To study the politics of canon formation and translation, we should examine the linguistic and literary tensions in specific geographical and sociocultural contexts. This is especially true if we look further than monolingual Anglophone contexts to bi-/multilingual places, where the literary canon is no longer limited to English-language texts and may thus cause conflicts in canon-formation.

Hong Kong, I argue in this paper, is an example that nuances the politics of literature. Despite its “biliteracy and trilingualism” policy on Chinese and English proficiency, Hong Kong literature as a “canon” is almost always in Chinese. Anglophone literature does exist, but due to sociolinguistic reasons that I will explain in my presentation, it remains largely invisible to the general public. The presence of English-language writing, combined with the language politics in Hong Kong, pose a rethinking to the hegemony of Chinese-language works in the canon formation of Hong Kong literature.

The last part of my paper is about the issue of translation. Although translations can “undermine an established canon”, my observation is that translation in Hong Kong is part of the canon. Translation in Hong Kong is most often carried out from Chinese to English, in order to participate in the canon of world (English) literature. Only sporadic, if not little, efforts have been done to translate local English writing back to Chinese. The lack of initiatives further alienates English writing from mainstream awareness, and shows that even translation can be caught in overarching tensions of canon formation in a bilingual context.

In post-handover Hong Kong, forced assimilation into mainland China has strengthened what Rey Chow wrote back in 1997: that the Chinese population all over the world “had refused to forget that Hong Kong was a Chinese city” (Chow 307). This however becomes a peculiar statement when one juxtaposes it with how Hong Kong has always branded itself as a “global” “international” financial centre. This contradiction between, on the one hand, the fetish to brand its cosmopolitanism and globality, and, on the other, the chauvinistic claim to ethnoracial purity, has led to contravening treatments of racial discrimination against ethnic minorities in Hong Kong. Against a background of recent alleged cases of racial discrimination, including the Southeast Asian domestic helpers’ lawsuit for permanent residence and some South Asians’ failed applications for naturalisation as Chinese nationals, this paper will analyse two aspects of racial discourse in Hong Kong: a) the conflictual definitions of “race” and “ethnicity” between the laws of Hong Kong and China; and b) the promotion of Chinese language education to non-Chinese students (NCS). The paper aims to critique sinocentric assumptions in these seemingly antiracist endeavours, thus revealing the ways in which racial hierarchies and prejudice exist in a post-colonial, but not decolonized, city.

There have only been sporadic efforts to connect perspectives from postcolonial theories with the academic or public understanding of Hong Kong Literature in English. This paper hopes to contribute to this under-articulated area and forge a preliminary dialogue between postcolonial theories and postcolonial Hong Kong, and between postcolonial literary studies and Hong Kong English literature.

There is evidence suggesting that Hong Kong’s smooth transition between one colonizer (Britain) and another colonizer (China) to secure its status quo as a global financial metropolis – in other words, that Hong Kong has money but no independence – disqualifies it from discussions prevalent in early postcolonial studies on “national liberation”, “resistance”, and “independence”. Postcolonial studies needs to be sensitive to other marginalized ex-colonies and to various existing and new forms of imperialism. This position is partly undertaken in a series of articles by leading postcolonial scholars, collected in a recent feature in New Literary History whose title “What’s Left in Postcolonial Studies?” seems another effort in the past two decades to do away with postcolonial studies. Suggestions were made in these essays to steer postcolonial studies towards a project of tasking the global capitalist imperialism. An adapted version of this position, I argue, may potentially benefit understandings on Hong Kong Literature in English because it would draw our attention to the privileges of English writing as a form of symbolic capital and linguistic capital. It also urges those of us who write and research in this literary field to be critical and reflexive on the various forms of privilege, not least material, that we enjoy. I will supply this argument with a critique of sample discourses on Hong Kong English writing so far. Through this examination I wish to present a different approach toward Hong Kong Literature in English.

