ASIAR

Greening the Belt and Road: Risk Mitigation, Dispute Prevention and Resolution
2022-09-14 10:30 - 12:00 (Asia/Hong_Kong) | online via Zoom or in person (11/F, Academic Conference Room, Faculty of Law, Cheng Yu Tung Tower, HKU)
BRINFAITH | Green BRI
Greening the Belt and Road: Risk Mitigation, Dispute Prevention and Resolution
Keynote Speech: Green Investment Principles Along the Belt and Road
About the SpeakerDr. Ma Jun is currently the Chairman of the Green Finance Committee, China Society for Finance and Banking, and the former member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the People’s Bank of China. He led the drafting of China’s Green Finance Guidelines (2015-16) and facilitated global consensus on scaling up green finance under the G20 framework (2016-18). As a leader in the field of green and sustainable finance, Dr. Ma Jun also serves as the sustainable finance special adviser of the United Nations Environment Programme, the Director of Beijing Green Finance Association, the Chairman and President of Hong Kong Green Finance Association, and many other public welfare duties.

Discussants SpeechesDeveloping Holistic and Locally Based Frameworks for Greening the BRI
Speaker: Prof. David Palmer, HKIHSS/Dept of Sociology

Belt & Road Initiative and Dispute ResolutionSpeaker: Edward Liu, MH, Partner, Haiwen & Partners LLP

Roundtable: Greening the BRI-risk mitigation, dispute resolution and prevention
Discussants:Dr. Ma JunProf. David PalmerMr. Edward LiuProf. Shahla Ali
Rundown:10:30am – 10:35am Welcome and Introduction by Prof. Ali10:35am – 11:05am Presentation by Dr. Ma11:05am – 11:15am Presentation by Prof. Palmer11:15am – 11:25am Presentation by Mr. Liu11:25am – 11:35am Presentation by Prof. Ali11:35am – 12:00nn Open discussion/Q&A

Iran and BRI: A Cultural Perspective of Strategic Cooperation
2022-09-13 13:00 - 14:00 | via Google Meet (Registration Required)
BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES
Iran and BRI: A Cultural Perspective of Strategic Cooperation
ABSTRACTIran and China’s relationship is following a long tradition of exchanges that can be traced back to ancient times. Certainly, when studying the long tradition of Iran and China, we can perceive that the Silk Road was not only linking cities like Xi’an and Isfahan for trade but also facilitated, the exchange of ideas, sciences, education, and intellectual exchanges. One of the most important aspects of Iran and China relations in ancient times is religion. Persian religions including Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism were spread to China by the Iranian elites who have also played an important role in non-Iranian religions in this regard. The relationship between China and Iran has intertwined in history as well as the old and new Silk Road projects and BRI. Indeed, cultural contacts and mutual influence via the Silk Road have been robust throughout the centuries. My speech proposes a new understanding of the old relationship between the two nations in the present cultural and political climate.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERDr. Alireza Khoshrou is currently a senior research associate in China Studies in the Research Department, at the Islamic Cultural and Relation Organization, Iran. He had served as Head of East Asian Religions Studies at the International Center for Interfaith Dialogue (ICRO). Khoshrou is a member of the Faculty of World Studies, University of Tehran and he has written extensively on cross- cultural issues in East Asia and China. Khoshrou graduated from Jilin University. He has been invited as a visiting scholar to several universities, including Chinese Hong Kong University, Waseda University, Jilin University, Shandong University, University of Ljubljana, etc. Dr. Khoshrou’s academic works and research focus on Modern Confucianism, Chinese Culture and Religious Studies and Public Diplomacy.
ORGANIZERThe event is organized by the CRF Project “Infrastructures of Faith: Religious Mobilities on the Belt and Road [BRINFAITH]” (RGC CRF HKU C7052-18G), which is hosted by the ASIAR – Asian Religious Connections Research Cluster in HKIHSS.

Magic Power Reconfigured: Chinese Popular Religion in Cities
2022-05-25 14:00 - 15:00 | Via Zoom (Registration required)
BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES
Magic Power Reconfigured: Chinese Popular Religion in Cities

ABSTRACTThis talk analyzes how divine magic power is reconfigured in the urban setting. The speaker will discuss how a spirit medium, who moved from the countryside in Taiwan to an urban area, refashioned the elements of village religion to cope with the fast life rhythms of adherents who are scattered across the city and no longer share a unified dwelling space. The speaker will examine the spirit medium, the core shrine members, and occasional petitioners, and show how affective and psychological connections have become increasingly important in binding urban adherents to deities. Distinct from Western religious individualism premised on individual preference and freedom of will, the contemporary popular religion in Taiwan is ingrained with kinship intimacy.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERWei-Ping Lin received her Ph.D. in Anthropology from Cambridge University. She is a Professor at National Taiwan University. She was affiliated with the Harvard-Yenching Institute in 2005-06 and 2017-18, and with the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University in 2012-13. Her interests include religion (including topics related to material culture, spirit mediums, and urban religious transformation), kinship, and imagination. She is the author of Materializing Magic Power: Chinese Popular Religion in Villages and Cities (Harvard University Asia Center, 2015), and Island Fantasia: Imagining Subjects on the Military Frontline between China and Taiwan (Cambridge University Press). She also edited Mediating Religion: Music, Image, Object and New Media (Taiwan University Press, 2018; in Chinese) and Ambience Contaminated: Sensory Experiences and the Boundary of Religion (Taiwan University Press, forthcoming; in Chinese).

ORGANIZERThe event is organized by the CRF Project “Infrastructures of Faith: Religious Mobilities on the Belt and Road [BRINFAITH]” (RGC CRF HKU C7052-18G), which is hosted by the ASIAR – Asian Religious Connections Research Cluster in HKIHSS.

“The Dharma Assembly”: Exploring a dynamic infrastructure for contemporary Han Chinese participation in Tibetan Buddhist monastic contexts
2022-05-10 13:00 - 14:00 | Via Zoom (Registration required)
BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES
“The Dharma Assembly”: Exploring a dynamic infrastructure for contemporary Han Chinese participation in Tibetan Buddhist monastic contexts
ABSTRACTDuring the first half of the twentieth century, all but a handful of intrepid Han Chinese practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism undertook the long and difficult journey to the Tibetan plateau. In the contemporary era, however, massively improved transport infrastructures mean that Tibetan sacred landscapes, monastery spaces and ritual gatherings are now important settings for contemporary Han Chinese involvement in Tibetan Buddhism. This talk explores a participatory infrastructure that has played an outsize role in facilitating, focusing, and fostering the visits of Han Chinese Buddhists to Tibetan monastic contexts in the past three decades: namely, the “Dharma assembly.” Drawing on fieldwork findings from the 2010s, I will discuss how Dharma assemblies – large scale multi-day ritual events – have been creatively and flexibly deployed to meet and mediate the needs of Tibetan lamas, their monasteries, and Chinese followers in a period of burgeoning cross-cultural religious encounter.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERCatherine Hardie is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Translation, Interpreting and Intercultural Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University. Her research lies at the intersection of the Tibetan and Chinese cultural worlds with a particular focus on contemporary Han Chinese involvement in Tibetan Buddhism. She completed her doctoral studies in anthropology at the University of Oxford in 2019 with the thesis titled “Tibetan Buddhist Spiritual Capital in Contemporary China.” She is currently working on her first book project as well as extending her research into Tibetan Buddhism in China with a GRF-funded project looking at the platform-based dissemination of Tibetan Buddhism on WeChat and Weibo. Her publication and translation activity to date has centred on Larung Gar, a preeminent Tibetan Buddhist institution and religious settlement in Eastern Tibet. A forthcoming book chapter titled “Innovations in Lay Buddhist Education in New Era China’s Sinophone Tibetan Buddhist Milieu” examines Larung Gar’s impactful and innovative digitally-mediated Buddhist outreach in the Han Chinese world during the culminating decade of China’s reform era (2006-2015).

