of historical
developments in religion, politics, society, and patronage. Students will become familiar with the work
of major artists and with the variations that existed among different regions of Italy.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
Prerequisite: One 1000-level Fine Arts course.

FINE2013. Northern Renaissance art (6 credits)

This course examines the art produced in Flanders, France, and Germany between about 1300 and 1550,
focusing primarily on painting, sculpture, and printmaking. It begins with early 14th-century
illuminated manuscripts and the subsequent development of the International Style. It then considers
Flemish 15th-century painting in some detail, concluding with a study of Flemish and German art of
the 16th century.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
Prerequisite: One 1000-level Fine Arts course.

FINE2020. American art (6 credits)

This course surveys painting, sculpture, photography, and architecture in the United States from
European settlement to 1945. The underlying theme is how art in the United States has helped project
various new ideologies and values associated with this young and unique nation. Issues to be considered
in relation to art include Protestant values, democracy, wilderness, racial conflict, capitalism, popular
culture, and America’s gradual rise to power.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2025. The art of the Baroque ca. 1560-1720 (6 credits)

This course will examine the art of the 17th century in Italy, Flanders, Spain, the Netherlands and
France. The emphasis will be on painting, although sculpture will be studied as well. Particular
attention will be given to the impact of the Counter Reformation, the features of Baroque naturalism,
the use of allegory, and attitudes towards the antique by artists of this period.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
Prerequisite: One 1000-level Fine Arts course.

FINE2026. The age of revolution: Art in Europe, 1770-1840 (6 credits)

This course examines the radical transformation in European art from the age of kings to the age of
revolutions, c.1770-1840. Painting, sculpture, and printmaking will be discussed in relation to various
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historical developments, including the decline of aristocratic culture and Christianity; the rise of science,
industry, and democracy; and the emergence of modern notions of nature, individuality, and primitivism.
The movements of Neoclassicism and romanticism are treated in depth.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
Prerequisite: One 1000-level Fine Arts course.

FINE2027. The formation of modernity: Art in Europe, 1840-1900 (6 credits)

This course examines the early formation of modern European visual culture, from Realism to the
threshold of the 20th century. The underlying historical theme will be the rise of bourgeois society and
culture. Painting, sculpture, printmaking, and photography will be discussed in the context of related
ideological issues such as industrial capitalism, mass media, urban leisure, tourism, new gender roles,
and European imperialism. The movements of Realism, Impressionism, and Post-Impressionism are
treated in depth.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
Prerequisite: One 1000-level Fine Arts course.

FINE2028. Vision in crisis (6 credits)

In art, as in other fields of knowledge, the late 19th century and the early 20th century was a time when
pre-existing assumptions were challenged in a radical way. To certain artists in Europe, for instance,
illusionistic realism or the conventions of perspective no longer seemed adequate tools for representing
the world and our experience of it. Amongst the factors provoking this crisis of vision was an increasing
awareness of other cultures and their differing modes of visual representation, and many non-Western
artists shared with their Western counterparts this new sense of the relativity of cultural knowledge,
although they tended to respond to it in different ways. Vision in Crisis will examine this moment of
great artistic change, focusing primarily on European examples, with Chinese art being taken as the
main non-Western case for study. Artists whose work may be discussed in depth include Van Gogh,
Gauguin, Cézanne, Picasso and Matisse.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
Prerequisite: One 1000-level Fine Arts course.

FINE2029. Modernity and its discontents (6 credits)

Although certain 20th century artists can be taken as celebrating the modern, many artists offered
instead a critical engagement with the newly-emerging forms of experience they were encountering, or
sought various forms of escape from them. While the response of European artists to the modern
condition is most well known, artists from other parts of the world were equally engaged with the task
of creating an art adequate to the new environment in which they found themselves. Both will be
considered in this course, which will focus primarily on European art of the first half of the 20th century.
Chinese art will provide the main non-Western case for study. Abstract art, Futurism, Expressionism,
Dada and Surrealism may all be considered.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
Prerequisite: One 1000-level Fine Arts course.

FINE2030. Towards the global (6 credits)

Paris has been described as the capital of the 19th century, and indeed one can talk of a European
cultural hegemony that lasted until the outbreak of the Second World War. The postwar period,
however, saw a migration of cultural authority across the Atlantic to the United States, and with the
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ending of the Cold War American cultural dominance seemed to become even more deeply entrenched.
If the close of the colonial era did not then eliminate the asymmetry of power between Western and
non-Western cultures, it did at least alter the conditions for artistic production in the latter. Furthermore,
with an increasing pace of globalization at the end of the century, the opportunities for non-Western
artists to reach new audiences have expanded enormously. This course will begin with a consideration
of Pollock and Abstract Expressionism, and later developments in American art will be a major focus
of the course, which will also be concerned to document the contribution of non-Western artists. A
thematic approach will be adopted, with tendencies such as Pop Art, Minimal and Post-Minimal art,
Environmental and Installation Art, Performance Art, Conceptual and Neo-Conceptual Art being
amongst those which may be considered. A wide variety of artworks dating from 1945 to the present
day will be discussed.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
Prerequisite: One 1000-level Fine Arts course.

FINE2031. Modern Western architecture (6 credits)

Tracing the development of modernity in Western architecture, this course examines a series of
movements and cities from the mid-18th century to the present. Major examples include Neoclassicism
in Washington, D.C., Haussmann's renovation of Paris, colonialism in Hong Kong and Shanghai,
skyscrapers in Chicago and New York, and the international spread of Modernism and the diverse
movements that have followed it. Emphasis is placed on construction technology, architectural theory,
and the way buildings express institutional ideologies. Tutorials include visits to local buildings.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2032. Art and the portrayal of women (6 credits)

This course will consider the representation of women in Western art and the various roles they have
played in its production. Examples will range from the Ancient world to Contemporary Art, with special
attention to issues of portraiture and self-portraiture, as well as the ways in which the portrayal of the
female artist has changed over time.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2047. Arts of India (6 credits)

From the dawn of Buddhism to the present day, art and visual culture have played a central role in how
India is imagined both within the country and beyond. The visual landscape of India is punctuated by
the iconic images of gods and goddesses, the architectural expressions of Islam, and the legacy of the
colonial rule. Through an interdisciplinary but historically rooted approach, this course addresses
Buddhist and Hindu art, the art patronage of both Mughal and sub-imperial courts and will conclude
with a discussion of artistic practice under colonial rule through to India’s independence in 1947.
Non-permissible combination: FINE3015.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2048. Arts of Japan (6 credits)

This course surveys Japanese visual arts from prehistory to the twentieth century. Lectures are
chronologically arranged under thematic headings of: religion and politics, cross-cultural influences
and urban arts. We will be looking at a diverse range of materials including painting, sculptures, prints,
textiles and ceramics. The aim is to establish a solid critical foundation of Japanese art history.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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FINE2049. Art and gender in China (6 credits)

This class will examine the role of gender in the production, consumption, and interpretation of Chinese
art. Classes are chronologically organized into three broad time periods covering different themes each
week. Topics will include the coding of landscapes and bird-and-flower paintings as gendered spaces,
and the construction of male and female socio-political identities in portraits and figure paintings. The
course is not intended to provide an overview of Chinese art, but a base that can challenge traditional
perceptions of what constitutes masculinity and femininity. The broad historical frame will address
how socio-cultural factors influencing gender roles in the arts, culture, and society changed over time.
It will, more importantly, look at how these issues intersect with questions of ethnicity, social hierarchy,
economic and cultural capital, and nationalism.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
Prerequisites: One 1000-level Fine Arts course.

