About the talk
Based on his experience researching and writing Edge of Empires: Chinese Elites and British Colonials in Hong Kong, John Carroll will consider some of the issues involved in studying the history of a place such as Hong Kong (and perhaps Macao), which he argues does not fit neatly into the popular and insightful but often ahistorical and over-generalized theories of Orientalism, subaltern studies, and post-colonialism. Carroll will look at collaboration and resistance, the role of Hong Kong in modern Chinese history, relationships between race and class, the tensions and affinities between Hong Kong as place of transit for emigrants and a permanent home to a class of bilingual and bicultural Chinese and Eurasian elites, and this former colony's geographic and cultural status at the edge of the Chinese and British empires.



About the speaker
John Carroll is Associate Professor of History and Associate Dean in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Hong Kong. After completing his primary and secondary education in Hong Kong, he received his BA from Oberlin College, his MA from the University of Iowa, and his PhD from Harvard University. Apart from Edge of Empires, originally published by Harvard University Press in 2005 and subsequently re-published by Hong Kong University Press in 2007, he is the author of A Concise History of Hong Kong, co-published in 2007 by Rowman and Littlefield and Hong Kong University Press. Both books ground the history of Hong Kong within Chinese history and British imperial history while challenging conventional assumptions about China's encounter with the West. Carroll has also published articles in Modern Asian Studies, Twentieth-Century China, Chinese Historical Review, Journal of Oriental Studies, and China Information. He is currently working on a book on the role of Westerners in the making of modern China.


 

 

 
Rua de Londres 16, Macau
澳門 倫敦街 16 號

Refreshments will be provided

IIUM Library