ORGANIZERThe event is organized by the CRF Project “Infrastructures of Faith: Religious Mobilities on the Belt and Road [BRINFAITH]” (RGC CRF HKU C7052-18G), which is hosted by the ASIAR – Asian Religious Connections Research Cluster in HKIHSS.

"Without ritual, there would be no ethnic culture": Religion and changing Chinese diasporic identity in Vietnam
2022-04-11 13:00 - 14:00 | Via Zoom (Registration required)
BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES
“Without ritual, there would be no ethnic culture”: Religion and changing Chinese diasporic identity in Vietnam
ABSTRACTIn this talk, I will present a total of four case studies to analyse the transformations and hidden discourses of ethnic Chinese (người Hoa 華人) rituals dedicated to public gods. Vietnam’s ethnic Hoa communities have proactively taken advantage of their long-lasting folk religions and ritual system to reserve and further the values of maintaining ethnic cultural identity and developing inter-ethnic exchanges.
With their post-war economic status in decline, Vietnam’s ethnic Chinese have been learning to use their cultural traditions to secure their position in the local society. As a result, the Confucian concept of “Without ritual, there would be no morality” 道德禮儀, 非禮不成 has now been re-formulated as “Without ritual, there would be no ethnic culture” 民族文化, 非禮不成 and been applied to adapt to local socio-political backgrounds in contemporary Vietnamese society.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERNguyen Ngoc Tho (阮玉詩) is Associate Professor in Cultural Studies, majoring in East Asian and Vietnamese folklore and social ritual studies. He concentrates on rituals, customs and daily life of the Vietnamese and ethnic Chinese peoples under the East Asian perspective. He obtained his PhD degree in Vietnam National University – Ho Chi Minh City, was a visiting scholar to Zhongshan University (PRC) in 2008, the Harvard-Yenching Institute during the 2017/2018 academic year, Harvard University’s Asia Centre in 2018/2019, Boston University in 2019/2020, and Brandeis University 2020/2021. Nguyen Ngoc Tho is the author of six books and more than 40 journal articles published in Vietnam and overseas. He holds the co-authorship of dozen other books, book chapters and journal articles. He is currently the Dean of Faculty of Cultural Studies, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University – Ho Chi Minh City. He also serves as a member of the Standing Committee of The National Foundation for Science and Technology Development (NAFOSTED) of Vietnam (Council of Culture, Arts, and Tourism).

ORGANIZERThe event is organized by the CRF Project “Infrastructures of Faith: Religious Mobilities on the Belt and Road [BRINFAITH]” (RGC CRF HKU C7052-18G), which is hosted by the ASIAR – Asian Religious Connections Research Cluster in HKIHSS.

Old Roads, Religious Mobility, and Paradigms of Long-Distance Transmission: Epigraphic and Petroglyphic Complexes in a Transit Zone between Eurasian Frontiers
2022-02-25 10:00 - 11:00 | Via Zoom (Registration required)
BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES
Old Roads, Religious Mobility, and Paradigms of Long-Distance Transmission: Epigraphic and Petroglyphic Complexes in a Transit Zone between Eurasian Frontiers
ABSTRACTGraffiti inscriptions and rock drawings mark an ancient network of capillary routes that connected Central Asian Silk Routes with major South Asian arteries for religious mobility and trade. The presentation aims to showcase developments of digital imaging and mapping techniques to document and promote the tangible cultural heritage of epigraphic and petroglyphic complexes in the Upper Indus transit zone of northern Pakistan. In order to better explain patterns of religious, cultural and commercial exchanges, paradigms of long-distance transmission provide useful alternatives to gradual diffusion by point-to-point contact expansion based on models of ‘Old Roads’ between Chinese, Central Asian and Indian empires.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERJason Neelis, Associate Professor of Religion and Culture at Wilfrid Laurier University and author of Early Buddhist Transmission and Trade Networks (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2010), conducts research on cross-cultural exchanges along intertwined networks for migration, trade, and religious and cultural transmission within and beyond the north-western borderlands of South Asia. He currently directs a project on Epigraphic and Petroglyphic Complexes in the Upper Indus region of northern Pakistan.

ORGANIZERThe event is organized by the CRF Project “Infrastructures of Faith: Religious Mobilities on the Belt and Road [BRINFAITH]” (RGC CRF HKU C7052-18G), which is hosted by the ASIAR – Asian Religious Connections Research Cluster in HKIHSS.

Hidden Treasures of the Silk Road— An Ontological Shift in Thinking of Things
2022-01-26 13:00 - 14:00 | Via Zoom (Registration required)
BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES
Hidden Treasures of the Silk Road—An Ontological Shift in Thinking of Things

ABSTRACTThis talk focuses on an ontological shift in thinking of small-sized Silk Road talismans and amulets. The true value of them has been neglected by previous studies. Among them, the Ordos Bronze Crosses, problematically identified as “Nestorian Crosses,” are central. The argument here is that these objects are better approached from a stance of agential realism that acknowledges them as active actant entangled in the Silk Road network. It is suggested that, as palimpsests, they participated, and continue participating in processes of (de)materialization through means of archaization, nomadic habitual engagement, Christian appropriation, and different material registers, etc. Moreover, in the shamanic worlds of the Silk Road, they were considered “alive” because they possessed nonhuman personhood. In conclusion, these hidden treasures disclose a new paradigm that returns things to their own narratives, from which an ontologically different understanding of the Silk Road emerges.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Andrea Jian Chen (PhD graduate of HKIHSS) is a part-time lecturer and honorary research associate in the Divinity School of Chung Chi College at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research areas include the material cultures of the Silk Road and Steppe Road from pre-historic to Chinese imperial periods. Her interdisciplinary project focuses on small daily objects that reveal intense cross-regional and intercultural communication between Tibet, Inner Mongolia, the Indus Valley, and Central Asia. Her project has yielded peer-reviewed journal articles, contributions to anthologies and conference books, as well as invitations to embark on research trips and deliver public lectures. She teaches courses in the field of religious material culture studies and biblical archaeology.
ORGANIZERThe event is organized by the CRF Project “Infrastructures of Faith: Religious Mobilities on the Belt and Road [BRINFAITH]” (RGC CRF HKU C7052-18G), which is hosted by the ASIAR – Asian Religious Connections Research Cluster in HKIHSS.

The New Mindscape Spiritual Training [First Phase~2022 Summer]
2022-01-17 - 2022-05-31 | HKU campus
The New Mindscape Spiritual Training Programme

Congratulations on completing CCHU 9014, Spirituality, Religion and Social Change!

During the course, you had the opportunity to reflect on many spiritual questions; you learned about different ideas and concepts; and you were exposed to different spiritual practices and social issues.

You might have a lot of questions about how all of this might apply to your own life. How do you cultivate your mindscape? How do we design our operating system?

While the course invited to reflect a little at a personal level, it was still primarily focused on providing academic knowledge and intellectual skills.

For those of you who are strongly motivated to further explore how to live a spiritual path, I’m starting a Spiritual Training Programme. This programme will include practical instruction in practices such as meditation, prayer, and skills for a healthy life; and reflection and discussion on applying spiritual principles to better handle academic work, social relationships, career, family, service, and carrying out our ideals to work for the betterment of humanity.