FINE2051. Art, politics, and society in modern China (6 credits)

This course will provide an overview of the developments in the visual arts in China from the 19th
century to the present day, and will relate them to broader changes in Chinese politics and society. It
will look at the ways in which the physical materiality of objects, as well as the social roles of its makers
and audiences, changed over this period. A broad range of visual objects will be covered in this course
including paintings in different formats and mediums, architecture, graphics and photography. Our
fundamental concern will be to examine art's role in the rapidly changing world of modern China.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2052. Architecture of South and Southeast Asia (6 credits)

This course is a study of the developments in architecture in South and Southeast Asia. It will offer a
selective overview of the styles, theories, and structures of architecture from antiquity to the twenty-
first century. This course utilizes a thematic approach aimed at understanding the relationships between
private property, public authority, and power as articulated in architecture.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2053. Beauties and the beasts: Song and Yuan painting (6 credits)

The course explores the formations of Chinese figure painting or the painting of people in the Song and
Yuan dynasty. It begins by investigating the types of portrayals of Tang-dynasty aristocrats and other
social worthies to establish the forms of normative portraiture. The course moves on to consider changes
in figure painting and its subject matter. The class also investigates a related development in the painting
of animals as substitutes for representations of people. Topics discussed include the portrayal of the
non-Chinese who lived in frontier areas from the Tang to the Yuan, the Song dynasty’s re-appraisal of
the common person and his or her depiction, and the motivations for the use of animals to represent
people. The course concludes by evaluating the impact of Mongol rule on figure painting.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2055. Crossing cultures: China and the outside world (6 credits)

This course will begin with the 16th century and the arrival of the Jesuits and continue to the present.
It will examine artists’ responses to the outside world and investigate how cultural exchanges were
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formed, merged, and clashed. Topics covered will include Western science and local culture in the
Ming dynasty, Manchu identity and Qing expansionism, export trade art, Western impact on prints,
intra-Asian paintings, and visions of the “East” in the global art world.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2056. Museum studies workshop (6 credits)

This course aims to give students an introduction to the principles and practices of working in an art
museum. It will be conducted by curatorial staff of the University Museum and Art Gallery. Students
majoring in Fine Arts are given first preference, but other students fulfilling the prerequisite may apply.
Students wishing to apply for admission to FINE4005 (Fine Arts internship (capstone)) are strongly
urged to take this course first, ideally in their third year.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
Prerequisite: One 1000-level Fine Arts course.

FINE2057. Arts of Africa (6 credits)

This course introduces artistic practices and material culture in Africa. Overviewing the diversity of
African practices, styles, and mediums, it ranges from the earliest sculptural traditions to modern
developments in the 20th century, analyzing art, architecture, and material culture in relation to religious
beliefs, social identity, political organization, and the radical changes brought by colonialism and
modernity.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2061. Contemporary Chinese art: 1980s to the present (6 credits)

This course examines the burgeoning development of contemporary Chinese art in relation to its shifting
socio-political and cultural realities since the end of the Cultural Revolution. Structured around a series
of thematic studies on major exhibitions and artworks made and displayed at different stages, this course
addresses issues relating to art criticism, institutional censorship, public engagement and art market,
investigating unprecedented transnational flows and cross-cultural exchanges within the increasingly
interconnected, yet unevenly developed contemporary art world. This course draws particular attention
to the practices of Chinese women artists, including Shen Yuan, Lin Tianmiao, Yin Xiuzhen, Lu Qing,
Xing Danwen, Kan Xuan, Cao Fei and others, interrogating and challenging the unacknowledged,
unquestioned and marginalised status of women in the mainstream discourses of Chinese avant-garde
art.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
Prerequisite: One 1000-level Fine Arts course.

FINE2062. Land and garden in Chinese art (6 credits)

This course examines the history and significance of land and its depiction in China from the fifth to
the twentieth century. We will examine the cultural circumstances that promoted landscape to one of
the most important subjects in Chinese art. Emphasis is placed on historical and interpretive issues that
are important to the analysis of artwork and meaning.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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FINE2065. Introduction to Islamic art and architecture (6 credits)

This course surveys Islamic art and architecture from the beginnings of Islam in the 7th century through
the early modern period. It covers Umayyad Jerusalem and Damascus, Abbasid Baghdad, Fatimid
Cairo, the period of the Crusades, the impact of the Mongols, and the Mamluk and Ottoman Empires.
Throughout the course, we explore interactions between Islamic art and neighboring peoples and
cultures.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2067. Architecture of East Asia (6 credits)

Architecture is one of the most visible means for our interaction with the physical environment. It is a
discipline that combines art, function, and public display. This course explores the history of East Asian
architecture from early times to the present with an emphasis on religious, cultural, economic, and
political contexts. Key structures including urban planning are taken as case studies for in depth
discussion. Emphasis is placed on learning how to read the functional considerations and the symbolic
meanings of works of architecture.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2070. Introduction to ancient Egyptian art and architecture (6 credits)

Ancient Egyptian civilisation endured for more than 3,000 years and the many monuments, objects, and
hieroglyphs that have survived are testimony to the splendour of ancient Egyptian culture, the beauty
of its art, astounding accomplishments in its architecture, and the richness of its religious traditions.
This course provides a general introduction to ancient Egyptian art and architectural forms (e.g.
pyramids, tombs, temple complexes, wall paintings, sculpture, hieroglyphs), beginning with the period
of unification (3100 BC), through the Old, Middle, and New Kingdom dynasties, and continuing to the
beginning of the Ptolemaic period in 332 BC. Key political, military, cosmological, and socio-cultural
developments in Egypt’s history will be examined in relation to artistic and architectural practices.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2072. Western architecture from Antiquity to Enlightenment (6 credits)

The course examines the development of Western architecture from Classical Antiquity to the
eighteenth century. We will begin by studying the buildings of the Greek and Roman civilizations, and
those of the Middle Ages, before shifting our focus to Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo architecture
in Early Modern Europe, and its offshoots around the world. While the course is, in part, a survey of
buildings and architectural styles, we will emphasise the relation of architecture to its social, historical
and intellectual contexts, and will also focus on particular buildings, architects and architectural
theorists in greater depth.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2074. Garden and landscape in Western culture (6 credits)

The garden and its representations have long played a key role in the visual culture of Europe and the
Americas. This course will trace the development of the garden and other cultivated landscapes in the
West from the Renaissance to the nineteenth-century, from aristocratic estates to public parks. Special
emphasis will be placed on the interpretation of different forms of literary, visual, and documentary
evidence for the theory and practice of Early Modern garden design. Students will examine and analyze
representations of gardens, including drawings, paintings and poetry. We will also explore the garden
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as a locus of cultural and botanical exchange, a site where objects and ideas from Asia and the New
World were transplanted and naturalized.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2075. Collecting and display in early modern Europe, c.1500-1850 (6 credits)

