University of Hong Kong

This course seeks to provide students with grounding in the basic tools of understanding social protest and social movement. In addition to Hong Kong, cases are drawn from many different countries—from the American civil rights movement to the 2007 democratic demonstrations in Burma, from Gandhi’s satyagraha (non-violent resistance) to the more recent “color revolutions” in Europe and Central Asia. Students also learn about influential social movement leaders past and present, such as Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Mandela, Mao, Lech Walesa, Aung San Suu Kyi and more. Students who have taken CCCH9009 Protests, rebellions and revolution are not allowed to take this course.

This course helps solve the intertwined mystery of what it is that makes us choose to adopt a physically inactive and sedentary lifestyle, when we know the negative health impacts of it. To unfold the box of this enigma, the course first provides understanding of the inter-disciplinary nature of exercise and physical activity determinants. Through a series of themed lectures, it explores together how individuals’ participation in exercise and physical activity is determined not only by personal factors, but also by contextual, cultural, and environmental factors. "Be Fit! Be Active!" is a course that radically changes your understanding of the essence of bodily movement. It helps not only acquire a strong theoretical background, but also engagement in hands-on tasks and experience. It includes practical, useful projects, and the opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of real-world interventions. Students learn in-depth about the fundamental techniques needed to design programs and policies aimed at increasing physical activity and well-being.

The focus of this class is economic growth, technological change and competition in a world where geography matters. It provides an understanding of the postwar history and geography of economic growth. As global production becomes increasingly integrated, workers and firms in different regions are forced more directly into competition with one another. The courses addresses how these firms, and the regions in which they are embedded, compete for the capital and labor required to sustain competitiveness. The dominant strategies of competitive advantage hinge on technology. More specifically, technological change remains one of the primary determinants of profitability and growth. Increasingly, it is recognized that the motors of national economic performance are sub-national technology districts. These innovative regions are characterized by strong ties between firms embedded in institutional structures that reinforce common sets of rules, norms, business cultures and decision routines.

Focusing on the visual materials of the Silk Roads, this course explores the dynamic interconnections among Eurasian cultures. The course examines art and monuments, such as cave-temples, Buddhist statues, print ephemera, and mural paintings, to examine distinctive and interrelated styles, ideas, and values in various geographic regions. It considers how pilgrims, merchants, diplomats, and their travels mediated between oasis towns and transitional stations along the ancient trade network. Throughout the course, it helps develops skills in looking closely at artworks and speaking and writing about them. Through the lens of the Silk Roads, the course reimagines the interconnectedness among world cultures and enrich our understanding of globalism today.

This course examines the creative and critical roles that exile, diaspora and migration have played in art practices from the last few decades of the twentieth century to the present. It introduces a range of works by artists of divergent backgrounds who have variously engaged with either forced or voluntary cross-border movement and relocation. Apart from distinguishing and clarifying terms, like exile, expatriate, (im)migrant, tourist, nomad, refugee and diaspora, which have been used to describe mobile subjects and communities, the course attaches importance to the affective material capacity of art to cultivate affinities and alliances that are often neglected in the human-centered construction of identity, home and belonging. Moreover, the course considers how recent art practices evoke situations of displacement and dislocation, which make it possible to unsettle and rework systems, orders and power relations that underpin the persistent hegemony of the Global North in the production of knowledge and discourses about nations, cultures, histories and otherness. Artists looked at may include but are not limited to: Emily Jacir, Walid Raad, Nil Yalter, Danh Võ, Yto Barrada, Yinka Shonibare, Lida Abdul, Fiona Tan, Chiharu Shiota, Shirin Neshat, Sonia Boyce, and Tania Bruguera.

This course explores how literature, cinema, history, biology, anatomy, pathology, catastrophic events, and cultural diversity have been shaped and driven by teeth, the face, and the human smile. Using the "smile" and “teeth” as focal points, a host of different relations with society will be explored to create a critical understanding around ambiguous issues such as the concept of beauty, the changing nature of health, and the relationship between the “natural” and the “artificial”. Additionally, by using active learning as a vector, students broaden their perspectives and enhance their collaborative, innovative, and self-directed spirits. Thus, by examining the history and current understanding of the "smile" and "teeth", the course illuminates the relationships between science, technology, and everyday life in a cross-cultural context. How can a smile impact a society?