Part of the programme will involve individual guidance and practice based on your personal interests and situation, and part of it will involve group discussion and study.

The time commitment will be flexible and adjusted to each participant’s commitments and schedule. What is required is strong motivation for your spiritual growth and learning, and commitment to practice and reflection on your practice. You will need at least 20 minutes per day for individual spiritual practice (on your own) and time for occasional gatherings and workshops. The first phase of the programme will last until summer 2022.

The programme is open to those of any religious background or none. No beliefs are required but you need to be open to experimenting with an open mind. If you are religious with a regular worship or practice, we will arrange for the programme to be complementary to your current commitments.

A limited number of participants will be selected based on their motivations and goals. Zoom interviews may be held as part of the selection process. Please answer the questions below as part of your application. I look forward to hearing from you!

David A. Palmer

Application Method (DDL: Dec 10, 2021)
Please answer the following questions in PDF and email the document to asiar “at” hku.hk by Dec 10, 2021:
The email title should be “Your Name + The New Mindscape Spiritual Training Programme”

Basic Information
Your Name:
UID:
Your current study program at HKU:
Year of Study:
Your religious/faith background (if any):

Your reflections and motivations

What is your main takeaway from the course CCHU9014?

What is the biggest question you still have on your mind?

What is your goal for your personal life or spiritual growth in the coming half year?

Online Lecture | Spiritual Capital in Daoism, Confucianism and Buddhism: A Sociological Perspective on Capacity Building
2022-01-11 22:00 - 23:00 | Via Zoom (Registration required)
Click to Register

Reimagining Capital | International learning Series
Spiritual Capital in Daoism, Confucianism and Buddhism: A Sociological Perspective on Capacity Building
The sociological theory of Pierre Bourdieu is one of the main sources for conceptualising spiritual capital. In this framework, spiritual capital would need to be understood through its expression in embodied habits or dispositions (habitus), which are shaped by the social structure (field).
In this talk, Prof. David A. Palmer (HKIHSS) will explore how this framework could apply to understand spiritual capital in the context of Chinese Daoism, Buddhism and Confucianism. This will require a critical inversion of some key aspects of Bourdieu’s conceptualisation, while being attentive to unique understandings and expressions of spiritual capital in different traditions.

Time: January 11, 2022, 10:00 pm (HK Time)
Language: English
Venue: Via ZOOM (Link to be provided after successful registration)

Click to Register

A Half-day Retreat @ HKU + Lung Fu Mountain: Demystifying Mindfulness from the perspectives of Psychology and Buddhism
2021-12-17 13:30 - 18:00 | HKU campus + Lung Fu Mountain, Hong Kong
Activity Highlights Recap: The Present is a present for you

A Half-day Retreat @ HKU + Lung Fu Mountain: Demystifying Mindfulness from the perspectives of Psychology and Buddhism

We spend most of our time learning about the outside world and try to change small parts of it, but most of us know very little about our own inner mindscape, and even less about how to change it for the better.

Mindfulness is one of the most simple yet also profound ways of knowing while transforming our own consciousness into one with more clarity, peace and happiness. It is a widespread practice across different religious traditions and nowadays being even widely applied in fields like psychology, medicine and education.
We now invite you to explore these questions together with us by joining this half-day retreat @HKU + Lung Fu Shan:

1. How can mindfulness connect us to a deeper understanding of self and meaning of life?
2. What insights can we gain if we could learn from both religious and non-religious approaches of mindfulness?
3. What will happen to our daily life and surrounding if we can practice mindfulness from the here and the now?

Date: Dec 17 (Friday) , 2021【Rescheduled】
Time: 13:30 pm-18:00 pm
Venue: HKU campus + Lung Fu Mountain*
Format: Talks + experiential practices in mindful breathing, sitting, stretching and hiking

(Limited quotas are available, first come first serve) *Further details will be sent to you upon successful registration

Activity Highlights Recap: The Present is a present for you

About our guest facilitators

Professor Shui-fong LAMB.A. (CUHK), PGDE (CUHK), M.Ed. (U. of Texas), Ph.D. (U. of Minnesota) Shui-fong LAM is a Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Hong Kong (HKU). She was a recipient of the Outstanding Teaching Award from the HKU, the Outstanding International Scholar Award from the International School Psychology Association, and the Knowledge Exchange Award from the Social Sciences Faculty at HKU. She is now the Director of the Jockey Club “Peace and Awareness” Mindfulness Culture in Schools Initiative. It is her aspiration to promote mental health of students, teachers, and parents in Hong Kong through the training and research in mindfulness.

Plum Village Hong Kong Founded by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, Plum Village began in 1982 as a small, rustic farmstead, and has today grown into Europe’s largest Buddhist monastery. “At Plum Village we weave mindfulness into all our daily activities, training ourselves to be mindful throughout the day: while eating, walking, working, or enjoying a cup of tea together. Plum Village is a home away from home, and a beautiful, nourishing, simple environment in which to cultivate the mind of awakening.” Its center in HK was founded in November 2008 as a non-profit making, charitable, religious and educational organization to promote the teachings and practice of Buddhism in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh and Plum Village, France.

About Event Co-curators

The New Mindscape
The New Mindscape provides a spiritual and intellectual space on re-imaging and re-building the self and society, with multimedia content (readings, videos and community events) developed from CCHU9014 Spirituality, Religion and Social Change, an HKU common core course taught by Prof. David A. Palmer who’s an anthropologist in exploring different realities.

The Art of Happiness
The Art of Happiness HKU is a community of inner discovery, mindfulness, and self-care. We rediscover happiness in psychology, philosophy, arts, and spirituality, and turn ideas into weekly practice.

New Visions for the New Globality: China’s BRI vs. Russia’s Greater Eurasian Space
2021-12-15 13:00 - 14:00 | Via Zoom (Registration required)
BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES
New Visions for the New Globality: China’s BRI vs. Russia’s Greater Eurasian Space
ABSTRACTThe Belt and Road Initiative has caused a lot of controversy in Russia’s expert discussion. Formally, Moscow is very enthusiastic about the BRI project and considers it a positive factor in international relations. Russian-Chinese relations have reached their peak politically and militarily, though at the same time, Russia has proposed its own, very complex integration project, which is formalized as the Eurasian Economic Union, which has been supported not only by a number of post-Soviet states but also by Singapore and Vietnam. Besides, Russia has also put forward its global initiative, the Great Eurasian Space, which is supposed to unite dozens of states based on common values, science and education systems, and common approaches to problem-solving. Although the BRI and the EAEU have signed a cooperation agreement, at first glance, the idea of the BRI and the Greater Eurasian Space may contradict each other. Thus, both China and Russia have global ideas that are equally close and distant from each other. We cannot exclude that Russia, supporting the BRI, is developing its own independent “third way,” which could manifest itself in a decade.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERAlexey Maslov, Ph.D., Professor, is one of the leading Russian scholars and internationally renowned experts in Chinese studies and Russian-Chinese relations. At the present moment, he holds the position of Head of the Institute of Asian and African Studies of the Moscow State University, the leading education center and think-tank on Asian Studies in Russia. His previous positions include Acting Director of the Institute of Far Eastern Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Head of the School of Asian Studies at the HSE University (Moscow). Professor Maslov is a state-level expert in negotiations between Russia and China on the most important issues, and an expert for the Russian Council of International Relations. Professor Maslov graduated from Moscow State University and has been invited as a visiting professor to several leading universities, including New York State University, Heidelberg University, Cambridge University, Shanxi Normal University, etc. He has published 11 books on Chinese studies.

