Wed. June 22, 15.30-17.30.

Social movement has gradually re-centered back to the college campus in recent years in response to neoliberal globalization and xenophobic nationalism. Campus protest against racism, bigotry, social injustice, forced fee hikes, and authoritarian regimes is becoming a commonplace. For example, in the U.S. Tufts students lay down in the middle of the road to protest against the police shooting and killing of a young black man, Michael Brown; in India, Jawaharial Nehru University students showed solidarity with Student Union President Kanhaiya Kumar and Umar Khalid, charged with sedition because of their dissident voice against the capital punishment meted out to Afzal Guru, convicted for the 2001 Indian Parliament attack; Hong Kong University students occupied the University Council meeting in protest against erosion of university autonomy after the appointing of Arthur Li as Chair of Council Member by CY Leung -- the Chief Executive of Hong Kong who is seen as a puppet of the Chinese Communist Party.  This salon will discuss the common ground and the differences in campus activism shared by students and scholars involved in these movements.

CHOW Yong-Kang, Alex:  Ex-General Secretary of Federation of Students in Hong Kong who is the spokesperson of the Umbrella Movement in September 2014. He studies Comparative Literature and sociology at the University of Hong Kong.

Madhuja MUKHERJEE teaches Film Studies at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India. She also works as artist and filmmaker. She has published on the Indian film industry, soundscapes of Indian films, genre, gender and urban cultures. The author of 'New Theatres Ltd., The Emblem of Art, The Picture of Success' (2009), she has edited 'Aural Films, Oral Cultures, Essays on Cinema from the Early Sound Era' (2012) and 'Voices and Verses of the Talking Stars, Readings in Gender Studies' (forthcoming). Her films and installations have been showcased at international platforms. Currently doing her second graphic-novel, she will discuss the import of the 'Hok-Kolorob' (“Let’s Make Some Noise”) Movement from Jadavpur University in 2014.

For background please see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Jadavpur_University_protests and http://qz.com/269774/hokkolorob-the-hashtag-thats-defining-an-indian-student-protest-against-violence/

Fri. June 24, 15.30-17.30.

Ethnic minorities in different locales have been struggling with ethnic/racial tensions or even discrimination, reflecting a deep seated ‘othering’ encountered on both the policy and day to day levels. Minority groups have had to resort to alternative or even imaginative forms of trade for survival, engaging in creative co-ethnic economies. The rise of social movements in recent years has seen ethnic minority communities become increasingly active in the public domain, organizing and participating in social actions as they struggle for more rights and recognition as ‘Hong Kongers’ in civil society, especially during the Umbrella Movement. This salon discusses the multi-faceted challenges and struggles that ethnic minorities face, and their tactics as they engage in (even para-legal) forms of economy and social activism. We will invite ethnic minority activists, NGO workers and scholars to speak about research and advocacy work as critical intervention on and for ethnic minorities in Hong Kong.

Lisa Yuk-Ming LEUNG (Department of Cultural Studies, Lingnan University) is an associate professor at Department of Cultural Studies, Lingnan University. She researches the global circulation of East Asian popular culture, and ethnic minority discourses and multiculturalism. She has recently co-authored a book on south Asian minorities in Hong Kong (Understanding South Asians in Hong Kong (with Prof John Nguyet Erni). She is currently focusing on the role of social media in social movements, establishing relationships between affordances, affect and media spatiality.

Roberto CASTILLO is a lecturer at the African Studies Programme at the University of Hong Kong. His academic training is in Cultural Studies, International Relations, History and journalism. He holds a PhD from the Department of Cultural Studies at Lingnan University, Hong Kong. Previously, Roberto completed a Masters in Cultural Studies at The University of Sydney, and lived and worked in Beijing and Hong Kong for eight years. His research interests are: transnationality, migration and mobility; the critique of nationalism & globalisation; China’s changing ethnoscapes with a focus on foreign presence in the country; Africa-China relations; (cultural) research methodologies; globalisation of social movements; digital cultures; ethnographic-based knowledge production; and the cultural politics of media representations of race/ethnicity. Roberto administers the website www.africansinchina.net

Jeffrey ANDREWS is Social Worker in Christian Action Refugees Services, Chungking Mansion. Raised in Hong Kong as an ethnic Indian, Mr Andrews decided to work on advocacy for ethnic minority rights in Hong Kong, actively collaborating with NGOs such as UNISON and Christian Action. During the Umbrella Movement, he led a group of likeminded south Asian youths patrolling the protest sites every night for solidarity.

Sat. June 25, from 9 a.m.

