Event location: Room 280N, Second Floor, York Lanes, Keele Campus, York University
Registration: Please register at this link.
Joseph Chan, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, will give the sixth Bernard H.K. Luk Memorial Lecture in Hong Kong Studies
The recent waves of migration from Hong Kong to different parts of the world have occurred against the backdrop of unexpected and drastic political changes in their home city. Alongside the traumatic uprooting and resettlement of life, many of these newly formed, politically driven diasporas have encountered subtle struggles related to values and identity that are difficult to articulate, potentially leading to misunderstandings in communication. This lecture aims to unravel some of these subtle struggles through the lenses of freedom, loyalty, and home. What types of freedom have the diasporas acquired, and which ones have they forfeited? Is politically motivated migration an indication of severing ties with one’s native home, or is it an alternative means of reaffirming loyalty to one’s place of origin? What defines a home for them? What tensions exist between the diasporas and those who continue to reside in Hong Kong?
Dr. Joseph Chan is a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. He has taught political theory at the Department of Politics and Public Administration at The University of Hong Kong for 30 years. In the spring of 2019 and 2020, as well as the fall of 2022, he served as a Global Scholar and Visiting Professor at the University Center for Human Values, Princeton University. His recent research interests encompass Confucian political philosophy, contemporary theories of democracy and equality, and civil society studies. He is the author of Confucian Perfectionism: A Political Philosophy for Modern Times (Princeton, 2014) and co-edited East Asian Perspectives on Political Legitimacy: Bridging the Empirical-Normative Divide with Melissa Williams and Doh Shin (Cambridge, 2016). His work has been published in numerous international journals.
The 2023 lecture is co-sponsored by the Richard Charles Lee Canada-Hong Kong Library at the University of Toronto.
A beloved teacher and colleague, Professor Bernard H. K. Luk (1946–2016) was an internationally recognized authority on the history of Hong Kong. Endowed by Professor Luk’s friend and former student, the Honourable Dr Vivienne Poy, the Bernard H. K. Luk Memorial Lecture in Hong Kong Studies was created in honour of his work. Organized by a group of Hong Kong scholars at York University, the lectures and accompanying events focus on Hong Kong as a distinct society, its influence on the wider world or the experiences of the Hong Kong diaspora.