ORGANIZERThe event is organized by the CRF Project “Infrastructures of Faith: Religious Mobilities on the Belt and Road [BRINFAITH]” (RGC CRF HKU C7052-18G), which is hosted by the ASIAR – Asian Religious Connections Research Cluster in HKIHSS.

E-Workshop: GLOBAL CHINESE CATHOLICISM
2021-12-08 - 2021-12-10 | Via Zoom (Registration required)
In Collaboration with Initiative for the Study of Asian Catholics
E-WORKSHOP: GLOBAL CHINESE CATHOLICISM
ONLINE – 8, 9, 10 December 2021 ​
This workshop explores the lived realities of Chinese Catholic communities established around the world as well as interactions among them and with Chinese Catholics in China.
​While most of the literature on Chinese Catholicism focuses either on its history in mainland China or on its complicated relationship with the Chinese Communist Party, this workshop turns the spotlight on the many Chinese Catholic communities who have long been living in Sao Paulo, Milano, Melbourne, Mexico, Kuala Lumpur, etc. Often, those communities are presented as a result of past migrations or as a mere attempt to preserve a particular ethno-religious identity. Thus, little attention is given to their on-going transformation and development – nor to their relations to other Chinese catholic communities present either around the globe or in mainland China. Furthermore, while social scientists have been paying a renewed interest in the Chinese diaspora and its religious dimensions, little attention has been oriented toward global Chinese Catholicism. Therefore, this e-workshop intends to not only investigate the diversity of global Chinese Catholic communities but also their current evolutions and networking.

To explore the on-going transformation of Global Chinese Catholicism, applicants are invited to consider the following questions:
What are the main features of Chinese Catholic communities present around the world? Which kind of ‘Chineseness’ are they producing and displaying? How are regional Chinese languages (Cantonese, Hokkien, etc.) and distinctive rituals (Lunar New Year, etc.) shaping their collective identities – as well as their relationship to specific regions of the People’s Republic of China (Provinces in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao)?How is the Catholic religion passed on within families? What are the consequences of a settlement outside the country of origin on the transfer of the faith to the following generations? Does the secularization of certain countries have an influence on the passing on of the Catholic religion?How do ethnically Chinese laypeople, extended families, and clergy members interact and shape those Chinese Catholic communities and their transnational interactions? How are they mobilizing new technologies and digital platforms to form and reform their communities and networks? How are Chinese Catholics living in Manila, Paris, Mexico, etc. negotiating their ethno-religious specificities with local governmental and ecclesial authorities? How do they respond to local socio-political and theological ideologies defining plurality as well as social and religious coexistence?What are the transnational networks and circulations that global Chinese Catholicism generates (migrations for work, study, marriage, etc.)? How is the new global importance of China impacting those networks? (For instance, Chinese Catholics from mainland China going for pilgrimages to Rome, Paris, Saigon, Manilla; the influx of Chinese priests and nuns from mainland China serving those Global Chinese communities). How is the growing international presence of China transforming those Chinese Catholic communities? Which kind of new economic, political, religious opportunities and challenges does it bring? How are global Chinese Catholic communities responding to renewed anti-Chinese sentiments that the growing presence of China and the Covid-19 pandemic can generate?​
This e-workshop is the first step of a collaborative project sponsored by ISAC and BRINFAITH to foster research on Global Chinese Catholicism. This e-workshop will occur online through zoom. It will be on December 8, 9, and 10, from 8 pm to 10 pm (Singapore Time), to accommodate researchers around the globe.
​

REGISTRATION
If you are interested in auditing or joining this e-workshop, please register by clicking on the link below or by sending an email to: globalchinesecatholicism@gmail.com.

WORKSHOP COORDINATORS
Eva Salerno and Angeline Wong

Registration

Dec 8Dec 9Dec 10

Wednesday, 8 December 2021
8.00 p.m. (Singapore Time) : Opening Remarks: Eva Salerno and Angeline Wong
PANEL 1 – Moderator: Jonathan Tan

8.05 p.m.: 500 Years of Christianity in the Philippines:
China and the Chinese Connections
Teresita Ang See (Past President of Philippine Association for Chinese Studies; Executive Trustee, Kaisa Heritage Center, Philippines)

8.25 p.m.: Chinese-Filipino Catholicism: Fusion or Confusion?
Fr. Aristotle C. Dy (School President, Xavier School, Philippines)
​
8.45 p.m.: Q&A Session

Thursday, 9 December 2021

PANEL 2 – Moderator: Michel Chambon
8.00 p.m. (Singapore Time): The Pastoral Work of the Catholic Clergy with regard to the Chinese Diaspora in Lyon (France)
LIVE Yu-Sion (Sociologist, Université de La Reunion, France)

8.20 p.m.: Making Nuns in Manila
George Bayuga (Instructor of Anthropology at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, United States)
​
8.40 p.m.: Q&A Session

Friday, 10 December 2021

PANEL 3 – Moderator: Bernardo Brown
​
8.00 p.m. (Singapore Time): Hakka migrants and Chinese Catholics in Jamaica
Zichan Qiu (Research Assistant, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong) and Ji Li (Assistant Professor of History at the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong)

8.20 p.m.: Dialogue in a Multireligious and Political Ecosystem: Understanding Catholic Relations with Other Religions in Mainland China
Stephanie M. Wong (Assistant Professor of Theology, Valparaiso University, Indiana, US)
​
8.40 p.m.: Q&A Session
​
9:45 p.m.: Concluding Remarks, David Palmer BRINFAITH

Film Screening: The Exemplar + Centenary Commemoration
2021-11-27 19:30 - 21:00 | Run Run Shaw Tower, CPD-3.04, The University of Hong Kong
Film Screening: The Exemplar + Centenary Commemoration

“A thought of hatred must be destroyed by a more powerful thought of love”

The film “The Exemplar” is about the life of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Abbás (1844-1921), a Persian philosopher, spiritual leader and central figure of the Bahá’í Faith who promoted teachings of peace, unity, gender equality and religious harmony to audiences throughout the Middle East, Europe and North America. “A thought of hatred must be destroyed by a more powerful thought of love”, he taught.
The film recounts how his example has inspired people from all over the world to overcome their prejudices, to heal disunity in their communities, and to strive for peace and harmony in service to humanity. At a time when many communities and countries around the world are deeply divided and many are in despair about their future, this film, produced to commemorate the centenary of the passing of ‘Abdul-Bahá, aims to kindle the spirit of love, unity and service to humanity in the hearts of its audiences.
Prof. David A. Palmer (Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences; Department of Sociology, The University of Hong Kong) will moderate the introductory and Q&A sessions of the event.

Registration is REQUIRED: https://bit.ly/TheExemplar (DDL: Nov 25, 2021)

Reflecting on Maritime Transportation as the Sinew of Commerce and Conflict
2021-11-22 18:30 - 19:30 | Via Zoom (Registration required)
BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES
Reflecting on Maritime Transportation as the Sinew of Commerce and Conflict
ABSTRACTIn this talk, drawing from her recent book, Sinews of War and Trade, Professor Laleh Khalili will discuss the centrality of maritime transport infrastructures to the making of capitalism in the Arabian Peninsula. She will highlight histories of colonialism, labour struggles, and war-making as central to the forging of these infrastructures.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERLaleh Khalili is a Professor of International Politics at Queen Mary University of London and the author of Heroes and Martyrs of Palestine: The Politics of National Commemoration (Cambridge 2007), Time in the Shadows: Confinement in Counterinsurgencies (Stanford 2013), and Sinews of War and Trade (Verso 2020).

ORGANIZERThe event is organized by the CRF Project “Infrastructures of Faith: Religious Mobilities on the Belt and Road [BRINFAITH]” (RGC CRF HKU C7052-18G), which is hosted by the ASIAR – Asian Religious Connections Research Cluster in HKIHSS.