This course will survey the ways in which strategies of collecting and display developed in the West
from c. 1500 to the mid-nineteenth century. Drawing on examples from Italy, France, Britain, Germany
and the early years of the American republic, it will explore the history of a broad range of modes of
collecting, as well as issues such as antiquarianism, connoisseurship, and the rise of the public art
museum. The museum will be examined in its social context, and in relation to other culturally
important institutions, including the art market, the academy, the court, and the nation-state.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2076. The sculptural object in early 20th-century art (6 credits)

This course addresses the stylistic evolution of the sculptural object in the early 20th century. With an
eye on the elements of social and political change, we will consider the rise the avant-garde, the impact
of new artistic methods and materials introduced by Cubism, Dadaism and Surrealism and others.
Although the course is organized historically, it is also designed to crisscross through a number of
intersecting themes around the production and consumption of sculpture up to 1945.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
Prerequisite: One 1000-level Fine Arts course.

FINE2077. The European city in the early modern world (6 credits)

This early modern period (ca. 1450 – ca. 1700) was a great period of European urbanism. Cities
developed rapidly in response to political and religious change, economic development and trade, and
advances in military technology. Ruling elites invested heavily in ambitious buildings and urban spaces.
Architects and planners devised new styles, building types, and urban forms. Political thinkers
reconsidered and redefined the idea of the city as a human community. The expansion of Europe through
exploration and colonization brought Western forms of urbanism to the Americas and Asia, and brought
Europeans into contact with the urbanistic achievements of other cultures. Many of Europe’s major
urban centres acquired their defining features during this period. We will look at Florence, Venice,
Rome, London, Paris, Versailles and the cities of the Low Countries, as well as European exports like
Mexico City and, closer to home, Macau. As well as studying a range of major metropolitan and colonial
cities, we will examine the impact of broad social phenomena, such as the court society and the public
sphere, and the development of building types and urban forms and of new forms of visual
representation.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2079. History and theory of fashion (6 credits)

No matter what our cultural background, clothes are the objects and fashion the art form closest to our
selves. Historians of art, including those specializing in the study of textiles and dress, have developed
a variety of ways of talking about clothing that illuminate the rich cultural matrix from which it emerges.
An understanding of the history of fashion, and the way that dress has been represented in various
contexts, can also provide an important tool for analyzing other works of art, including portraits and the
visual culture of exploration. This course is divided into four principal methodological approaches:
design history, material culture, constructions of gender, and fashion theory. It includes readings based
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on the study of textiles, historical items of dress, representations of costume and the discourses of
fashion. While concentrating on the development of fashion in the West, processes of adoption and
adaptation of extra-European commodities and ideas are also emphasised. Drawing on a variety of
topics ranging from the sixteenth century to the present day, the course explores the intersection of the
world of fashion with cultural exchange, consumption, class formation, and changing definitions of
masculinity and femininity.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2080. Art in conflict (6 credits)

This course examines the complicated links between art and politics during the 20th century, a period
typified by continuous political unrest and military conflicts. Examining case studies from varied
regions of the world throughout the century, we ask what functions artists might occupy in times of war
or turmoil, and what role the visual might have in expressing political opinions and promoting political
ideas. Materials include fine arts, photography, and other forms of visual culture. Case studies might
include the Russian Revolution, the First and Second World Wars; the American civil rights movement;
Apartheid in South Africa; the fall of the Soviet Union; and the Cultural Revolution and June 4th
demonstrations in China.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2081. Art history & its methods (6 credits)

This course introduces students to art history as an academic discipline. It surveys the development of
the study of art and familiarises students with a range of methodological approaches and their
applications, from early traditions of art historical writing, through the emergence of art history as a
distinct field of study, to its transformation and development up to the present. The course also instructs
students in the writing and study skills specific to art history.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
Prerequisite: One 1000-level Fine Arts course.

FINE2082. Decorative arts in Europe (6 credits)

This course will survey decorative arts from the early modern period (1600-1900) and introduce
directions in which to study objects, workshop practices, the history of collecting, and the international
and cross-cultural influences upon both artists and collectors. Areas of interest include, but are not
limited to, art and propaganda, the court and royal academies of art, local art markets and international
influences, chinoiserie and intercultural exchange, and the social history of material culture.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2083. The histories of printmaking and visuality in China (6 credits)

China has one of the oldest, continuous cultures of print in the world. This course will explore various
formats and contexts in which the visual print circulates, from sutra handscrolls and dharanis to
illustrations in string-bound books, sheet prints, new year prints, pictorials (huabao), calendars, and
propaganda posters. The impact of technology on visuality from woodblock and movable type to colour
printing and Western mechanized printing is also examined.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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FINE2084. Art of the classical world (6 credits)

The classical tradition has had an enduring effect on the history of Western art, providing both iconic
monuments and aesthetic principles that have inspired and challenged successive generations of artists,
architects, and other cultural practitioners. This course will survey Greek and Roman art and
architecture from c.1000 BCE to c.500 CE, stretching from the rise of Greek city states to the fall of the
Western Roman Empire. We examine works of art and architecture in a variety of materials, forms, and
motifs, supplemented by writings from the period that influenced subsequent developments in Western
culture. Important themes include the public and private, gender, mythology, patronage, and the ancient
city.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2085. Chinese calligraphy: Form, materiality and history (6 credits)

This course is an introduction to Chinese calligraphy from early imperial to contemporary period and
will include both ink works, reproductions of calligraphy including rubbings of stele inscriptions and
epitaphs, and seals. The course, thematically arranged, considers calligraphy within a variety of contexts
(i.e. archaeological, cultural, historical, social and religious) to study the form, materiality and history
of calligraphy. Other aspects such as social status of calligraphers and collectors, collecting practices,
technologies and impact of printing, modern writing reform and national identity, as well as the
computerization of writing will be covered. The course will include lectures, practical workshops, group
discussion and when possible museum visits.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2086. European art of the eighteenth century (6 credits)

In Europe, as elsewhere, the eighteenth century was a period of innovation and profound cultural
transformation. The years between the 1690s and the French Revolution of 1789 saw the emergence of
new styles and genres in painting and new ways of making and understanding art, while media like
drawing and printmaking achieved a new-found prominence. We explore this art through the work of
painters like Watteau, Chardin, Hogarth, Reynolds, and Gainsborough and sculptors like Falconet,
Roubiliac, and Houdon. While concentrating on Britain, France, and their colonies, we also examine
the international culture of the court in Italy, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and parts of Northern
Europe. We also look at the eighteenth-century interior, emphasizing its social function as a context for
the display of fine and decorative arts and its role within a nexus of global trade, exploration, and
exploitation.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2087. Buddhist art of East Asia (6 credits)