This paper attempts to analyse the peripheral position of Hong Kong in postcolonial studies and postcolonial literary studies. Despite its colonial history, Hong Kong has often been the peripheral, under-researched and overlooked space in these disciplines. Current attention in postcolonial studies—and indeed sociopolitical theories of globalization—tends to theorize situations in economically less developed regions. Moreover, ideas in postcolonial studies are often informed by post-independent experiences of ex-colonies. Critics have further examined the lingering effects (mostly in economic aspect) of Western powers on these ex-colonies, and have promptly termed this neocolonization. Hong Kong, a world financial centre, however, escapes the confines of all these narratives, as its decolonization only led to the restoration of sovereignty of its “motherland”, China. In other words, it has money but no independence. Often said to have a mixture of Western and Chinese cultures, post-colonial Hong Kong is sandwiched between the lingering Western sociocultural influence and the growing economic dependence on China. For this world financial centre, then, neocolonization is also split between the original reading of term, i.e. experiencing the impacts from the West, and a more literal meaning of being subjected to a new colonizer, China. It is in this way that Hong Kong reflects on the limits of our current understanding of postcolonialism and neocolonization. This paper will develop these ideas by looking at the fault lines between Hong Kong and China in light of recent socio-political developments.

Murakami Haruki, whose novels are often acclaimed for its depiction of a postmodern world in connection with themes such as alienation, loss and detachment from the society, said in his acceptance speech at the Jerusalem Prize 2009 that his novels are aimed to “bring the dignity of the individual soul to the surface and shine a light upon it”. The individual, according to Murakami, is an antithesis of a wall called The System, which is supposed to protect human beings but sometimes “take on a life of its own”. This paper examines the notion of “The System” in light of gender representations in Murakami’s Norwegian Wood (1987). Carnal “sex” and spiritual “love” are two recurring motifs in this novel, but they are posited as two distinct aspects of a heterosexual relationship. This paper will look into how sex and love shape the individual character of the protagonist Watanabe Toru, and his relationship with two love interests, Naoko and Midori. Through an analysis of gender relations in the novel, this paper will look into the conflict between an individual soul and “The System”, and what gender and love mean in a so-called postmodern world.

Murakami Haruki, whose novels are often acclaimed for its depiction of a postmodern world in connection with themes such as alienation, loss and detachment from the society, revealed in his acceptance speech at the Jerusalem Prize 2009 that his novels aimed to “bring the dignity of the individual soul to the surface and shine a light upon it”. The individual, according to Murakami, is the antithesis of “the System”, which is supposed to protect human beings but sometimes “takes on a life of its own” and “begins to kill us”. If the individual soul is what Murakami’s novels glorify, and the System what they revolt against, then we must ask: What exactly is the System? In what ways is it related to our lives, our society, our culture? And who is this individual? Does the individual carry the same sense for men and women alike?

By examining the notion of “the individual” and “the System”, this seminar evaluates Murakami’s treatment of the individual soul in light of gender representations in his novel Norwegian Wood (1987). Focusing on the entangled webs of love and sex for protagonist Watanabe Toru, his love interests Naoko and Midori, the speaker will discuss the production of gender relations being a point of enquiry of Murakami’s notion of postmodern world.

A woman’s room is Virginia Woolf’s famous concept in A Room of One’s Own. It explores the concept of a space that belongs and is owned by the woman herself. Yet as this conception of a woman’s space is celebrated, it remains a concept and many questions about the spatial practices of this space is unexplored. For instance, if space invariably involves carriers of power and power relations (Lefebvre, 1991), then in a room that is all to the woman herself, who carries which type(s) of power relations? Moreover, the concept of a woman’s room may at first sight seem to reinforce the stereotypical association of maleness with the public and femaleness with the private. However, Woolf’s another concept, the Outsiders’ Society, clearly suggests the sense of unity women should have to form a coherent group of their own. The gap between these two ideas is seldom addressed but, if bridged carefully, may offer new ideas on the concept of a woman’s space.

This paper analyses drama plays with a view to explore what it means for a woman to own a room. It starts by revising the popular public/private distinction and its association to male/female, suggesting a more careful scrutiny of these dichotomous relationships. Then it turns to drama and looks at Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House (1879) and Susan Glaspell’s Trifles (1916), two so-called feminist plays due to their exposure of issues on woman’s freedom and duties in a home setting. By contrasting the physical settings and power relations between the characters in these two plays, this paper suggests that the physical setting in drama plays often foreshadow the gender problem they seek to expose and the resolution they offer. Moreover, it argues that the kitchen in Trifles has in effect become a woman’s room, and, looking at the interaction between the male and female characters in the play, suggests what a woman’s room can do as a point of connection with other women. Finally it returns to the concept of space and concludes the meanings for the owning of a woman’s room.