Interfaith Workshop: Introduction to the teaching of Bahá’i Faith
2021-11-13 10:30 - 12:30 | HKU campus
Interfaith Workshop:
Introduction to the teaching of Bahá’i Faith

“The Earth is but one country and Mankind its citizens.”— Baháʼu’lláh

Animated by the principle of the oneness of humanity, the Bahá’í community of Hong Kong is exploring with people of all backgrounds on how Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings can be translated into action to contribute to the emergence of a peaceful and materially and spiritually prosperous civilization. Through this workshop, you will have a better understandings of Bahá’i faith and how it is practiced in actions.

Date: November 13 (Saturday)Time: 10:30 am-12:30 noonVenue: HKU campus*
(Limited quotas are available, first come first serve)
*Further details will be sent to you upon successful registration

Interfaith Workshop: Introduction to the life of Muslim in Hong Kong
2021-11-12 19:00 - 20:30 | HKU campus
Interfaith Workshop:Introduction to the life of Muslim in Hong Kong

“Do not lose hope, nor be sad.”
— Quran 3:139

A group of Hong Kong-based Muslim students are invited to be our guest speakers. Previously, they have organized a series of interesting events, including tea party and lunch buffet, to strengthen the relationship between Muslim and non-Muslim students. In this workshop, you will be introduced to some basic knowledge of Islam, Muslim’s life in Hong Kong, and prayer’s demonstration.

Date: November 12 (Friday)Time: 7:00-8:30 pmVenue: HKU campus*
(Limited quotas are available, first come first serve)
*Further details will be sent to you upon successful registration

Infrastructure and Connectivity across the Karakoram-Pamir Watershed, since 1918
2021-10-04 13:00 - 14:00 | Via Zoom (Registration required)
BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES
Infrastructure and Connectivity across the Karakoram-Pamir Watershed, since 1918
ABSTRACTLocated at the crossroads of Central, East, and South Asia, the watershed that divides the Karakoram and Pamir mountains today also serves a geopolitical function in marking the territorial boundary between the People’s Republic of China and Pakistan. This high mountain region is home to the Kirghiz and the Wakhi, people who previously had moved within the Karakoram and Pamir mountains pursuing small trade, in search of fresh pasture, and occasionally for political reasons. Situating himself on the “Karakoram side”, in this talk, Dr. Hasan H. Karrar will describe how, beginning in the twentieth century, this region was transformed into a frontier by distant political centers projecting sovereignty; furthermore, this frontier would continue to iterate for the next century. Pivoting from the origins of postal service across the Karakoram-Pamir — which arrived in Misgar, the northernmost settlement in British India, in 1918 — to mid-century aviation, road construction, and finally economic corridor development under the Belt and Road Initiative, Dr. Karrar will illustrate how these particular infrastructural forms, which on the one hand enhanced connectivity, have also kept the region subservient to national and transnational interests, from the early twentieth century to the present.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERHasan H. Karrar is an Associate Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Lahore University of Management Sciences, Pakistan. He has published research on China, Central Asia, and the Karakoram region in north Pakistan. His current research is variously focused on bazaars and small traders, informality and financialization, and everyday securitization and development.

ORGANIZERThe event is organized by the CRF Project “Infrastructures of Faith: Religious Mobilities on the Belt and Road [BRINFAITH]” (RGC CRF HKU C7052-18G), which is hosted by the ASIAR – Asian Religious Connections Research Cluster in HKIHSS.

History Written in Advance: The Temporal Politics of Learning Mandarin for Jehovah’s Witnesses in Zambia
2021-09-23 13:00 - 14:00 | Via Zoom (Registration required)
BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES
History Written in Advance: The Temporal Politics of Learning Mandarin for Jehovah’s Witnesses in Zambia

ABSTRACTOver the last decade, there have been a proliferating number of Mandarin-language Jehovah’s Witnesses congregations in Zambia. These congregations are almost exclusively composed of local Zambians who have learned Mandarin as a second language, and count few to no ethnic Chinese congregants among their number. Nevertheless, these congregations conduct their meetings exclusively in Mandarin, and their Zambian congregants have attained a very high degree of fluency in Mandarin. Though ostensibly formed for the purpose of evangelizing to Zambia’s rapidly growing Chinese migrant community, members of the congregation emphasize that the apparent lack of Chinese converts is no failure at all. Regardless of the outcome of their efforts, what is important is that their intense evangelizing is part of an ongoing fulfillment of their obligations to Jehovah God. Thus, the relations between these Witnesses and the Chinese they proselytize to are not dialogic but triangular. Their evangelizing efforts represent a challenge to secular time: while secular portrayals of Chinese expatriates “buying up” Zambia rest upon teleological assumptions of economic and political development, these congregations of Jehovah’s Witnesses act upon a temporal horizon in which biblical truths must be quickly spread before the rapidly approaching dissolution of the current system of things.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERJustin Haruyama is a Ph.D. candidate in cultural anthropology at University of California, Davis. His research examines the controversial presence of Chinese migrants in Africa today, with a focus on social interactions between Chinese expatriate and local Zambian communities as they come to interact in contexts of work and religion in southern Zambia.

ORGANIZERThe event is organized by the CRF Project “Infrastructures of Faith: Religious Mobilities on the Belt and Road [BRINFAITH]” (RGC CRF HKU C7052-18G), which is hosted by the ASIAR – Asian Religious Connections Research Cluster in HKIHSS.

Making the Muslim World in the Age of Britain’s Steam and Print Initiative
2021-06-30 09:30 - 10:30 | Via Zoom (Registration required)
BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES
Making the Muslim World in the Age of Britain’s Steam and Print Initiative
ABSTRACTEuropean Imperialism during the long 19th century was characterized by increasing connectivity and mobility across Asia due to infrastructure grid of steamships and trains, telegraph lines and printing press. Symbolized by the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, this era of connectivity linking the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean also coincided with the growth of Muslim modernism and Pan-Islamic visions of solidarity. This paper revisits the period from the 1860s to the 1920s, retrospectively characterized as the high age of racialized empires, to explore how the era of steam and print contributed to the emergence of new geopolitical, religious and civilizational discourses on the Muslim World. The presentations will also discuss the legacies of this experience for the 20th century story of decolonization, internationalism, nationalism, and religious revival.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERCemil Aydin is professor of international/global history at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill’s Department of History. He studied at Boğaziçi University, İstanbul University, and the University of Tokyo before receiving his Ph.D. degree at Harvard University in 2002. Cemil Aydin’s publications include his book on the Politics of Anti-Westernism in Asia (Columbia University Press, 2007); The Idea of the Muslim World: A Global Intellectual History (Harvard University Press, Spring 2017); “Regions and Empires in Political History of the World, 1750 – 1924” in An Emerging Modern World, 1750 – 1870 (A History of the World, Book 4) Ed. by Jurgen Osterhammel and Sebastian Conrad (Harvard University Press, May 2018), pp: 33-277.

ORGANIZERThe event is organized by the CRF Project “Infrastructures of Faith: Religious Mobilities on the Belt and Road [BRINFAITH]” (RGC CRF HKU C7052-18G), which is hosted by the ASIAR – Asian Religious Connections Research Cluster in HKIHSS.

