Starting with Week 2, students are expected to have completed all the required readings for the week before attending the weekly sessions. Items marked with an asterisk (*) are the primary sources of the week.
Week 1 (Sept. 9): Orientation
- John M. Carroll, “Introduction: Hong Kong in History,” A Concise History of Hong Kong (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), 1–7.
- Leo K. Shin, “The ‘National Question’ and the Stories of Hong Kong,” in Hong Kong Culture and Society in the New Millennium: Hong Kong as Method, ed. Stephen Yiu-wai Chu (Singapore: Springer, 2017), 129–48.
- “How to Read a Document” (T. Brook).
Focus: How has the story of Hong Kong been told?
Week 2 (Sept. 14/16): Edge of Empire
- Carroll, “Early Colonial Hong Kong,” Concise History of Hong Kong, 9–32.
- *(?) James Hayes, “Hong Kong Island before 1841,” Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 24 (1984): 105–142.
- *[Optional] Patrick H. Hase, Custom, Land and Livelihood in Rural South China: The Traditional Land Law of Hong Kong’s New Territories, 1750–1950 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2013), 198–206 (items 2 & 3; also available under Files in Canvas).
Focus: How have the limited historical records shape our understanding of pre-colonial Hong Kong?
Week 3 (Sept. 21/23): Colonialism at Work
- Carroll, “State and Society,” Concise History of Hong Kong, 33–62.
- *WANG Tao (1828–97), “My Sojourn in Hong Kong: Excerpts” (after 1870), Renditions 29 & 30 (Spring & Autumn 1988), 37–41.
- *Documents I.c1 (“An increased Chinese community of great importance. . .”) and I.c2 (“Hong Kong in 1882. . .”), in A Documentary History of Hong Kong: Society, ed. David Faure (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1997), 22 (introduction), 23–29, 29–33.
Focus: What were some of the characteristics of the early colonial society?
Week 4 (Sept. 28): Currents of Change
- Carroll, “Colonialism and Nationalism,” Concise History of Hong Kong, 63–88.
- *Documents II.c1 (“In defense of the Chinese community”), II.c2 (“Political activism. . .”), and II.c3 (“A sense of complacence. . .”), in Documentary History of Hong Kong, 85–86 (introduction), 86–88, 88–110, 110–116.
- *Sun Yat-sen, “Address to the Students of Hong Kong University,” Renditions 29 & 30, 42–44.
Focus: What did the elite consider to be the roles of Hong Kong in the transformation of China?
Week 5 (Oct. 5/7): Society in Motion
- Carroll, “Interwar Years,” Concise History of Hong Kong, 89–115.
- *Documents IV.c1 (“In defence of the mui-tsai. . .”), in Documentary History of Hong Kong, 174–75 (introduction), 175–180.
- *Janet Lim, Sold for Silver (Cleveland and New York: The World Publishing Company, 1958), 15–60.
- *Document IV.d2 (“Workers of Hong Kong in the 1930s”), in Documentary History of Hong Kong, 183–191.
- *Document III.9 (“Indian pioneers”), in Documentary History of Hong Kong, 146–148.
Focus: What were some of the sources of opportunities and tensions in Hong Kong society in the 1920s and 1930s?
Week 6 (Oct. 14): Fallen City
- Carroll, “War and Revolution” (up to “Rebuilding Hong Kong”), Concise History of Hong Kong, 116–129.
- *”The Second World War and the Japanese Occupation,” in Documentary History of Hong Kong, 209–232.
- [Recommended] KWONG Chi Man, The Battle of Hong Kong 1941: A Spatial History Project (also: video overview).
Focus: How did people negotiate their daily lives during the War?
Draft of Newspaper Column due on Oct. 16
Week 7 (Oct. 19–23): Midterm Checkup (No class)
No class this week. Students will sign up for individual meetings with the instructor.
Week 8 (Oct. 26/28): Cold War Harbor
- Carroll, “War and Revolution” (from “Rebuilding Hong Kong”) and “A New Hong Kong” (up to “The 1960s”), Concise History of Hong Kong, 129–139, 140–148.