Located close to the border of China, Pin Che villagers have successfully fought the Northern Development Plan that aimed to forcefully evict 1,500 villagers to give way to low-density luxury housing. In this three-hour field-trip led by organizers from the Pin Che village and the Land Justice League (a partner activist organization with the villagers), we will learn from the insiders about the reasons behind the anti-Northeast Development Plan movement and people’s continuing efforts to rebuild the local community.

Tues, June 28. 15.30-17.30.

The use of Internet tools such as blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc., to advocate for justice and gather support around certain causes has enormously shaped the political landscape across the world over the past decade. It not only unites people to challenge the authority but also tears people apart, as said by Wael Ghonim, activist who helped spark the Egyptian Revolution. Despite disillusion, people still aspire for real changes by bringing solidarity, civility and thoughtfulness to social activism in a digital era. In response to this yearning, the two speakers of this salon will share their research findings and working experiences with us.

Rolien HOYNG is Visiting Assistant Professor of Cultural Studies at Lingnan University. Her work is primarily situated in Istanbul and Hong Kong. It explores digital information technologies in relation to urban governance as well as practices of resistance. Topics she writes about include information infrastructures and digital environmental governmentality, e-waste, digital labor, and the socio- technical networks of emerging forms of activism and dissent. Publications have appeared in Cultural Studies, New Media and Society, International Journal of Cultural Studies, and Television and New Media.

LAM Oi-wan, who co-founded Hong Kong citizen journalist website inmediahk.net, is Northeast Asia editor at globalvoicesonline.org and a part-time lecturer at the Master Program of Global Communication at the School of Journalism and Communication in the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Thurs June 30, 16.30-18.30

Tamar Park is the location of Central Government Office and Parliament of Hong Kong that grabbed world attention when it became the birth place of Umbrella Movement in 2014. From 28 September 2014, pro-democracy activists occupied Tamar Park and the adjacent Connaught Road for 79 days, demanding direct election of the Chief Executive of Hong Kong. Even though the peaceful movement was eventually cracked down upon by the state machine, it changed the landscape of local social activism, giving rise to new agendas of anti-China nationalism, pro-independence movement and various community movements. This salon will screen documentary film, conduct field-trip and hold discussion on site, aiming to give students a glimpse of the dynamic and multiple facets of this historic incident.

HUI Po-Keung is an associate professor of the Cultural Studies Department and the Programme Director of the Master of Cultural Studies Programme at Lingnan University, Hong Kong. His main research interests are education and cultural studies, cultural economy and history of capitalism and markets. He has co-edited the 6 volumes of Cultural and Social Studies Translation Series, jointly published by Oxford University Press (Hong Kong) and Bianyi Chubanshe (Beijing). He is the author of Farewell Cynicism, Hong Kong Oxford University Press, 2009 &2012, and What Capitalism is Not, Hong Kong Oxford University Press, 2002, Shanghai Renmin Chu Banshe, 2007. He has been working on several research and development projects on education reform in Hong Kong.

Stephen C.K. CHAN: Professor of Cultural Studies at Lingnan University, who established the BA Cultural Studies in 1999, and served as its Department Head (2000-2003, 2008-2010). Founding Director of the Master of Cultural Studies, a two-year part-time program taught to cultural practitioners in the fields of education, media, and NGO work, Chan has been a Board member of the Association for Cultural Studies representing the Asia constituency since 2008. He chaired the Steering Committee of the Consortium for Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Institutes (2010-2013), responsible for planning its biennial Summer School. The Consortium provides the institutional base for the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Society, of which he has been a Board member since 2015. He guest-edited the “Hong Kong at a Crossroads” special issue for Inter-Asia Cultural Studies (vol. 16, no. 3, 2015), a first collective study on the “Umbrella Movement” that took place in Hong Kong in 2014.

Y.C. CHEN: Associate Professor of Cultural Studies of Lingnan University who founded "mobile democracy classroom" that provided over 400 classes at the occupied site during the Umbrella Movement. He is a community planner and anti-forced-eviction activist who has worked closely with many communities-in-crisis in Hong Kong.

21 June. 2pm-4pm.

Discussion after the screening will include participation from Roberto Castillo.

Starting from Guangzhou, China and Ansan, South Korea, the camera follows Roberto and his partner Nadeemy to meet an African Hip Hop singer and other Africans in China.

In the process, we come to apprehend a whole different path of globalization in this part of the world—in China and Korea. Unexpected encounters thrive on love, friendship and aspiration. Like an open cut, there are breathless moments of pain but we all continue walking and drifting in the open cities.

Drifting City premiered at the 20th Busan International Film Festival “Wide Angle” and is distributed by Alexander Street.

Text:
Kim Soyoung: 'Towards a Technology of the Dead: Kim Soyoung on her 'Exile' Documentary Trilogy', Senses of Cinema, March 2016.

