University of Hong Kong

This course examines empire-building, colonialism, and settler militarism across the Pacific world. It covers how the everyday work of imperialism and colonialism across the region has always been grounded in the geographical management of racialized and gendered bodies, transnational circulations, andintimate encounters, paying special attention to the linkages between the various US, British, and Japanese imperial projects that shaped and transformed the geographies of everyday life across the Pacific. It also consider how the story of imperialism in the Pacific is not only a story of power and violence, but also one of revolution, liberation, and collective struggle.

This course examines the complex interactions between literature and the law. Even though the two disciplines may seem distinct, both law and literature are products of language and have overlapped in significant and interesting ways in history. Topics include: why do legal themes recur in fiction, and what kinds of literary structures underpin legal argumentation; how do novelists and playwrights imagine the law, and how do lawyers and judges interpret literary works; could literature have legal subtexts, and could legal documents be re-interpreted as literary texts.

This course examines how journalist have occupied a unique place in Western popular culture and looks at questions such as why are journalist so ubiquitous in popular culture; how accurate have those depictions been now and in the past; how has the depiction of journalist changed over time, and how have those changes mirrored the public perceptions of journalists and journalism; how do those depictions of journalist compare to reality; how has popular culture dealt with real life ethical dilemmas that confront journalists; and how effective have real-life journalists been at telling their own narratives — portraying the gritty reality, or embellishing the fictionalized view of the profession.

This course examines the technological challenges, economic realities, and ethical and legal considerations we will face as a space-faring civilization in the future. It will address who owns property or natural resources in space; who will be responsible for responsible practices off planet; how will humans survive and thrive in the harsh conditions of outer space; are we destined for a bionic future; can we terraform planets to make them habitable; can we find answers to our origins in the ether beyond Earth; and careers in space-related businesses such as Space Lawyer, Space-Medicine, or Space-Entrepreneur. 

This course examines how philosophers and linguists answer questions such as: a) what is a language; what makes linguistic expressions meaningful; what can logic tell us about the grammar of natural languages; are human beings born with a universal grammar; what is the difference between what we mean and what we convey when we say something; and how does a metaphor work.