This course studies art and architecture created in East Asia during the seminal period when Buddhism
was introduced to China and then transmitted to Korea and Japan. Focusing on the period c.300-c.1500,
it examines selected key sites and significant works in all three countries. Students will become familiar
with important figures in the Buddhist pantheon; the iconography, gestures, and postures associated
with Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and other deities; and popular narratives and architectural features
associated with early Buddhist practice. These visual and iconographic features will also be studied in
their historical, political, economic, and social contexts.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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FINE2088. Introduction to the material culture of China (6 credits)

This course explores the large realm of the production of material culture in China in order to elucidate
historical concerns, attitudes, and social needs as embedded in objects. Materials include jade, bronze,
ceramic, furniture, and architecture from the Shang to the Qing dynasties. The class discusses how these
materials played a critical role in the intellectual and artistic discourses throughout history. Students
will visit the University Museum and Art Gallery in HKU for an extensive viewing experience.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2089. Gender and sexuality in architecture (6 credits)

This course explores the dynamic relationships between the gendering of space and how sexuality is
both experienced and expressed in architectural form. Proceeding in a chronological fashion through
several periods and locations, the course focuses on a series of key case studies within broader themes.
The themes covered will be, Architects and Patronage; Religion and Politics; Bodies and Cities; and
Resistance and Contestation. A range of interdisciplinary texts will be discussed and key theorists, such
as Richard Wrigley, Louise Durning, Lynn Spiegel, Doreen Massey and Michel Foucault will be
compared and critiqued. The course will present the students with architectural, textual, cinematic and
geographical examples, in order to train them to approach a wide range of visual evidence. Throughout,
production of gender in the domestic, the public, the political and the economic spheres will come under
questioning. Ultimately, there will be an emphasis on understanding and critiquing a range of theoretical
and methodological approaches.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2090. Blockbusters, bonanzas, and biennales: Contemporary art in the global age (6
credits)

This course examines the global circuits of contemporary art from 1980 to the present through a
consideration of various biennales, triennials, and global art fairs in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. The
class begins by investigating two landmark exhibitions - Primitivism in 20th Century Art (New York,
1985) and Magiciens de la Terre (Paris, 1989) - in order to consider the perception and presentation of
so-called “non-Western art” and to broadly historicize present-day “global” art practice. Topics will
include the reappraisal of the Western/non-Western division, the importance of artistic identity, and the
promotion of art as cultural ambassador.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2091. Foundations of literati art and culture (6 credits)

This course examines how some of the objects we find in museums and collections came to be regarded
as art. More specifically some objects and styles of painting are associated with the literati, a highly
educated group of scholars who established certain forms of culture as their own from the Tang and
Song to Yuan dynasties. By looking at the contexts of when ceramics, bronzes, calligraphy and some
forms of painting were first assigned as art we can see the literati mind guiding the process in the
construction of these objects as literati art.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2092. Photography in North America (6 credits)

This course looks at the history of photography in North America from its inception to the turn of the
new millennium. Lectures are chronologically and thematically arranged to highlight how photography
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has been variously used as a tool for scientific observation, social documentary and aesthetic
engagement. As we move through the course, students will be introduced to key figures in both the
history and theory of photography so that they may critically assess the role of photography as a medium
of expression.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2093. Contemporary art in India (6 credits)

This course surveys the development of contemporary art in India from the 1970s to the present. The
lectures are arranged chronologically to give students an essential foundation upon which to consider
how contemporary art responds to local and global changes. During the 1980s painting was often the
medium of choice and issues of identity and cultural heritage were key concerns; however, the arrival
of the new millennium witnessed a significant change in materials and artistic approach. These shifts
and turns are a fundamental concern as we examine the role Indian art now plays in the increasingly
global art world.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2094. Medieval art and architecture (6 credits)

This course surveys the art and architecture of Europe and Byzantium during the Middle Ages, a
thousand-year period from ca. 400 to 1400. Exploring medieval art and visual culture chronologically,
we will consider a number of topics central to medieval society including monasticism, saints and their
relics, pilgrimage, and court culture. The course covers the wide range of medieval artistic production,
from various forms of painting and sculpture to wood and ivory carving, mosaic, metalwork, textiles,
and architecture.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2095. Venerated vessels: The history of Chinese ceramics (6 credits)

This course surveys the history of ceramics in China from the Neolithic era to contemporary times. It
focuses on the production, consumption, collection and theoretical aspects that have shaped the legacy
of Chinese ceramics. Central to the survey is the role of social, political and historical forces on the
styles and shapes of various types of ceramic objects. Special attention will be given to the development
of porcelain and the construction of its cultural value or veneration in Chinese social practices.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2096. Contemporary art: 1960s to the present (6 credits)

This course provides an introduction to issues, practices and critiques of contemporary art since the
1960s. It is organized thematically rather than chronologically, focusing on specifically chosen artworks,
projects or exhibitions each week. Moving across a wide range of media, techniques and display formats,
this course considers different curatorial, theoretical and interpretative stances in the production, display
and distribution of contemporary art within the increasingly globalized art world; it considers how
works of art might reflect on our present living situation beyond the art field and relate to wider
communities within and across regional and national boundaries.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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FINE2097. Arts of Korea (6 credits)

This course surveys Korean visual arts from ancient times to the present. It examines a diverse range of
materials including painting, print, sculpture, architecture, and decorative art. Lectures are
chronologically arranged and explore issues such as funerary culture, cross-regional exchanges, politics
and religion, gender and social differences, art market and patronage, and the questions of modernity.
Students will acquire a solid foundation of Korean art history and the critical perspectives in analyzing
its development across times.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2098. History of Korean paintings (6 credits)

This class explores distinct characteristics of paintings including Buddhist paintings, landscape
paintings, portraits, paintings of flowers and animals, documentary paintings, and decorative court
paintings during the Koryŏ and the Chosŏn dynasties. The critical issues such as materiality, politics,
patronage, religion, and gender will be covered in class. The aim of this course is to understand the
stylistic developments of important artists, the formation of major schools, and the establishment of
critical theories in regard to social, historical, and intellectual contexts.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2099. History of ceramics in East Asia (6 credits)

This class will acquaint students with the artistic styles, traditions, and techniques in the history of
ceramics in China, Japan, and Korea from the tenth to the eighteenth centuries, with particular attention
to the social and intellectual climate across geographical boundaries. The class discusses domestic and
export ceramics, changes in aesthetic concept, consumption and collecting, as well as interaction with
other cultures. Through a comparative approach, this class aims to understand the vibrant cultural
dynamics in East Asia.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2100. Body, gender and sexuality in contemporary art (6 credits)

This course examines abstract and figurative representations of the human body in contemporary art. It
will explore works across a range of media which challenge and redefine the ways we consider gender
and sexuality. The course will introduce a set of tools to analyse multiple art forms which artists have
used to reconfigure questions of sexuality, gender, queerness, and the performance of ‘self’, and will
look into the wider art historical, socio-political and cultural conditions that shaped their creation and
interpretation. The course will conclude by investigating how the artistic exploration of gender and
sexuality has been increasingly intertwined with issues of class, race, and ethnicity, especially in the
face of the unprecedented transnational and transregional flows of human bodies within the
contemporary world. We will discuss works by artists engaging with female and male, trans, straight
and LGBTQ identities, who may include but are not limited to: Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse, Lee
Bontecou, Catherine Opie, Vito Acconci, Glenn Ligon, David Wojnarowicz, Vaginal Davis and
Shigeyuki Kihara.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2101. Installation and participation (6 credits)