KIM Soyoung (alias KIM Jeong) is one of Korea’s best known independent filmmakers and an eminent scholar. Her Women’s History Trilogy (2000-2004) (Koryu : Southern women/South Korea; I’ll Be Seeing Her; New Woman: Her First Song) was screened at Yamagata International Documentary film festival, Hong Kong, Melbourne, Pesaro, Taiwan Women’s Film Festival, Digi Beta Festival in Berlin and broadcast on EBS (Public channel) among many other showcases. From this trilogy, Koryu: Southern women/South Korea is particularly relevant to Kim’s current project as it deals with migration issues. New Woman: Her First Song is distributed by Alexander Street via http://asiapacificfilms.com/films/show/181-new-woman-her-first-song. The trailer is available on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDP7h1dYm_g.

She has made a feature length fiction film entitled Viewfinder (Kyung)(2010) which was screened at Busan International Film Festival and Tokyo International Film Festival as well as at Seoul Indie Film Festival and released in theaters. She is currently working on an Exile Trilogy which includes the proposed work “Alex’s Place: Tashkent in Ansan” as well as “Drifting City” about African traders in Guangzhou, China.

As an academic, she has published numerous books in both Korean and English on modernity, gender, cinema and media including Specters of Modernity: Fantastic Korean Cinema (Korean), andElectronic Elsewhere: Media, Technology, and the Experience of Social Space (U of Minnesota Press, 2010) co-edited by  Chris Berry, Soyoung Kim and Lynn Spigel. She is Director of the Trans Asia Screen Culture Institute, Seoul Korea and editorial board member of Inter-Asia Cultural Studies. Kim Soyoung is also a founding programmer of Jeonju International Film festival and Seoul Women’s film Festival. She has been a Visiting Professor at UC Berkeley, UC Irvine and Duke University in the USA.

Roberto CASTILLO is a lecturer at the African Studies Programme at the University of Hong Kong. His academic training is in Cultural Studies, International Relations, History and journalism. He holds a PhD from the Department of Cultural Studies at Lingnan University, Hong Kong. Previously, Roberto completed a Masters in Cultural Studies at The University of Sydney, and lived and worked in Beijing and Hong Kong for eight years. His research interests are: transnationality, migration and mobility; the critique of nationalism & globalisation; China’s changing ethnoscapes with a focus on foreign presence in the country; Africa-China relations; (cultural) research methodologies; globalisation of social movements; digital cultures; ethnographic-based knowledge production; and the cultural politics of media representations of race/ethnicity. Roberto administers the website www.africansinchina.net

30 June. 2pm-3:15 pm

with post-screening discussion

Raise the Umbrellas

Hong Kong｜2016｜26 min｜Color｜ HD
In Cantonese with Chinese & English Subtitles
Director: Evans Chan

‘Raise the Umbrellas’ (Work in Progress) is an exploration of Hong Kong's 2014 Umbrella movement through interviews with Occupy Central initiator Benny Tai; champions of the democratic camp, Martin Lee, "Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung, and Emily Lau, student leaders Joshua Wong, Vivian Yip and Yvonne Leung; pro-Beijing legislator Jasper Tsang, as well as activist pop icons Anthony Wong Yiu-ming and Denise Ho. This work-in-progress segment anticipates the complete film, in which veteran independent filmmaker Evans Chan places the Umbrella movement in its global and historical contexts (From "Occupy Wall Street to Occupy Central" and "From Tian'anmen 1989 to Umbrellas 2014"), while revealing the movement's human stories, utopian yearning, localist politics, and democratic struggles vis-a-vis a rising China.

Evans Yiu Shing CHAN (www.evanschan.com) is a critic, playwright, librettist and an independent filmmaker, who, said critic Tony Rayns, "has made a singular contribution to Hong Kong cinema and at the same time a major contribution to the whole spectrum of contemporary film-making." He has made four narrative features and eight documentaries, including Datong: The Great Society (2011), Sorceress of the New Piano (2004), and To Liv(e) (1991) -- named by Time Out Hong Kong as one of the 100 Greatest Hong Kong Films. Chan’s award-winning films have been shown at the Berlin, Rotterdam, London, Vancouver, Chicago, Moscow, Buenos Aires, and Taiwan Golden Horse film festivals, among many others. A contributor to Critique, Asian Cinema, Film International, Postmodern Culture, and various anthologies, Chan is the editor/translator into Chinese of three books by Susan Sontag. A critical anthology about his work, Postcolonalism, Diaspora, and Alternative Histories: The Cinema of Evans Chan (ed. Tony Williams) was published by the Hong Kong University Press in 2015. Chan obtained his PhD in Screen Culture at Northwestern University and lives between Hong Kong and New York.