To celebrate Hong Kong Metropolitan University's (HKMU) 35th anniversary, the School of Arts and Social Sciences (A&SS) at HKMU organized an international conference titled “Narrating Love and Care in Global China of Our Time: Mobility, Materiality and Multiplicity” between 11 and 13 October 2024. The President of HKMU, Professor Paul LAM Kwan-sing, delivered a heartwarming welcome speech, expressing how HKMU has transformed from the Open Learning Institute of Hong Kong, founded 35 years ago, to the vibrant, all-around, comprehensive university.
The Vice President of HKMU, Professor Charles KWONG Che-leung, earnestly welcomed the guests and emphasized that the key to success is teamwork and collaboration. The Acting-dean of A&SS and the conference convenor, Professor Eva Kit Wah MAN, introduced the five themes, structured into five panels of the conference, to the audience: “Narrating Chinese Diaspora,” “Gender and Affects,” “Narrating Posthumanism in Chinese Science Fiction,” “Collective Chinese Cinephilia,” and “Narrative as Therapy.” The organizing committee includes convenor Professor Eva Kit Wah MAN, co-convenor Professor Amy Wai-sum LEE, Dr. Xuying YU, Dr. Kaby Wing-Sze KUNG, Dr. Timmy Chih-Ting CHEN, and Dr. Penn Tsz Ting IP, all of whom also served as panel chairs at the conference.
Out of the 25 speakers at the conference, half of them are from the universities of Asia, Europe, and North America, including Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Nagoya University, the University of Amsterdam, the University of Nottingham, the University of St. Andrews, the Uppsala University, Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine, Montana State University, Simon Fraser University, the University of British Columbia, the University of Vermont. The conference also invited a distinguished independent scholar and a renowned filmmaker living in the United Kingdom.
The conference also included scholars and researchers from local institutes, for instance, Hong Kong Baptist University, Lingnan University, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the University of Hong Kong, and HKMU scholars. Through interdisciplinary knowledge exchanges spanning the fields of cultural studies, film, literature, history, philosophy, and medical humanities, the conference deliberated the diverse faces of love and care in Global China across the past, present, and future.
