Research Overview

At its early establishment, the Department will focus on selected areas of Chinese culture by leveraging on the existing strengths of our staff members. Their focused research areas include:

1. Chinese Language and Literature

   This research strength is marked by its high diversity amongst the Chinese section of the faculty: attention has been paid not only to traditional fields such as classical philology, language studies, classical literature, and modern literature, but also to various newly developed subjects such as intellectual history. To better show the strengths and the overall research capacity of this group of members, their targeted research areas are structured within these five areas: a) Chinese literature; b) Chinese philology; c) Chinese intellectual thoughts; d) Chinese for professional and educational purposes; and e) Chinese language enhancement. This organization is based not only on the professional and academic specialties of the individual members, but also on our strong will to build an outstanding research team in Chinese language and literature with diversity and its own peculiarity.

2. Chinese History

   Chinese history is one of the most important components of China studies. Historically, China played a significant role in the formation of Asian cultures and the world development. The main objective of our members is to explore Chinese history from Han dynasty to Qing dynasty, and from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives. Our focus will be on three areas, namely: (a) cultural and urban history; (b) history of Chinese medicine; and (c) history of Buddhism.

3. Cultural Heritage Studies

   As an inherently interdisciplinary field, Cultural Heritage Studies encompasses art history, intellectual and cultural history, film and visual studies, museum studies, art administration and cultural policy studies. CityU is a pioneer in developing this fast expanding field in tertiary education in Hong Kong. To further enhance and develop the existing faculty strengths with a view to becoming Hong Kong’s leading institution in Cultural Heritage Studies, four core areas of specialization have been identified after broad academic and professional consultation: (1) Art History and Museum Studies; (2) Cinema and Visual Studies; (3) Cultural and Intellectual History; (4) Art Administration and Cultural Policy.

Enquiry: cah@cityu.edu.hk