Elective

CLIT7011 Hong Kong and Beyond

This course explores Hong Kong culture in various local, national and global contexts in comparison with cities in China and other parts of the world. Through analyzing selected socio-cultural phenomena, literary, filmic and other cultural texts and sites, we examine how the forces of modernization, nationalism, colonialism and globalization have affected the shifts in cultural and political dynamics, and have prompted the changes in the imagination and re-imagination of urban cultural politics. We may draw from theoretical approaches and critical concepts of various disciplines and persuasions. Topics covered may include the questions of history and agency; the cultural tropes of crisis, hybridity, transition and transgression; personal, collective memories and urban affectivities; critical cultural policy and the politics of urban space; the spectacles of urban renewal, tourism, consumption and popular culture; and, everyday life politics, local cultural resistance and decolonizing alternatives..