This course addresses issues of installation, participation and spectatorship through a selection of
episodes and case studies from the history of modern and contemporary art. It introduces and explores
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ways by which works of art activate viewers’ immediate physical, sensory or psychical engagement,
turning spectatorship into an embodied activity and collapsing the conventional conception of art as
simply contemplative. From the post-war artistic experiment with ‘happenings’ to the surge of
participatory practices in the globalizing contemporary art world, we will investigate key debates and
theoretical discourses about artistic participation, collaboration and action, reconsidering the
relationship between the artist, the artwork and the viewing subject. Artists we will look at may include
but are not limited to: Allan Kaprow, Robert Morris, Yayoi Kusama, Yoko Ono, Sophie Calle, Santiago
Sierra, Félix González-Torres, Cildo Meireles, Thomas Hirschhorn, Francis Alys, Gabriel Orozco and
Ai Weiwei.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2102. The connecting sea: An introduction to Mediterranean archaeology (6 credits)

Situated between three continents, the Mediterranean Sea has always enabled the flow of people, things,
and ideas. From the advent of cities in the ancient Near East, to the cultural developments of Greece
and Rome, we can trace the impacts of interaction and exchange on the material remains of this region's
past. This class introduces the archaeological methods and theories that help us contextualize and
interpret material culture. The things people made, used, and discarded tell us about how they lived, so
we will examine a wide range of material evidence, including art, pottery, technology, architecture, and
landscapes. Our focus will be the Bronze and Iron Ages of the 3rd through 1st millennia BCE. We will
also discuss cultural heritage and the impact of archaeology in our contemporary world.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2103. Saintly bodies and holy shrines: The art and architecture of medieval pilgrimage
(6 credits)

Throughout the Middle Ages, millions of travelers traversed hundreds of kilometers of unfamiliar,
foreign lands to venerate the bodies of saints. From England to the tip of the Iberian Peninsula, from
Scandinavia to Rome, medieval pilgrims embarked on months-long journeys to seek spiritual favor,
perform penance, or simply escape quotidian life. Art served as the mediator of these experiences. This
course will examine the four major medieval Christian pilgrimages—Jerusalem, Rome, Compostela,
and Canterbury—and the artistic production associated with each. We will study a range of artworks,
from monumental basilicas to gleaming body-part reliquaries to miniature pilgrim’s badges, while
considering the spiritual, physical, and social aspects of pilgrimage.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

FINE2104. Art of Renaissance Europe (6 credits)

This course surveys painting, sculpture and printmaking across Europe from ca. 1400 to ca. 1580.
During this period, European culture was transformed by a series of technical innovations, new
intellectual concepts and practices, and new attitudes towards the making of art and the nature of art
objects. These have persistently been characterised as a Renaissance (French for ‘rebirth’) of European
Civilisation. The period, and its most prominent artists, remain at the core of European and by extension
Western cultural identity. We will explore Renaissance art across the continent of Europe; examine its
technical and material practices; identify the principal stylistic and intellectual characteristics that
defined it; consider its relation to broader social and historical developments; and critically examine the
rich body of scholarship on this field. The artists we study may include Masaccio, Botticelli, Donatello,
Mantegna, Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, the Bellini, Titian, Jan van Eyck, Bosch, Grünewald,
Dürer, Holbein and Brueghel the Elder.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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FINE2107. Early art in China: Idea and image (6 credits)

This course explores the art production of early China from earliest origins to the beginning of the
seventh century. It investigates the meaning of art objects created during this time that traditional and
modern historians have characterized as a dynamic series of competing polities and shifting territories.
The course examines the ways people in power made claims to authority and how was this expressed
in their art through a consideration of archaeological finds and contemporaneous texts. Special emphasis
is given to the vibrant material culture of tombs as a means to understand varying locations of authority
as communicated through relationships amongst society, individuals, and the cosmos.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

To fulfill the requirements of the major/minor in Fine Arts, students may also take AFRI2018,
AFRI3008, AMER2058, AMER2064 and AMER2065. Please refer to the relevant Programmes for the
course details and availability.

3000-LEVEL COURSES

The following courses are open to students in the third and fourth years of study. Students must
successfully complete at least one 2000-level course before taking a 3000-level course.

FINE3011. The image in the era of religious reformations (6 credits)

In the 17th century, the visual arts of Europe continued to be shaped by the political, social and cultural
convulsions that had broken out during the Protestant Reformation. This course examines the impact of
changing religious practices, concerns and controversies in early modern Europe, with a focus on the
second half of the 16th Century and the first half of the 17th. We will examine the phenomenon of
iconoclasm, and the emergence of religious images that responded to specifically Protestant concerns.
South of the Alps and Pyrenees, we will look at the concerns surrounding the sacred image in Catholic
societies as its religious functions became increasingly hard to reconcile with its artistic qualities, at the
impact of the Catholic Reformation, censorship, mystic visions, naturalism, and the development of the
Baroque style. Artists covered include Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Annibale Carracci, Rubens and
Bernini.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
Prerequisite: At least one 2000-level Fine Arts course.

FINE3012. Cross-cultural interactions in the 19th century (6 credits)

This course examines artistic interactions between Western and non-Western cultures brought on by
scientific exploration, diplomacy and war, imperialism, and trade in the period 1750-1900. We study
various ways in which European and American artists responded to the cultures they encountered
elsewhere in the world, as well as how non-Westerners responded to the West. Emphasis is placed on
the diverse processes of cultural interaction and their impact on the development of modernity in
different cultural contexts. Major non-Western regions to be studied might include China, Japan, India,
the Near East, and elsewhere.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
Prerequisite: At least one 2000-level Fine Arts course.
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FINE3013. Hong Kong art workshop (6 credits)

This course will introduce Hong Kong art and related aspects of Hong Kong visual culture. It will be
taught in a workshop format, and will provide the opportunity for students to develop skills in art
criticism as well as an understanding of Hong Kong art history.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
Prerequisite: At least one 2000-level Fine Arts course.

FINE3014. The whys of where: An East Asian art history of imaginative geographies (6
credits)

This course will examine the relationship between image-making and cultural encounters at regional
and trans-national levels, and the role of visual artefacts in the making of real and imaginative
geographies. The module will begin with 16th century Jesuit missionaries propagating their “universal
history” with, amongst many things, world maps, and end with an investigation of modern Chinese
artists’ visions of an “East” in the global context. Themes will be organized into two or three week
classes, which are designed to stimulate students into making comparisons and parallels. In each
instance, connections, commonalities, and differences are examined as patterns within East Asia, and
between Japan and China.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
Prerequisite: At least one 2000-level Fine Arts course.

