HKU Bulletin June 2006 (Vol. 7 No. 3)

13 Hong Kong in the Middle of Two Empires The new Chair of English looks forward to extending his research on post-colonialism into issues regarding China relationship with the US. P rofessor Bill Ashcroft, widely regarded as one of the founders of postcolonial theory, has been appointed as Professor: Chair of English. Ashcroft joined the Department of English which will become the School of English in July 2006 from the University of New South Wales, Sydney, where he served as Head of English. Hi s 1989 book The Empi re Writes Back , co-authored with Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin, has become the standard text in post-colonial studies and he hopes to continue his research in the field by exploring China’s relationship with globalization. “The reason I took the job,” he said, “is that it provided me with another way of extending my research into issues to do with China and, particularly, China’s relationship with the United States. “I suppose what attracted me to this position was Hong Kong as a place where west and east meet, and west and east are pretty much embodied in China and the US. So you have two empires with Hong Kong in the middle. “I’m interested in that because I think the humanities, and cultural discourse in particular, have a lot to say about global issues.” Globalization, he said, has been appropriated by economic theorists and political scientists but the humanities continues to have much to say about the ways in which global relationships operate, ‘particularly in the area of understanding how countries and local communities engage with globalization but also in explaining and analysing how populations have flowed around so rapidly’. And he explained, “One of the dominant themes in post- colonial studies is the relationship between the local and the global. I think that is where the humanities has a lot to offer. “We have a situation in Hong Kong where Chinese and English come into contact and that, I think, is the most important engagement of the 20th century.” Ashcroft will continue to teach postcolonial studies introducing students to writers from Africa, India, the Caribbean and the Pacific, and will also offer courses on Diaspora. “I really like the Department here because in most English Departments you have a big dividing line. There are always two groups – the conservatives and the reformists. For the conservatives Shakespeare, Milton, the canon, is what literature should be about. But the reformists say that English Studies is a kind of explosion of cultural study, theoretical study and post-colonial study. So you always have the canon versus the contemporary. “The good thing about thi s school is that distinction is not made, probably because it’s a language school situated in a very cross-cultural situation. It’s a very culturally-diverse school.” One thing Ashcroft will be doing is encouraging collaborative research that looks at post-colonialism in the context of China. He’s interested in the sorts of strategies that are used by local communities to engage with global forces. “Issues of appropr iat ion and t ransformat ion are fundamental to global ization, and at the local level globalization is transformed. I want to explore some of these things in the relationships with China, extending it to look at practices of cultural production l ike fi lm, art and music and literature. “Collaborative research will enable the School to pit its skills in combination to maximize our impact in this area. Most humanities research has been very monastic and that limits the effects of the research. When you collaborate with others there’s an exponential rise in the quality of research. I’ve written a number of books collaboratively and it’s a very exciting process,” he said. 12 A Haven Amid the Neon International design award for architectural student A n inspired idea to build glass retreats behind the neon lights of Hong Kong’s streets has won an international design competition for architects. The design was created by Ricky Lee, who graduated from the Department of Architecture’s undergraduate programme last year. The competition was organised by the World Architecture News (WAN) and the Architecture Programme at Britain’s Royal Academy of Arts, on the theme Urban Eyrie . Designers were asked to create a place where people could find personal space amid the energy of the city. “The winning design... was an exotic solution integrated into the vertical neon advertising that flanks the classic Chinese street. By choosing such a frenetic location for his ‘haven’, Lee had captured the essence of the brief,” according to the WAN website. Lee’s concept is a single-reflective-glass signage box that sits alongside neon signs. The outside of the box can display neon messages while the inside provides a private space to rest and observe the streetscape. “I was surprised I won because this is a Hong Kong vernacular type of urban scene. It’s great that this image of Hong Kong, with neon signs spanning across the street, has international appeal,” he said. His entry also underscores the threat to that image. It is illustrated with a line drawing of an historic Western District street that has since been re-developed. Lee is complet ing an internship in London before undertaking further studies in September, either in Hong Kong or Britain. He received £1,250 for winning the Urban Eyrie competition. PEOPLE