- *Elsie Tu, Colonial Hong Kong in the Eyes of Elsie Tu (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2003), 1–17, 35–56.
- *H. C. Ting, Truth and Facts: Recollections of a Hong Kong Industrialist ([Hong Kong]: [Kader Industrial Co.], [1974]), viii–x, 76–94 (available under Files in Canvas).
Focus: In what ways was Hong Kong reconfigured by the influx of immigrants?
Newspaper column due on Oct. 30
Week 9 (Nov. 2/4): Roaring Sixties
- Carroll, “A New Hong Kong” (from “The 1960s”), Concise History of Hong Kong, 148–166.
- * “Editorial of the People’s Daily on June 3, 1967,” in Gary Ka-wai Cheung, Hong Kong’s Watershed: The 1967 Riots (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2009), 221–222.
- *Sally Blyth and Ian Wotherspoon, “Tsang Yok Sing” and “Sir Jack Cater,” Hong Kong Remembers (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1996), 92–101, 102–112 (available under Files in Canvas).
- *Documents Vl.c2 (“Hong Kong People should care about. . . .”), VI.c3 (“Hong Kong’s undergraduates begin to talk politics”), VI.c4 (Asking Councillor Elsie Elliott and the authorities to think thrice”), and VI.c5 (“Why we should boycott the Festival of Hong Kong”), in A Documentary History of Hong Kong: Government and Politics, ed. Steve Tsang (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1995), 248–253.
Focus: What contributed to a heightened sense of politics in the long 1960s?
Week 10 (Nov. 9/11): Midterm Break (No class)
Annotated Bibliography checkpoint due on Nov. 13
Week 11 (Nov. 16/18): A Sense of Place
- Carroll, “Becoming Hong Kongese,” Concise History of Hong Kong, 167–189.
- Leung Ping-kwan, “Urban Cinema and the Cultural Identity of Hong Kong,” in Cinema of Hong Kong, ed. Poshek Fu and David Desser (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 227–251.
- *Viewing: Nomad 烈火青春 (dir. Patrick Tam; 1982).
- [Optional] 100 Must-See Hong Kong Movies
Focus: What were some of the characteristics of the evolving Hong Kong identity?
Week 12 (Nov. 23/25): Awaiting China
- Carroll, “The Countdown to 1997,” Concise History of Hong Kong, 190–216.
- *Blyth and Wotherspoon, “Raymond Wu,” “Zunzi,” “Martin Lee,” “Rosa Mok and Isaac Leung,” and “Lo Tak Shing,” Hong Kong Remembers, 200–208, 209–216, 233–243, 259–267, 268–275 (available under Files in Canvas).
- *Chapter 2, Chapter 4, and Annex I from The Basic Law of the HKSAR.
- [Recommended]: The Third Heaven (dir. Georges Payrastre; 1998).
Focus: What do the different aspirations for Hong Kong tell us about the territory’s multiple identities?
Week 13 (Nov. 30/Dec. 2): Dreams Deferred
- Tai-lok Lui, Stephen W. K. Chiu, and Ray Yep, “Introduction: The Long Transition,” in Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Hong Kong (London: Routledge, 2019), 1–28.
- *Joshua Wong, “Act I: Genesis,” Unfree Speech (New York: Penguin Books, 2020; available under Files in Canvas).
- *Viewing: After the Protest: A Vancouver Archive of the Umbrella Movement (selections).
- *Law of the People’s Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
Focus: What were some of the sources of anxiety in post-colonial Hong Kong?
Annotated Bibliography due on Dec. 4
Week 14 (Dec. 7): Reorientation / Global Hong Kong
- Miu Chung Yan and Susanna Ng, “Four Waves of Hong Kong Immigrants to Canada: Is There an Emerging Diasporic Community?” in Global Hong Kong: Post-2019 Migration and the New Hong Kong Diaspora, ed. Yuk Wah Chan and Yvette To (London: Routledge, 2025), 91–110.
Focus: How has Hong Kong evolved?