FINE3019. The altarpiece in Northern Europe, 1250-1550 (6 credits)

Endowed with holy relics and forming the primary locus of the Christian mass, the altar occupied the
center of the lavish architectural and visual programs that comprised medieval church buildings from
the fourth century onward. Whereas triumphal arches, covered with mosaic images, had framed the
space of the altar in Early Christian basilicas, and free-standing cult statues and reliquaries had come to
personalize altars in twelfth-century pilgrimage churches, the end of the thirteenth century witnessed
the rise of what would become the dominant field of ritual spectacle and artistic innovation in the
Renaissance: the altarpiece. Painted, sculpted, or both; often outfitted with multiple hinged panels that
could be opened and closed; supported by predellas that housed relics; and, in turn, bearing delicate
micro-architectural armatures that surged toward the heavens, late medieval altarpieces were
multimedia installations meant to provide a suitably splendid backdrop for the Eucharistic liturgy and
to convey sacred truths to large congregations. They also became the testing ground for master
craftsmen – woodcarvers, painters, and carpenters – who transformed their religious commissions into
dazzling displays of technical virtuosity.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
Prerequisite: At least one 2000-level Fine Arts course.

FINE3020. Women making art after 1960 (6 credits)

Issues of sexuality, subjectivity, gender, and domesticity have been central to women making art since
the 1960s. In response to the urgent need for reconsidering women’s contribution to the constitution
and representation of sociocultural and geopolitical realities within the international art world beyond
Euro-American centers this module grounds the historical discussion of these concepts in a broader
global context. The first half of the course reviews key issues and debates in Western feminist art
movements between the 1960s and 1980s. The inclusion of case studies on the works of women artists,
including Emily Jacir, Mona Hatoum, Doris Salcedo, Yto Barrada, Nikki S. Lee, Yin Xiuzhen, Fiona
Tan, Shen Yuan, and ON Megumi Akiyoshi in the second half of the course aims at introducing new
artistic contents, and alternative cultural formats and theoretical paradigms to the on-going construction
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of a feminist history of art within the increasingly interconnected, yet unevenly developed globalizing
contemporary society. Moreover, this course will provide students with a distinctive insight into both
intersections and resistances between feminist discourses and queer theories in relation to women
making art.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
Prerequisite: At least one 2000-level Fine Arts course.

FINE3021. Visual culture in the age of European expansion ca. 1450-1750 (6 credits)

This course examines art and architecture produced by and for Europeans in the context of the early-
modern exploration and colonisation that brought European peoples into closer contact with a broader
range of cultures than they had previously known. Beginning in the 15th century and continuing into
the 18th, the processes of trade, religious conversion, scientific study, mass enslavement, conquest, and
settlement that ensued established some of the foundations of the modern world; not least because of
the new forms of visual representation Europeans adopted to better comprehend (and exploit) their
expanding world. This course covers a broad range of objects relating to Europe and the Mediterranean,
North America and Asia which exemplify the role of the visual arts in the social and intellectual
transformations that accompanied colonialism, including paintings, sculptures, prints, maps, buildings,
city plans, collections, fountains and gardens. Topics covered include the changing representation of
cultural, gender, ethnic, and racial identity; new concepts of savagery and civilisation; the rise of
colonial cities; the spread of Christianity; diplomacy across cultures; and scientific ‘curiosity’ and
natural history.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
Prerequisite: At least one 2000-level Fine Arts course.
Non-permissible combination: FINE2073.

FINE3022. Visual culture of modern Japan (6 credits)

Eighteenth century Edo (now known as Tokyo) was the world's largest city. It was the military
headquarters of the shoguns, a cosmopolitan city with a vibrant milieu of merchants, samurai, actors,
courtesans, craftsmen and artists. By the nineteenth century, it was transformed into Tokyo, the imperial
capital with a reformed political infrastructure. This course will focus on the artistic traditions that were
transformed and transplanted from Edo into Tokyo. Topics of discussion will include the revival of
classical imagery, popular culture during the eighteenth century, the conflicts brought on by the opening
of Japan to the West in the nineteenth century, the reconstruction of Tokyo and its artistic practices after
the World War Two, and the impact of Japanese architecture, design and popular culture over the past
twenty years.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
Prerequisite: At least one 2000-level Fine Arts course.
Non-permissible combination: FINE2054.

FINE3023. Is Spain different? Spanish art from the Visigoths to Picasso (6 credits)

The eminent art historian Erwin Panofsky once asserted that, “in Spain, anything is possible.” He meant
this to signify that Spanish art is an art apart, following its own rules. Artistic production from the
Iberian Peninsula has alternately been regarded as derivative, borrowing or copying from other
European currents, or conceptualized as something completely its own. During this course, students
will examine Spanish art from a range of cultural and temporal contexts across the country’s history—
Visigothic, Islamic, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, and Modern—while maintaining an
ongoing critical discourse on the particularities of Spain and questioning whether we can speak of trends
consistent to the Spanish experience.
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Assessment: 100% coursework.

Prerequisite: At least one 2000-level Fine Arts course.

FINE3024. Angels, demons, and beasts: Romanesque and Gothic art (6 credits)

The medieval imagination produced some of the most tender images of Western art as well as the most
grotesque. Images of a sainted mother cradling her child existed within the same milieu, if not the same
artistic program, as those of a monstrous Hellmouth. This course examines the imaginative, playful,
frightening, and sometimes contradictory art and architecture of the Romanesque and Gothic periods in
Western Europe, from around the year 1000 to 1500. We will consider and discuss a number of issues
relevant across art history—such as the role of the artist, theories of vision and color, marginal art,
materiality, and cross-cultural interaction—within a medieval context.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
Prerequisite: At least one 2000-level Fine Arts course.

FINE3025. Pious worldliness: Buddhist art and material culture (6 credits)

This course introduces the fundamentals of Buddhism and its art from ancient times to the present.
Rather than portraying Buddhist art as a timeless ideal, the class deploys case studies to foreground the
dynamics of its development. In particular, it examines how styles, iconographies, and media have been
purposefully selected and reconfigured in varying contexts across and beyond Asia. The class also
explores contemporary art inspired by Buddhist concepts, and the role of collecting and curatorial
practices in shaping the interpretation of Buddhist artifacts.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
Prerequisite: At least one 2000-level Fine Arts course.

FINE3027. The art of the ancient Aegean (6 credits)

This course introduces the topic of ancient Aegean Art, chronologically spanning from the Neolithic
Era to the Beginning of the Dark Ages, and encompassing the three major art historical categories of
Cycladic, Minoan and Mycenaean material culture. By incorporating art history, archaeology, ancient
history and classical studies, the course seeks to offer new interpretations of the Ancient Aegean
iconographies and cultures, while also examining the relationship between the Aegean World and
Egypt, Anatolia and the Near East.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
Prerequisite: At least one 2000-level Fine Arts course.

