In addition to normal lessons, university students can also acquire knowledge, sometimes outside of the curriculum and their fields of studies, by participating in conferences, seminars, and other academic activities. Unfortunately, all recent events on campus were cancelled due to the COVID-19 outbreak. In May, the Department of Chinese and History attempted to make up the gaps for its undergraduate, master and doctoral students by arranging a series of 33 online seminars on various humanity topics.
The seminars covered 11 knowledge domains, namely the exchange between China and foreign countries, Hong Kong literature, classic literature, contemporary literature and films, arts and natural history, music and theatre performance, cultural heritage, special topics in history, practical Chinese, thesis and doctoral research proposal writing, and archaeology, conservation and the tourist industry.
The wide spectrum of topics ranged from the verses of Chu, Yijing, Chinese gardens, Chinese paintings and calligraphy, poetry and novel writing to the history of travel and tourism, Japanese anime, oral history, the expansion of Buddhism, digital humanity—and many others.
Apart from the faculty members, the Department also invited four guest speakers to share their expertise with the students. LIU Wai-tong, Hong Kong poet, offered bits of advice in finding inspirations for writing poems; Dr CHAN Chun-miu, Part-time Lecturer at Hong Kong Baptist University and Vice President of the Concordia Kunqu Society of Hong Kong, introduced the features of Kunqu, one of the UNESCO-listed Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage; LI Yuhong, Content Director of Hong Kong International New Media Group Limited, discussed storytelling skills; Chris SONG Zijiang, Research Development Officer of Lingnan University’s The Centre for Humanities Research, talked about writing, reading and translating poems.
It was not compulsory for the students to attend this seminar series, but they were encouraged to take the initiative to learn what they are interested in. By participating in online activities together, the students and faculty members can also keep connected as if they had seen each other face-to-face.