Circulations and Convergences: Mecca in the Conceptions and Mobilities of Chinese Muslim Diasporas in Saudi Arabia
2021-05-17 13:00 - 14:00 | Via Zoom (Registration required)
BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES
Circulations and Convergences: Mecca in the Conceptions and Mobilities of Chinese Muslim Diasporas in Saudi Arabia
ABSTRACTMecca is often viewed through the angles of the pilgrimage, empires, Saudi foreign policy, and a source of religious movements elsewhere. While building on such transnational angles, this talk proposes to view Mecca as a convergence point and an intermediary site that has hosted and re-directed mobilities of diaspora populations from across Asia. Specifically, I will focus on an eclectic community of first to third-generation Chinese Muslim settlers in the Hejaz (western coasts of the Arabian Peninsula) who themselves or whose predecessors arrived in the region at different points in time between the 1930s and 2010s — as pilgrims, exiles, and students. The talk shows that the variegated routes between Mecca and China, coupled with imaginaries on the city as a distant home place of origin, served as a rare constant orienting force that sustained two-directional mobilities of Chinese Muslim diasporas through the wars and revolutions of the modern times.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERJanice Hyeju Jeong is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Göttingen, Department of East Asian Studies. She is a part of the research team “Conceptions of World Order and their Social Carriers” under the project “Worldmaking: A Dialogue with China,” which is funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Her broad research interests include Inter-Asian connections, History and Anthropology, and Sino-Islamic networks. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii and raised in Seoul, Jeong completed B.A. and Ph.D degrees at Duke University, and has had affiliations with the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, Peking University, and New York University Shanghai during fieldwork.

ORGANIZERThe event is organized by the CRF Project “Infrastructures of Faith: Religious Mobilities on the Belt and Road [BRINFAITH]” (RGC CRF HKU C7052-18G), which is hosted by the ASIAR – Asian Religious Connections Research Cluster in HKIHSS.

The New Faith Roads in Southeast Asia: Dynamics of a Circulatory Missionary Process
2021-04-28 20:00 - 21:00 | Via Zoom (Registration required)
BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES
The New Faith Roads in Southeast Asia: Dynamics of a Circulatory Missionary Process
ABSTRACTThis lecture on proselytizing to/from Southeast Asia is a critical reflection on a major shift in the world’s religious balance, with geopolitical, sociological and economic implications. Our mapping of religious mutations and issues in Southeast Asia requires an appropriate and dynamic definition of this space, which has been the site of proselytizing networks from outside but also within Asia, whose actions are very often justified by humanitarian ideals. Interestingly, a series of Southeast Asian missionary networks or strategies have recently been giving rise to complex ‘reversed missions.’ In a comparative approach, case studies of Evangelical-Pentecostal, Islamic and Buddhist missionary programs in Southeast Asia since the 1950s will be examined. As a result, contemporary religious dynamics will be considered as a circulatory and interactive process consisting of actors and networks, ideas and values, and identity claims, situated at the crossroads of local, regional and global influences.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERJérémy Jammes is Professor of Anthropology and Asian Studies at the Lyon Institute of Political Studies (Lyon Sciences Po, France) and Research Fellow at the Lyon Institute of East Asian Studies (IAO). He is the author of a monograph on Caodai religion, as well of edited volumes on Southeast Asian regional outlooks. He recently co-edited a volume on Christian Evangelicals in Southeast Asia (with Pascal Bourdeaux, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2016) and another on Muslim Piety as Economy: Markets, Meaning and Morality in Southeast Asian (with Johan Fischer, Routledge, 2020). He was Deputy Director of the French Research Institute on Contemporary Southeast Asia (IRASEC, from 2010 to 2014), and Director of the Institute of Asian Studies (Universiti Brunei Darussalam, from 2016 to 2018).

ORGANIZERThe event is organized by the CRF Project “Infrastructures of Faith: Religious Mobilities on the Belt and Road [BRINFAITH]” (RGC CRF HKU C7052-18G), which is hosted by the ASIAR – Asian Religious Connections Research Cluster in HKIHSS.

The Politics of Muslim Infrastructure in Tanzania
2021-03-18 18:00 - 19:00 | Via Zoom (Registration required)
BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES
The Politics of Muslim Infrastructure in Tanzania
ABSTRACTKariakoo is an old residential area in the city of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. In recent decades, it has transformed into a super-dense commercial district. Droves of people converge in its streets every day to trade goods which go on to be circulated across the city and the wider East African region. While Kariakoo is a religiously mixed setting, it features a pronounced concentration of Muslim social practices and material forms. In recent years, a number of the district’s large mosques have acted as rallying points for protests against social injustice.
In this lecture, I explore questions of Muslim infrastructure that have emerged through my experience of living and conducting ethnographic fieldwork in Kariakoo. My analysis centres on two different modalities of Muslim infrastructure. The first is a set of informal arrangements devised by residents in Kariakoo through which Muslim practices and material forms are configured as infrastructure for the district. I examine how these arrangements magnify the capacity of residents to secure livelihoods and articulate claims. The second is an apparatus of facilities and services dispersed across Tanzania that is configured by a centralised institution as a national infrastructure for Muslims. I explore contestations in Kariakoo surrounding the governance of this apparatus and the unfulfilled promises of welfare and social mobility that it indexes.
My analysis of how these projects are devised and disputed in Kariakoo offers a window into broader questions of Muslim politics and identity formation in Tanzania. More specifically, I bring into view how infrastructural concerns suffuse itineraries of Muslim political expression in Tanzania, and in turn how Muslim infrastructure projects become grounds for contestation through which novel constellations of Muslim subjectivity are forged. With these insights, I seek to demonstrate some of the analytic benefits of thinking infrastructurally about religion, and in doing so contribute to recent multidisciplinary work on infrastructure.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERBenjamin Kirby is a British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Leeds where he is affiliated with the Centre for Religion and Public Life (CRPL) and the Leeds University Centre for African Studies (LUCAS). Ben’s research explores questions of religious politics and urban mutuality from the vantage point of rapidly-growing cities in the African continent. His work is positioned at the interface of religious studies, African studies, and urban studies. As part of his postdoctoral project funded by the British Academy, Ben is currently finalising a monograph on the politics of Muslim infrastructure in Dar es Salaam, while developing a more comparative angle on these issues through multi-sited fieldwork in Durban and Kampala. Alongside Dr Yanti Hoelzchen, he is also coordinating a research project entitled “Conceptualising Religious Infrastructure” which is funded by DFG Programme Point Sud and the Frobenius Institute. This project brings together an international and interdisciplinary team of researchers to extend the analytic potential of religious infrastructure as a term for studying social entanglements. The first collection of publications — a thematic issue for a leading religious studies journal — will appear in 2022.

ORGANIZERThe event is organized by the CRF Project “Infrastructures of Faith: Religious Mobilities on the Belt and Road [BRINFAITH]” (RGC CRF HKU C7052-18G), which is hosted by the ASIAR – Asian Religious Connections Research Cluster in HKIHSS.

The Universal Enemy: Jihad, Empire, and the Challenge of Solidarity
2021-03-01 10:00 - 11:00 | Via Zoom (Registration required)
BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES
The Universal Enemy: Jihad, Empire, and the Challenge of Solidarity

ABSTRACT
No contemporary figure is more demonized than the Islamist foreign fighter who wages jihad around the world. Spreading violence, disregarding national borders, and rejecting secular norms, so-called jihadists seem opposed to universalism itself. In a radical departure from conventional wisdom on the topic, The Universal Enemy argues that transnational jihadists are engaged in their own form of universalism: these fighters struggle to realize an Islamist vision directed at all of humanity, transcending racial and cultural difference.
Anthropologist and attorney Darryl Li reconceptualizes jihad as armed transnational solidarity under conditions of American empire, revisiting a pivotal moment after the Cold War when ethnic cleansing in the Balkans dominated global headlines. Muslim volunteers came from distant lands to fight in Bosnia-Herzegovina alongside their co-religionists, offering themselves as an alternative to the US-led international community. Li highlights the parallels and overlaps between transnational jihads and other universalisms such as the War on Terror, United Nations peacekeeping, and socialist Non-Alignment. Developed from more than a decade of research with former fighters in a half-dozen countries, The Universal Enemy explores the relationship between jihad and American empire to shed critical light on both.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERDarryl Li is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Associate Member of the Law School at the University of Chicago.