FINE3028. The mirror and the globe: Courtly arts of India 16-19th century (6 credits)

The course provides an overview of the development of Imperial and Sub-imperial art in India from the
16th to the 19th century. The art of the Mughal court evinces a dynamic visual response to an ever-
changing cultural and political environment. Lectures will be arranged chronologically to highlight
how art (and in some cases architecture) was used as a tool for building a united empire. Issues of local
and global cultural exchange are of principal concern in the course and we will consider the arrival of
the Mughals in India, the development of Imperial and Sub-imperial schools of painting, the expression
of regional artistic difference, the production of miniatures within an atelier system and the impact of
contact with Europe.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
Prerequisite: At least one 2000-level Fine Arts course.
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FINE3029. Preservation and conservation: Practices and concepts (6 credits)

This course explores the field of preservation and conservation within the GLAM (Galleries, Libraries,
Archives and Museums) sector, with a specific focus on collections care and object handling. The terms
Preservation and Conservation will be examined, and students will be introduced to the history and
ethics related to the field. Emphasis is placed on understanding agents of deterioration and the
environmental impacts on objects, along with collection care philosophies and methods. Outcomes will
be obtained through lectures, readings, discussions, site visits and the hands-on examination of artefacts.
This course is taught by the conservation staff of the HKU Libraries Preservation Centre. It is designed
to introduce students to the field of preservation and conservation, and to the skills and further study
required to pursue a career in conservation or a related specialism.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
Prerequisite: At least one 2000-level Fine Arts course.

4000-LEVEL COURSES

The following courses fulfill the capstone requirement for the major and are open to Fine Arts majors
in the fourth year of study. Selected courses may also be offered in the summer semester; if so, they
may be taken by majors in the summer preceding their fourth year and will be counted as having been
taken during the fourth year. Before taking a 4000-level course, students must complete at least four
Fine Arts courses at the 2000- and 3000-level, at least one of which must be at the 3000-level.

FINE4001. Art history methodology workshop (capstone) (6 credits)

This course is taught in the form of seminars. It requires active participation from students, and is
intended for those in their fourth year who have already engaged seriously with art history during their
previous study. It aims to deepen students’ understanding of the methods used by art historians by
introducing various debates about interpretation. Students are expected to write a paper concerning an
area of art history or visual culture of their own choice, in which they demonstrate their sensitivity to
questions of method.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
Prerequisite: At least one Fine Arts course at the 3000 level and three other Fine Arts courses at the
2000 or 3000 level.

FINE4002. Perspectives in Asian art (capstone) (6 credits)

This seminar will focus in depth on one area of Asian art and visual culture, with an emphasis on art
historical strategies. Students will prepare a seminar paper drawing on knowledge of a certain area, but
will further be encouraged to demonstrate a critical approach to broader methodological and theoretical
issues.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
Prerequisite: At least one Fine Arts course at the 3000 level and three other Fine Arts courses at the
2000 or 3000 level.

FINE4003. Perspectives in Western art (capstone) (6 credits)

This seminar will focus in depth on one area of Western art and visual culture, with an emphasis on art
historical strategies. Students will prepare a seminar paper drawing on knowledge of a certain area, but
will further be encouraged to demonstrate a critical approach to broader methodological and theoretical
issues.
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Assessment: 100% coursework.

Prerequisite: At least one Fine Arts course at the 3000 level and three other Fine Arts courses at the
2000 or 3000 level.

FINE4004. Perspectives in art history (capstone) (6 credits)

This course, in the form of seminars, requires active participation from students. It is intended for
students in their fourth year who have already engaged seriously with art history during their previous
study. It aims to deepen students’ understanding of the discipline of art history. The course interrogates
prevailing art historical scholarship by exploring both the parameters of the discipline in general and
specific locations or eras. Case studies consider modes of interpretation in combination with primary
documents, secondary interpretations, and historiography.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
Prerequisite: At least one Fine Arts course at the 3000 level and three other Fine Arts courses at the
2000 or 3000 level.

FINE4005. Fine Arts internship (capstone) (6 credits)

The internship programme gives a limited number of qualified students practical experience working
in a professional setting. This enables them to apply academic skills learned in the classroom to concrete
problems in the workplace and helps prepare them for museum or other arts-related careers. Selected
interns will work with senior staff of the University Museum and Art Gallery or other art institutions in
Hong Kong on a project or projects relating to professional museological or curatorial practice.
Admission is selective, based on application and an interview. Students wishing to apply for the
internship are strongly encouraged to first take FINE2056 (Museum studies workshop).
Assessment: 100% coursework.
Prerequisite: At least one Fine Arts course at the 3000 level and three other Fine Arts courses at the
2000 or 3000 level.

FINE4006. Independent research project in art history (capstone) (6 credits)

This course is intended for advanced students with a strong reason for researching a particular art
historical topic in depth. Students undertake substantial original research and produce an extended
essay, under the supervision of a teacher in the department. The supervising teacher’s approval must be
secured before enrolling in this course.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
Prerequisite: At least one Fine Arts course at the 3000 level and three other Fine Arts courses at the
2000 or 3000 level.

FINE4007. Sites of representation: Artistic practices from colonial to independent India

(capstone) (6 credits)

This class is a thematic investigation into Indian art from the late colonial period through Independence
in 1947. Over this span of roughly fifty years the politics of style sat at the hub of many debates about
modern art. Given that India has a rich tradition of artistic expression, many asked whether modern art
should look to India’s past or to the international for inspiration. Topics will include the rejection of
European-style oil painting, the advance of a “new Indian” aesthetic, and how various social and
political changes impacted artistic production.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
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Prerequisite: At least one Fine Arts course at the 3000 level and three other Fine Arts courses at the
2000 or 3000 level.
Non-permissible combination: FINE3017.

FINE4008. Art, writing, printing and printmaking in early-modern Europe (capstone) (6

credits)

The invention of printing with movable type, and the concurrent invention of printmaking technologies
capable of reproducing images, marked an epochal development in European culture. This course
investigates the ways in which these technologies arose and developed. We examine the new media that
transformed visual culture in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, as well as the impact of printing on older
forms of visual art, such as painting, sculpture and architecture, and on artistic training and collecting.
In studying these developments, we will look at printmakers like Dürer, Marcantonio, Lucas van Leyden,
Cort, Callot, Goltzius, Rosa and Rembrandt. This class incorporates a compulsory field trip.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
Prerequisite: At least one Fine Arts course at the 3000 level and three other Fine Arts courses at the
2000 or 3000 level.
Non-permissible combination: FINE3018.

FINE4009. Perspectives in contemporary art (capstone) (6 credits)

This course examines key issues and debates about the production, exhibition and circulation of
contemporary art within an increasingly interconnected, yet unevenly developed contemporary art
world. Concentrating on key case studies, which engendered, framed, investigated and reflected on
contemporary art historical knowledge, this course explores the social, cultural and political contexts
where they were created and presented, analysing their form, content, reception and subsequent
interpretation. Through the discussion of the legacies of these case studies, this course also interrogates
the specific ways in which they have affected contemporary art and its display.
Assessment: 100% coursework.
Prerequisite: At least one Fine Arts course at the 3000 level and three other Fine Arts courses at the
2000 or 3000 level.

GENDER STUDIES

The Gender Studies Programme teaches gender as a subject and as a category of analysis. The subject
gender includes gender relations and identities, women, and sexualities. As a category of analysis,
gender interrogates cultural production, and social systems, intersecting with other categories of social
difference, such as sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, and ability, to critically analyse structures of
knowledge and systems of power.

