Venue and Time of Lectures

All lectures will be held at the Convocation Room, Main Building, HKU except the Dec 11 (Lecture 6) which will be held at the Rayson Huang Lecture Theatre, HKU. The time for each lecture is from 5:30pm to 7:30pm.

Works discussed include novels by Tolstoy, Kafka, Schnitzer, Joyce, Borges, Garcia Marquez, Calvino, Lu Xun, Mao Dun, Shen Congwen, Gao Xingjian, Oe Kenzaburo, Pramoedya Ananta Toer, and Orhan Pamuk; music by Mahler, Schoenberg, Shostakovich, Huang Zi, Nieh Er, and Chiang Wen-yeh; films by Eisenstein, Visconti, Kubrick, Kurosawa, Ozu, and Fei Mu.

September 18

Lecture 1. Confusions of Pleasure: the Crisis of Humanities under Globalization - Exploring new humanistic approach to everyday life in today’s globalized world of commodity culture.

October 9

Lecture 2. Reconnecting the Humanities - How to reinvigorate the humanities by restoring the relevance of creative “moments” in literature and thought.

October 30

Lecture 3. The Fate of the Novel - A retrospective on the modern European novel, with comparisons with significant works by non-European writers, particularly in Asia.

November 13

Lecture 4. Literary Visions - Adapting Classics to the Screen - Enjoying literature through film as interconnected processes, with emphasis on the classics.

November 27

Lecture 5. Listening to the 20th Century - Musical Culture at the Limits - Classical music as a buttress against the inhuman and as a tool of active sociopolitical engagement.

December 11

Lecture 6. Garden in the City: Towards a Humanistic Architecture (FREE) - Is it possible to reinvent a new aesthetic form of architecture in China under the super-modern “impact from the West”? Can Hong Kong rise to the challenge?