ORGANIZERThe event is organized by the CRF Project “Infrastructures of Faith: Religious Mobilities on the Belt and Road [BRINFAITH]” (RGC CRF HKU C7052-18G), which is hosted by the ASIAR – Asian Religious Connections Research Cluster in HKIHSS.

Religion as Infrastructure: Congolese Migration, Diaspora, and Religious Networks
2021-01-25 17:00 - 18:00 | Via Zoom (Registration required)
BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES
Religion as Infrastructure: Congolese Migration, Diaspora, and Religious Networks
ABSTRACT
In the last two decades, African charismatic and (neo)-Pentecostal communities have arisen in many metropolises globally. Questioning a traditional notion of infrastructure that focuses solely on architectures and utilities, Dr. Heck will show in her presentation, how revival churches have become powerful infrastructural actors, of which Congolese migrants, make use on their migratory routes and beyond. Dr. Heck’s presentation is based on findings from a multi-sited ethnography on the role of (neo) Pentecostal churches on the migration routes of Congolese migrants, which she carried out since 2010.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERGerda Heck has a shared position as an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology, Egyptology and Anthropology and the Center for Migration and Refugee Studies (CMRS) at The American University in Cairo. Her academic work and research focus on migration and border regimes, urban studies, transnational migration, migrant networks and self-organizing, religion, and new concepts of citizenship. She has conducted research in Germany, Brazil, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, France, Morocco, Turkey and the USA. Apart from her own research projects, she has participated in various international research projects. From 2010 to 2013, she was a postdoctoral fellow in the international and interdisciplinary research project, Global Prayers – Redemption and Liberation in the City. In 2016, she conducted research in Turkey within the scope of the international research project, Transit Migration 2: A Research Project on the De-and Re-Stabilizations of the European Border Regime. Beyond her research and teaching, she frequently develops media or art projects in which she combines science, art and film. Together with the artist Christian Hanussek, she produced an artistic mapping on African traders in Guangzhou (China), which has among others been shown at the Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/ Architecture (UABB) in Shenzhen, China as well as the Chinafrika project in Leipzig.

ORGANIZERThe event is organized by the CRF Project “Infrastructures of Faith: Religious Mobilities on the Belt and Road [BRINFAITH]” (RGC CRF HKU C7052-18G), which is hosted by the ASIAR – Asian Religious Connections Research Cluster in HKIHSS.

Supporting the Faith, Building the Empire: Imperial Japan’s Islamic Policies in World War II
2020-12-03 20:00 - 21:00 | Via Zoom (Registration required)
BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES
Supporting the Faith, Building the Empire: Imperial Japan’s Islamic Policies in World War II

ABSTRACT

This talk will examine some of the ways that the Japanese Empire curried favors to Muslims in China, and later throughout East Asia, in the lead up to and throughout World War II. Drawing on examples from my recent book, China’s Muslims and Japan’s Empire: Centering Islam in World War II, the talk will present viewers with concrete policies and explore some of the ways that the Japanese Government envisioned themselves as the benevolent protectors of Islam while at the same time advancing their imperial, expansionist visions. For their part, Muslims from around the colonial world found the anti-western and anti-Soviet rhetoric expounded by the Japanese Empire appealing to a certain extent. By placing Muslims at the center of Japan’s imperial ambitions, it becomes clear that their visions for empire went far beyond what we would now consider to be the geographic boundaries of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere into predominantly Islamic spaces like Central Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERDr. Kelly Hammond is an assistant professor in the Department of History at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Dr. Hammond received her Ph.D. in East Asian history from Georgetown University in July 2015. Her work specializes in the history of Islam in East Asia, particularly focusing on the political, social, and cultural history of Chinese Muslims from the Qing Dynasty through into the People’s Republic of China. Her current project argues that Chinese Muslims living under occupation who collaborated with the Japanese imperial project were actively involved in creating an on-going dialogue between the Japanese Empire and the Chinese Nationalists about strategies for managing minority populations. While Dr. Hammond’s work focuses on the history of Islam in East Asia, her general research interests include the broader study of imperialism and nationalism in Asia, minority populations in China’s borderlands, World War II in the Pacific, espionage history, as well as the history of the relationship between nomads and settled peoples in East Asian history. Her recent work has been supported by the Henry Luce Foundation/ACLS China Studies postdoctoral fellowship, the Center for Chinese Studies in Taiwan, the American Philosophical Association, and the Kluge Center at the Library of Congress, where she is currently a fellow-in-residence. Dr. Hammond also serves on the editorial board of Twentieth-Century China.

ORGANIZERThe event is organized by the CRF Project “Infrastructures of Faith: Religious Mobilities on the Belt and Road [BRINFAITH]” (RGC CRF HKU C7052-18G), which is hosted by the ASIAR – Asian Religious Connections Research Cluster in HKIHSS.

China’s Islamic Outreach to the Middle East
2020-11-25 13:00 - 14:00 | Via Zoom (Registration required)
BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES
China’s Islamic Outreach to the Middle East

ABSTRACTThroughout its existence, the People’s Republic of China has depended on Chinese Muslims to foster relationships in the Arab world. But Beijing’s strategies for engaging its Muslim population in foreign outreach have changed dramatically over time. This lecture will focus on the city of Yinchuan, the capital of China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, which was built up during the 2010s to be a locus for engagement with the Middle East. By tracing Yinchuan’s ups and downs over the past decade, this lecture will explain the evolution of China’s diplomacy toward the Middle East and examine the ways in which China continues to rely on Islam, even at a time when religiosity in China is more contentious than ever before.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERDr. Kyle Haddad-Fonda is a fellow with the Foreign Policy Association and a producer for its Great Decisions documentary series on American public television. He is also a frequent commentator on China’s relations with the Middle East and a lecturer in the History Department of the University of Washington in Seattle. He holds a DPhil in Oriental Studies from the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

ORGANIZERThe event is organized by the CRF Project “Infrastructures of Faith: Religious Mobilities on the Belt and Road [BRINFAITH]” (RGC CRF HKU C7052-18G), which is hosted by the ASIAR – Asian Religious Connections Research Cluster in HKIHSS.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative in Nepal: National Imaginaries, Ethnographic Anxieties, and Geopolitical Power
2020-11-05 20:00 - 21:00 | Via Zoom (Registration required)
BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES
China’s Belt and Road Initiative in Nepal: National Imaginaries, Ethnographic Anxieties, and Geopolitical Power
ABSTRACTThis talk examines China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Nepal to argue that infrastructure is a symbolic project of national development imaginaries, a process and practice of state formation, and a vector for the spatial operations of geopolitical power. Contextualized by a five-year development trajectory and accentuated with agreements from the Second Belt and Road Forum in May 2019, I show how BRI programs in Nepal reflect a new phase of Sino-Nepali geopolitics which I conceptualize as ‘infrastructural relations.’ While these infrastructural relations between Beijing and Kathmandu are routinely framed at geopolitical scales, it is also evident that they operate at personal and bodily levels. That is, attention to BRI activities in Nepal’s borderland regions, where Tibetan religious and linguistic practices proliferate, reveals that ethnographic anxieties also motivate China’s international infrastructure development agenda. Highlighting the cultural dimensions often hidden within broader geopolitical discourse on the BRI in Nepal, I unpack how new configurations of bilateral energy, transport, and security collaboration between Nepal and China also index a new model of development with Chinese characteristics in the trans-Himalaya region.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERGalen Murton is Assistant Professor of Geographic Science at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, USA. Trained in human geography, international relations, and comparative religion, he is broadly interested in the politics of the international development, and especially how power operates spatially through the material and social forms of infrastructure. In 2018 – 19, he was a Marie S. Curie Action Fellow at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and completed the project “Road Diplomacy: International Infrastructure and Ethnography of Geopolitics in 21st Century Asia”. He recently published special issues in Political Geography, Studies in Nepali History and Society (SINHAS), and Roadsides and his co-edited volume Highways and Hierarchies: Ethnographies of Mobility from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean is forthcoming in 2021 from Amsterdam University Press.