The Gender Studies Major (72 Credits)

Students wishing to major in Gender Studies must normally complete the following requirements:

(a) Introductory courses (18 credits)

(i) 6 credits of “GEND1001. Introduction to Gender Studies” (or “CLIT1002. Introduction
to Gender Studies” for students admitted in 2017-18 or before), and obtain a grade C or
above;
(ii) 12 credits of introductory courses from any Arts programmes;
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(b) Advanced courses (54 credits)

(i) 6 credits taken from one of the following courses ( the other courses may be taken as
electives):
GEND2001. De-colonising gender (6 credits);
GEND2002. Gender, race and beauty (6 credits);
GEND2003. Gender, generation, and leadership (6 credits);
GEND2004. Gender in visual and material culture (6 credits); or
GEND2005. Religion, gender, and sexuality (6 credits);
(ii) 6 credits of “GEND3901. Gender Studies research (capstone experience)”; and
(iii) 42 credits of advanced courses at 2000 level or above listed below, among which at least
24 credits of advanced courses shall be taken from the Faculty of Arts, and not more than
18 credits of advanced courses can be taken from other faculties.

The Gender Studies Minor (36 Credits)

Students wishing to minor in Gender Studies must normally complete the following requirements:

(a) Introductory course (6 credits):

6 credits of “GEND1001. Introduction to Gender Studies” (or “CLIT1002. Introduction to
Gender Studies” for students admitted in 2017-18 or before), and obtain a grade C or above;

(b) Advanced courses (30 credits)

(i) 6 credits taken from one of the following courses (the other courses may be taken as
electives):
GEND2001. De-colonising gender (6 credits);
GEND2002. Gender, race and beauty (6 credits);
GEND2003. Gender, generation, and leadership (6 credits);
GEND2004. Gender in visual and material culture (6 credits); or
GEND2005. Religion, gender, and sexuality (6 credits); and
(ii) 24 credits of advanced courses at 2000 level or above listed below, among which at least
12 credits of advanced courses shall be taken from the Faculty of Arts, and not more than
12 credits of advanced courses can be taken from other faculties.

List of Advanced Elective Courses

Faculty of Arts

Gender Studies
GEND2001. De-colonising gender (6 credits)
GEND2002. Gender, race and beauty (6 credits)
GEND2003. Gender, generation, and leadership (6 credits)
GEND2004. Gender in visual and material culture (6 credits)
GEND2005. Religion, gender, and sexuality (6 credits)
GEND2006. TransAsia: navigating transness and intersections in Asia (6 credits)
GEND3001. Internship in Gender Studies (6 credits)

School of Chinese
CHIN2146. The “sickly beauties”: gender and illness in late imperial China (6 credits)
CHIN2151. Gender and sexuality in Ming and Qing fiction (6 credits)
CHIN2171. Women's autobiographical writing in late Imperial China (6 credits)
CHIN2264. Chinese eroticism (6 credits)

School of English
ENGL2039. Gender, sexuality and discourse (6 credits)
ENGL2080. Women, feminism and writing (6 credits)
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School of Humanities
CLIT2014. Feminist cultural studies (6 credits)
CLIT2016. The body in culture (6 credits)
CLIT2037. Gender and sexuality in Chinese literature and film (6 credits)
CLIT2058. Histories of sexuality (6 credits)
CLIT2069. The making of modern masculinities (6 credits)
CLIT2076. Fashioning femininities (6 credits)
CLIT2089. Culture and ‘queer’ theory (6 credits)
CLIT2091. Gender, feminism and modern China (6 credits)
CLIT2093. 20th Century fashion and the making of the modern women (6 credits)
FINE2032. Art and the portrayal of women (6 credits)
FINE2049. Art and gender in China (6 credits)
FINE2053. Beauties and the beasts: Song and Yuan painting (6 credits)
FINE2079. History and theory of fashion (6 credits)
FINE2089. Gender and sexuality in architecture (6 credits)
FINE2100. Body, Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary art (6 credits)
FINE3020. Women making art after 1960 (6 credits)
HIST2048. The history of childhood and youth (6 credits)
HIST2081. Gender and history: Beauty, fashion and sex (6 credits)
HIST2083. Gender, sexuality and empire (6 credits)
HIST2085. The history of modern sexual identity and discourse (6 credits)
HIST2089. History’s closet: Clothing in context (6 credits)
HIST2119. Changing lives: Women’s history from Fin-de-Siècle to the interwar years (6 credits)
HIST2126. The American family: Histories, myths, and realities (6 credits)
HIST2131. Growing up ‘girl’: Histories, novels, and American culture (6 credits)
HIST2158. Women in Hong Kong history: Private lives and public voices (6 credits)
HIST2160. Visualizing history (6 credits)
HIST2161. Making race (6 credits)
HIST2165. Protest and politics in modern U.S. history (6 credits)
HIST2166. Gender and sexuality on trial: a global history of sex and scandals, 1690-1990 (6 credits)
HIST2169. History of love in modern China (6 credits)

School of Modern Languages and Cultures

AMER2055. African-American history and culture (6 credits)
EUST2011. Modern European lifestyle: Fashion, food, music and sex in Europe (6 credits)
GCIN2033. Gender and Creative Industries: An introduction (6 credits)
GRMN3033. Gender equality in German-speaking countries and the European Union (6 credits)
HKGS2006. Engendering Hong Kong: sociological and demographic perspectives (6 credits)
JAPN2045. Sex, gender, and technology in Japan (6 credits)
JAPN2059. Family and social institutions in Japan and Greater China (6 credits)
JAPN2090. Growing Up in Japan: Youth, Culture and Society (6 credits)
JAPN2095. Gender and sexuality in modern Japanese literature (6 credits)
JAPN3064. The Tale of Genji (6 credits)
KORE2034. Gender, sexuality, and family in Korea (6 credits)
SINO2013. Women and gender in Chinese history (6 credits)

Faculty of Education
MEDD8869. Gender and Education: International and Comparative Perspectives (6 credits)

Faculty of Law
LLAW3220. Gender, sexuality and the law (6 credits)
LLAW3239. Law and social justice at the intersections: gender, race, religion and sexuality (6 credits)

Faculty of Social Sciences

SOCI2011. Gender and crime (6 credits)
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SOCI2012. Gender and society (6 credits)

SOCI2013. Gender in Chinese societies (6 credits)
SOCI2021. Marriage and the family (6 credits)
SOCI2081. Sexuality, culture and identity (6 credits)
SOWK2037. Human sexuality (6 credits)

Introductory Course

GEND1001. Introduction to Gender Studies (6 credits)

This course introduces students to the discipline of Gender Studies. Students will develop an
understanding of gender both as a subject and as a category of analysis. Students explore gender-related
topics, including gender relations and identities, women, and sexualities. As a category of analysis,
students will use gender to interrogate cultural production and social systems, paying close attention to
how gender intersects with other categories of social difference, such as sexuality, race, ethnicity, class,
and ability. Students will connect the assigned academic readings to “real-life” examples in the news,
media or their everyday lives thereby producing new theoretical understandings of gender and sexuality
within the contexts of Hong Kong, Asia and the world.
Assessment: 100% coursework.

Advanced Courses

GEND2001. De-colonizing gender (6 credits)

This course aims to decenter European and North American kno