Wimal Dissanayake: Cultural Studies and the University: My Hong Kong Experience

There are many genealogies of Cultural Studies as a field of inquiry; the most popular among them is that it had its origin at the Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies at Birmingham University, England and migrated to the United States from where it spread throughout the world. It is now an important subject in many Asian universities generating numerous society-specific debates and controversies.

In this talk, I wish to examine the status of Cultural Studies in Hong Kong against the backdrop of changing views and perceptions of humanities in tertiary education. It is evident that engagements with the colonial heritage and the imperatives of high consumerism have their particular impact on university education. I was a professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Hong Kong, and was intimately involved in the cultural studies programs at many other universities in Hong Kong as well. In this presentation I will be discussing the problems and prospects of Cultural Studies in Hong Kong universities as an Asian case study. For purposes of comparison, I will also be making some comments on the situation in Japan and India.

Event Sponsor
International Cultural Studies and the Academy for Creative Media, University of Hawaii at Manoa

More Information
Patty Harris, ICSCP Program Manager, 944-7243, culture@hawaii.edu, http://www2.hawaii.edu/~culture

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