ACADEMIC BIO
TSE Wing Tung Jamie is an MPhil candidate at the Comparative Literature Department of the University of Hong Kong, where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in the same field in 2016. Her research investigates the dialogic relationship between romance as an allegory and identity in the context of Hong Kong Transitional Period (1982-1997). Proposing a new approach to read Hong Kong romance narratives in relation to the identity of Hong Kong itself, she engages closely with various love stories written by local writers in the Transitional Period with the aim of effacing the stigma against romance literature, particularly on how they were produced plainly for commercial and casual consumption.
Jamie’s interest in self-existence and identity first began during her stay at Seoul National University when she had the opportunity to go on exchange in South Korea as an undergraduate
student. Apart from becoming proficient in Korean, she pursued multidisciplinary studies with a mix of philosophy, cultural theory, and literary criticism. She was deeply inspired by Lord Byron’s Byronic Hero, Jean-Paul Sartre’s Existentialism, and Albert Camus’s Absurdity, which later became a major influence on her research and also creative writing. After returning to Hong Kong and obtaining her bachelor’s degree, Jamie took a break from studying to experiment on
creative writing and teaching, before returning to HKU to pursue her academic interest. Jamie aspires to contribute to Hong Kong culture and literature as both a researcher and a writer. And other than existentialist literature and Hong Kong identity, she is also interested in
postcolonialism, sexuality, and game studies.