ORGANIZERThe event is organized by the CRF Project “Infrastructures of Faith: Religious Mobilities on the Belt and Road [BRINFAITH]” (RGC CRF HKU C7052-18G), which is hosted by the ASIAR – Asian Religious Connections Research Cluster in HKIHSS.

Islamic Belongings to Chinese Society: Taboo, Tolerance and the Ban on Alcohol in a Chinese Hui Muslim Town
2020-09-28 11:00 - 12:00 | Via Zoom (Registration required)
BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES
Islamic Belongings to Chinese Society: Taboo, Tolerance and the Ban on Alcohol in a Chinese Hui Muslim Town

ABSTRACTThis talk will focus on how Chinese Hui Muslim men and women living in Southwest China think about haram prohibitions in Islam. When confronted with alcohol in the course of daily life with others, they resort to the practice of staying away from haram that seems to depend on the presence of alcohol just as on its prohibited status. This practice results in the formation of ethical distance that links haram with the cultivation of such basic human virtues as tolerance and patience. Thus, not only the acts of these Muslims unsettle the purity/pollution binary prevalent in the anthropological approaches to taboo, but they also demand to reconsider how we think about diversity and coexistence in our increasingly divided world today.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERSociocultural Anthropologist by training, Ruslan is especially interested in the problems of secularism and religion. For his Ph.D. degree which was completed in the Chinese University’s Anthropology Department, Ruslan did two years of ethnographic fieldwork in a Chinese Hui Muslim minority town in Yunnan province, investigating how local Muslim men and women go about responding to the pressures and predicaments of living Islam in contemporary China. Taking their effort at its focus, his dissertation offers an account of practices of mediation and ideas of collective living that undergird them.

ORGANIZERThe event is organized by the CRF Project “Infrastructures of Faith: Religious Mobilities on the Belt and Road [BRINFAITH]” (RGC CRF HKU C7052-18G), which is hosted by the ASIAR – Asian Religious Connections Research Cluster in HKIHSS.

The Religiosity of Millennials and the Islamic Movement of Hijrah in Indonesia
2019-09-27 12:00 - 13:00 | HKU campus
BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES
The Religiosity of Millennials and the Islamic Movement of Hijrah in Indonesia

Speaker:

Dr. Samsul Maarif (Center for Religious and Cross-cultural Studies (CRCS) Graduate School, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia)

Date/Time:

September 27, 2019, 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm (HK time)

Language: English

Venue: Room 201, 2/F, May Hall, The University of Hong Kong

ABSTRACT
The generation of the millennials has been an important subject of public and academic discourses in today’s Indonesia. The millennials have been the main target for involvement in socio-religious and political movements. They were targeted as a critical constituency in political communication and campaigns during the last election of 2019. They have been also the main target and played significant roles in socio-cultural and religious movements. Contents of socio political and religious campaigns have significantly taken account of the interests and aspirations of millennials.
This talk will address the trend among millennials of hijrah – turning away from a life of sin and adopting a life of religious piety, a widespread theme in current Islamic discourse. It will discuss the common framing of hijrah that attracts the millennials to engage in Islamic movements. In addition, it will explore their religiosities and show their own socio-religious subjectivities, beyond the expected outcomes of the setters of the hijrah frames.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERSamsul Maarif is a faculty member of the Center for Religious and Cross-cultural Studies (CRCS), Graduate School, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia (crcs.ugm.ac.id). He has been working with youths for interreligious dialogues, peacebuilding and community development in the last three years. His main research interests include indigenous religions and everyday religions.

ORGANIZER The event is organized by the CRF Project “Infrastructures of Faith: Religious Mobilities on the Belt and Road [BRINFAITH]” (RGC CRF HKU C7052-18G), which is hosted by the ASIAR – Asian Religious Connections Research Cluster in HKIHSS.

Muslim Traders in Yiwu (Zhejiang): Global Migrant Merchants and Local Markets
2019-09-23 12:00 - 13:00 | HKU campus
BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES
Muslim Traders in Yiwu (Zhejiang): Global Migrant Merchants and Local Markets

Speaker:

Professor Fan Lizhu (Professor of Sociology and Director of Globalization and Religious Studies, Fudan University)Professor Chen Na (Research Fellow, Fudan Development Institute, Fudan University)

Date/Time:

September 23, 2019, 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm (HK time)

Language: English

Venue: Room 201, 2/F, May Hall, The University of Hong Kong

ABSTRACT
This research focuses on Yiwu City, located in southeast China. As an unexpected beneficiary of economic globalization, Yiwu has developed into the world’s largest wholesale consumer goods market. In the past two decades, Yiwu has attracted a large number of businessmen and traders from home and abroad, and also other people who are involved in small commodity trading business such as language translators, catering and so on. As an unintended consequence of the influx of a very large number of foreigners, Yiwu has changed from a city of no significant Muslim population to a large scale Muslim presence, with the establishment of Mosques and informal religious sites, and a great variety of halal restaurants.
This research on Muslim migration to Yiwu from China and abroad, will discuss how religion unintentionally developed in the process of a local market linked to the global economic system. Given the great diversity of global Islam, the case of Yiwu shows how Muslims from very different national and ethnic backgrounds are all held together by their belief in the wonders of the market. We will try to understand the “economic rationality” of Muslim traders through analyzing the multifaceted growth of Islam brought by Muslim migrants, and how they reconcile their religious teachings with economic necessity.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Fan Lizhu is a Professor of Sociology and Director of Globalization and Religious Studies at Fudan University. As a pioneer scholar in the sociology of religion in China, she has engaged in historical and ethnographic studies of Chinese folk religious beliefs, sociological theories of religion, and the study of the revival of Confucianism. She has published many academic publications both in Chinese and English. She has taught at many distinguished universities in the US and Europe on Chinese Culture and Society, and Religion in Chinese Society. Now she focuses on Globalization and Religious Transformation, and on the revival of Confucianism in the new era.
Chen Na is a Research Fellow at the Fudan Development Institute, Fudan University. He received his academic degrees from Peking University in China and the University of Pennsylvania and Temple University in the US. His research interests include the sociology of religion, the sociology of development and intercultural communication. He has published dozens of papers and book contributions, both in Chinese and in English. His recent research includes the study of “Confucian Congregations” in Southeast China, the revival of Confucianism and the reconstruction of Chinese identity, and dialogue and understanding between different civilizations and religions in the globalization era.

ORGANIZER The event is organized by the CRF Project “Infrastructures of Faith: Religious Mobilities on the Belt and Road [BRINFAITH]” (RGC CRF HKU C7052-18G), which is hosted by the ASIAR – Asian Religious Connections Research Cluster in HKIHSS.
