Postcolonial Studies: The Case of Hong Kong

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

Considered as an "anomaly" in postcoloniality by Rey Chow, Hong Kong makes the perfect case for the study of major theories and concerns in postcolonial studies and their critical capacity and limitations. This course engages canonical theorists and texts in postcolonial studies in dialogue with local voices of critique across fields and disciplines to reexamine (post)colonial experiences of Hong Kong and their legacy expressed in the connections among culture, history, politics, and economics. By unpacking the anomalies of the case of Hong Kong and organizing critical local scholarship on cultural production and development often situated on the margin or caught in between domineering forces, this course also seeks to, as proposed by Stephen Chu, "reconfigure postcolonial discourse as a critical mode of imagination in a world altered now by global capitalism."